The Untilled Field | Page 8

his
head, and had gone on with his design for an altar. But luck had
followed him for this long while, and a few days afterwards he had met
the pretty clerk in a tea-room. He had not seen her face before, and he
did not know who it was until she turned to go, and as she was paying
for her tea at the desk he asked her if Mr. Lawrence were in town. He
could see that she was pleased at being spoken to. Her eyes were alert,
and she told him that she knew he was doing altars for Father McCabe,
and Father McCabe was a cousin of hers, and her father had a
cheese-monger's shop, and their back windows overlooked the mews in
which Rodney had his studio.
"How late you work! Sometimes your light does not go out until twelve
o'clock at night."
Henceforth he met her at tea in the afternoons, and they went to the
museum together, and she promised to try to get leave from her father
and mother to sit to him for a bust. But she could only sit to him for an
hour or two before she went to Mr. Lawrence, and Rodney said that she
would be doing him an extraordinary favour if she would get up some
hours earlier and sit to him from eight till ten. It was amusing to do the
bust, but the bust was only a pretext. What he wanted her to do was to
sit for the nude, and he could not help trying to persuade her, though he
did not believe for a moment that he would succeed. He took her to the
museum and he showed her the nude, and told her how great ladies sat
for painters in the old times. He prepared the way very carefully, and
when the bust was finished he told her suddenly that he must go to a
country where he could get models. He could see she was disappointed
at losing him, and he asked her if she would sit.

"You don't want a nude model for Our Blessed Lady. Do you?"
There was a look, half of hesitation, half of pleasure, and he knew that
she would sit to him, and he guessed she would have sat to him long
ago if he had asked her. No doubt his long delay in asking her to sit had
made her fear he did not think her figure a good one. He had never had
such a model before, not in France or in Italy, and had done the best
piece of work he had ever done in his life. Harding had seen it, and had
said that it was the best piece that he had done. Harding had said that he
would buy it from him if he got rid of the conventional head, and when
Harding had left him he had lain awake all night thinking how he
should model Lucy's head, and he was up and ready for her at eight,
and had done the best head he had ever done in his life.
Good God! that head was now flattened out, and the child was probably
thrown back over the shoulders. Nothing remained of his statue. He had
not the strength to do or to think. He was like a lay figure, without
strength for anything, and if he were to hear that an earthquake was
shaking Dublin into ruins he would not care. "Shake the whole town
into the sea," he would have said.
The charwoman had closed the door, and he did not hear Lucy until she
was in the studio.
"I have come to tell you that I cannot sit again. But what has
happened?"
Rodney got up, and she could see that his misfortune was greater than
her's.
"Who has done this?" she said. "Your casts are all broken."
"Who, indeed, has done this?"
"Who broke them? What has happened? Tell me. They have broken the
bust you did of me. And the statue of the Virgin--has anything
happened to that?"

"The statue of the Virgin is a lump of clay. Oh, don't look at it. I am out
of my mind."
She took two or three steps forward.
"There it is," he said. "Don't speak about it, don't touch it."
"Something may be left."
"No, nothing is left. Don't look at me that way. I tell you nothing is left.
It is a lump of clay, and I cannot do it again. I feel as if I never could do
a piece of sculpture again, as if I never wanted to. But what are you
thinking of? You said just now that you could not sit to me again. Tell
me, Lucy, and tell me quickly. I