I had only to request Vandael to tell the story of the painting in order to be gratified;and thus it is that I am enabled to submit to you a faithful recital of what I heard myself,leaving you to reject or to allow the evidence upon which the truth of the tradition depends,with this one assurance,that Schalken was an honest,blunt Dutchman,and,I believe,wholly incapable of committing a flight of imagination;and further,that Vandael,from whom I heard the story,appeared firmly convinced of its truth.
There are few forms upon which the mantle of mystery and romance could seem to hang more ungracefully than upon that of the uncouth and clownish Schalken--the Dutch boor--the rude and dogged,but most cunning worker in oils,whose pieces delight the initiated of the present day almost as much as his manners disgusted the refined of his own;and yet this man,so rude,so dogged,so slovenly,I had almost said so savage,in mien and manner,during his after successes,had been selected by the capricious goddess,in his early life,to figure as the hero of a romance by no means devoid of interest or of mystery.
Who can tell how meet he may have been in his young days to play the part of the lover or of the hero--who can say that in early life he had been the same harsh,unlicked,and rugged boor that,in his maturer age,he proved--or how far the neglected rudeness which afterwards marked his air,and garb,and manners,may not have been the growth of that reckless apathy not unfrequently produced by bitter misfortunes and disappointments in early life?
These questions can never now be answered.
We must content ourselves,then,with a plain statement of facts,or what have been received and transmitted as such,leaving matters of speculation to those who like them.
When Schalken studied under the immortal Gerard Douw,he was a young man;and in spite of the phlegmatic constitution and unexcitable manner which he shared,we believe,with his countrymen,he was not incapable of deep and vivid impressions,for it is an established fact that the young painter looked with considerable interest upon the beautiful niece of his wealthy master.
Rose Velderkaust was very young,having,at the period of which we speak,not yet attained her seventeenth year,and,if tradition speaks truth,possessed all the soft dimpling charms of the fail;light-haired Flemish maidens.Schalken had not studied long in the school of Gerard Douw,when he felt this interest deepening into something of a keener and intenser feeling than was quite consistent with the tranquillity of his honest Dutch heart;and at the same time he perceived,or thought he perceived,flattering symptoms of a reciprocity of liking,and this was quite sufficient to determine whatever indecision he might have heretofore experienced,and to lead him to devote exclusively to her every hope and feeling of his heart.In short,he was as much in love as a Dutchman could be.He was not long in making his passion known to the pretty maiden herself,and his declaration was followed by a corresponding confession upon her part.
Schalken,however,was a poor man,and he possessed no counterbalancing advantages of birth or position to induce the old man to consent to a union which must involve his niece and ward in the strugglings and difficulties of a young and nearly friendless artist.He was,therefore,to wait until time had furnished him with opportunity,and accident with success;and then,if his labours were found sufficiently lucrative,it was to be hoped that his proposals might at least be listened to by her jealous guardian.Months passed away,and,cheered by the smiles of the little Rose,Schalken's labours were redoubled,and with such effect and improvement as reasonably to promise the realisation of his hopes,and no contemptible eminence in his art,before many years should have elapsed.
The even course of this cheering prosperity was,however,destined to experience a sudden and formidable interruption,and that,too,in a manner so strange and mysterious as to baffle all investigation,and throw upon the events themselves a shadow of almost supernatural horror.
Schalken had one evening remained in the master's studio considerably longer than his more volatile companions,who had gladly availed themselves of the excuse which the dusk of evening afforded,to withdraw from their several tasks,in order to finish a day of labour in the jollity and conviviality of the tavern.
But Schalken worked for improvement,or rather for love.Besides,he was now engaged merely in sketching a design,an operation which,unlike that of colouring,might be continued as long as there was light sufficient to distinguish between canvas and charcoal.He had not then,nor,indeed,until long after,discovered the peculiar powers of his pencil,and he was engaged in composing a group of extremely roguish-looking and grotesque imps and demons,who were inflicting various ingenious torments upon a perspiring and pot-bellied St.Anthony,who reclined in the midst of them,apparently in the last stage of drunkenness.
The young artist,however,though incapable of executing,or even of appreciating,anything of true sublimity,had nevertheless discernment enough to prevent his being by any means satisfied with his work;and many were the patient erasures and corrections which the limbs and features of saint and devil underwent,yet all without producing in their new arrangement anything of improvement or increased effect.
