V.
Indeed he was very ill. The treatment he had undergone in the summer of 1883 had not been successful. The pains in the loins and bowels had returned with greater violence at the end of January.
By the advice of his friend Dr. Watelet he again went to Paris in March to consult Dr. Potain. Without any illusions as to the fatal nature of the disease, the doctors thought that a change of air and of climate might, morally and physically, produce good results. They advised that he should go to Algiers for two months.
Bastien himself, seized with that longing desire for movement which often torments invalids who are seriously ill, had experienced a wish to go to the south. It was decided that he should start as soon as possible for Algiers, accompanied by his servant Felix, and by his mother.
On the morning of the day fixed for starting I went to the Rue Legendre to say good-bye to him. He had gone to complete some arrangements with his picture-agent. I found only Mme. Bastien, who was occupied in filling the trunks which were scattered about the studio. The brave little mother, who had never left her home at Damvillers for more than a few days together, was preparing for this long journey to an unknown country quite simply, with an apparent tranquillity, as if she were going as far as Saint Cloud.
The hope that the change might be good for Jules was enough to give her courage to face this upsetting of all her old ways of living. Sometimes only, when she was carefully arranging the linen in the trunk, the tears would rise to her eyes and a quiver of pain pass over her lips.
Upon the chairs and against the walls were placed the recent studies brought from Damvillers, and one felt one’s heart tighten at the sight of these last works, where nature had been observed and rendered with incomparable skill, penetration, and charm. They were The Frog-fisher, The Little Sweep, The Washerwoman, The Pond at Damvillers, The Edge of the Wood, The Church at Concarneau, and that study of A Midnight Sky so original, with the clouds scattered over an azure that was almost black.
At this moment Bastien-Lepage came in, and on seeing him walk with difficulty into the studio, I was distressed at the change that had come over him. His thin face had become quite bloodless; the skin of his neck was peeling off; his hair seemed to have no life in it. His questioning blue eyes expressed an anguish and weariness that was heartrending. “Well,” said he, after having embraced me, “are you looking at my studies? When people see them at George Petit’s, they will say that the little Bastien could paint the landscape too, when he gave himself the trouble!…” When I said to him that his long absence that morning had made his mother anxious, he added quite low, and taking me into one corner of the studio: “When one is going to take a journey so far, one must prepare for it…. I wanted to put my affairs in order. Poor little mother!” he went on; “she has been very brave! Down at home she used to spend whole nights in rubbing me for my rheumatism, and I let her think that it did me good…. Now, perhaps the Algiers sun will cure me.” Hope alternated with discouragement. During breakfast he recovered a little. I was to go to Spain at the end of March; he urged me to change my plans, and to join him in Algiers. We ended with a half-promise. We tried hard to appear gay; we clinked our glasses as we drank to the hope of soon meeting again, but each one felt his throat tighten, and turned away to hide from the other his moist eyes. I left the house in the Rue Legendre with my heart full of the saddest forebodings.
Jules left the same night for Marseilles. They had a good crossing, and his first letter, dated March 17th, was reassuring:—
“My dear friends, there is no getting out of it; you must come, for a thousand reasons. Here it is just like May in Paris. Everything is in flower; and such flowers!—heaps of them, everywhere. The verdure is delicate and grey, and, like patches, always well placed; the outlines picturesque and new, the trees very dark green. And in the midst of all this, upon the roads, the Arabs, of astonishing calmness and splendid carriage, under their earth-coloured and ash-coloured draperies—ragamuffins as proud as kings, and better dressed than Talma. They all wear a shirt and burnous; not one is like another. It seems as if each one, at every moment, gave expression to his thought by his manner of draping his garment. It is once more the triumph of blank truth over arrangement and conventionalism. The sorrowful man, whether he wishes it or not, in spite of himself is not draped like the gay. Beauty, I am convinced, is exact truth: neither to the right nor to the left, but in the middle.
“All this without telling you we have hired a house at Mustapha Superior. It is half Arab, half French, quite white, with an interior court opening into a garden twice as big as that at Damvillers. The garden is full of orange-trees, and lemon, almond, fig, and a quantity of other trees, the names of which I do not know and probably never shall. All this, not trim like a park, but left a little à la diable, like our garden at home. Then we have the right of walking in a magnificent garden which joins ours. We have at least eight rooms; in counting them I thought of you. In all directions round this house there are delightful walks within reach for invalid limbs; in short, it is a Mahomet’s Paradise, … ‘moins les femmes.’ I have said nothing about Kasbah, the old Arab town—my legs have only let me see it from a distance as yet; but, my good friend, imagine that against a morning sky you have, sometimes in the palest rose, sometimes in silvery grey, sometimes in faint blue, and so on—everywhere against the pearly sky—more or less elongated rectangles, placed irregularly, but always horizontally, in the manner of a line of low hills, and you will have the delicate colouring of the old town. One would not suppose it was a town with habitations, so delicate is the tone of it, but for some little holes of rare windows placed here and there. One could not have a sensation more unexpected, and never a sweeter and finer joy. So you must come! My mother is counting upon it, and what, then, am I? What new things you could say about all this! The sea was very fine at the beginning and end of our crossing. Midway some of the passengers suffered: my mother and Felix among them, but they got some sleep. We were twenty hours in crossing, and we were not tired on arriving. Come, set off; start!… A good embrace from my mother and from me.”
His first letter, as may be seen, was full of ardour. The climate of Algeria did him good at first, and his sufferings seemed to be relieved.
“I am preparing myself bravely for the ordeal by fire” (April letter to Ch. Baude); “may my rheumatism take flight and depart with the coming attack of the sun! When it is hot here, it is still quite bearable. Apart from these calculations about the heat and these health experiences, I am happy, even excited, by all that I have seen; and yet I have only seen what any bagman might see who is busy about the selling of his goods; but it has been enough to give me great delight. What remains of the old Arab town is marvellous; one holds one’s breath when, at a sudden turn, the vision reappears. For those unhappy eyes that only see the colours on the palette, it is white; but picture to yourself a long hill, rather high, with a depression in the middle, and sloping as if to the sea, and this hill all covered with elongated or elevated cubes of which one cannot distinguish the thickness; all this remaining unnoticed by the eye that is ravished by the delicate tone, rosy, greenish, pale blue, making altogether white tinted with salmon.
“If one did not know it beforehand, one would never dream that amongst these cubes of plaster thousands of men are walking, talking, sleeping—men of noble manner, proud and calm, and with something very like indifference or contempt for us. And they are right. They are beautiful, we are ugly. What matter is it to me that they are knaves! They are beautiful!…
“Yesterday I went to take a bath. I had to go three or four hundred steps through streets full of merchants. In a passage a Jew was selling silks, pearls and corals; in front of his shop, not two yards wide, were three Arabs—an old man, another of middle age, the third about seventeen. There they were, seated, attentive, calm, wishing to buy, consulting together, making scarcely a gesture with their hands, always kept at full length, but sitting quietly, never hurrying, reflecting enormously, and keeping all the while under their burnouses the softest, gentlest attitudes. The youngest was superb—so handsome that mama was struck with it. ‘They are like beautiful statues,’ said she. I could not understand the scene and the relations that united these three Arabs. It was clear they were come to buy; they had come down from the higher part of the town. They were poor, for the youngest was in rags, and the burnouses of the others, though not in rags, were very much worn; but they took such pains in counting the little pieces of false coral that it was clear the Jew was selling dear to these big children a thing of no value. The one of middle age was counting on the table, with his flat hand by groups of five, the little pieces of coral which he chose as he counted them; thus adding each time five pieces to the heap that he drew towards him.
“What strikes one is this simple colouring, these magnificent folds, and then this serious childishness.
“I was not able to wait till the end of the scene. It was cold and draughty in this passage, which brought me back to the fact of my poor crazy legs. I long for the time when I shall be a man again; what lovely things I shall see, and perhaps I shall do!”
April 23rd (to the same): “Now I take myself by the ear and drag myself to the letter-paper, and all the needful things. Nothing is wanting, neither the thousand things I have to say, nor above all the tender affection that I keep in store for you.
“Emile says that you are coming, and soon: don’t be alarmed, you will not melt in the hot sun. There are cool places in the garden, where one can stretch oneself, with a magnificent landscape at one’s feet. We have only had the heat since yesterday; you will see how good you will find it, your muscles will relax, and you will go back quite young. We will make some excursions together if I am up to it. Any way there are plenty all round us to tempt you to make some.
“You have heard from Emile that I went to Blidah. I bore the little journey very well at first, but I was tired afterwards. I am going to begin to rest, and go slowly, in order that I may go farther. I have scarcely done anything till now, for I don’t feel myself up to remaining long in the same position, as a painter must, who thinks only of his work.”
The health that he hoped for, and so anxiously waited for, did not come. On the contrary, as the heat increased, Jules felt more unwell and more fatigued. The last letter that he wrote to me reached me at Granada, in that hotel, the “Siete Suelos,” where Fortuny and Henri Regnault had lived. There was all through it a sentiment of touching melancholy and discouragement.
“My good friends, this is delightful. It is too good to get your photographs at the same time as your kind and affectionate letter. I am glad you are going to Spain. Lucky fellows! Go along! while I, who should so like to see a bull fight!… You had not time to come, and indeed it was selfish to ask you. You could not have stayed more than a few days. But that is to be done some day when I am no longer a cripple, and when we can have two months before us. We are comfortably settled here. At this moment I am writing to you under the tent set up in the terraced court of our villa, with a wonderful view before me. Placed a little to the left of a semicircle, formed by the hills of Mustapha, 170 yards above the sea which flows at their base, we have at every hour of the day, a different landscape; for the sides of the hills are full of ravines, and the sun, according to the time of day, throws their slopes into light, or makes a network of shade, in a way quite peculiar to this corner of Africa. Little villas gleaming in the sunshine or grey in the shade give effect to the groups of verdure, the whole looking from the distance like a rich embroidery, with bosses of green harmoniously arranged. All this runs down toward the Gulf of Algiers, and trending away from here forms Cape Matifou. Above are the crests of the Little Atlas, far away, and lost in heaven’s blue; near by, sloping gardens spread out their golden or silvery verdure, according as one looks upon olive or eucalyptus. Add to this the perfume of the orange and lemon trees, the pleasure of telling you that I embrace you all three, Tristan included, that I am a little better, and you will have the state of my heart.
“Enjoy yourselves,—and you, my dear forester, with your Toledo eyes, what are you going to give to the world after all this delight of sunshine and kindly fellowship and the loving union of the charming trio that you make? It seems to me I have the heart and voice to make a fourth—what say you? Ah! that shall be after the rheumatism! Kindest regards from mama and from me. A last embrace to all three of you.”
The improvement he had experienced on arriving in Algiers ceased about the end of April. His strength and appetite gradually failed; and at the end of May it was decided to take the invalid back to France. He settled again in the Rue Legendre with the poor little mother, who never left him afterwards. When I saw him again I was shocked at the progress the disease had made. His thinness was such that my unhappy friend was nowhere in the garments that were made for his journey. His legs refused their service; he could no longer work; and yet he kept a little hope. He had just begun a new treatment, and talked of going into Brittany “as soon as he was strong enough.” He drove every day in the Bois when the weather was fine, and spent the rest of his day on cushions in the corner of the studio, occupied in contemplating, with a heartrending look, his studies hanging on the walls. This inaction was most distressing to him.
“Ah!” cried he, “if I was told: They are going to cut off your two legs, but after that you will be able to paint again, I would willingly make the sacrifice….”
He could only sleep now with the help of injected morphine, and he waited with impatience for the hour when a new supply should give him some relief, and a factitious drowsiness should make him forget his suffering.
In proportion as digestion became more difficult his appetite became more capricious. He wanted to have dishes made which reminded him of the cooking of his village; then, when they were brought to him, he turned away disgusted, without tasting them. “No,” said he, pushing aside the plate, “that’s not it; to have it good it must be made down there, prepared by the Damvillers people, with home-grown vegetables.” And while he was speaking one saw by his moist eyes a sudden and painful calling up of the impressions of former days; he saw all at once the old home, the gardens and orchards of Damvillers at the fall of evening, the peaceful village interiors at the time when the fires were lighted for the evening meal.
As the season advanced his strength decreased. In September his brother was obliged to take him on his back to carry him to the carriage, and he drove about slowly for an hour in the avenues of the Bois. He could not read, and was easily wearied by conversation. His nerves were become very irritable, and the slightest odours were disagreeable to his sense of smell. His courage seemed to forsake him; at the same time he was always wanting to know what others thought of his illness. His blue eyes with their penetrating look anxiously searched the eyes of his friends, and of his mother, who never left his side. The heroic little woman did her best to dissimulate, and was always smiling and affecting a cheerfulness and a confidence which were painful to see; then, when she could escape for a moment, she hastened into the neighbouring room and melted into tears.
For months this cruel agony was thus prolonged. Bastien was only a shadow of himself. On the 9th of December, during great part of the night, he talked of Damvillers with his mother and his brother. Then at about four in the morning he said to them, with a kiss, “Come, it is time for children to sleep.” All three slept. Two hours later Mme. B. was awakened by Jules, who asked for something to drink; she rose, and brought him a cup of tea, and was alarmed on finding that the invalid groped for the cup to guide it to his lips; he could no longer see; but he still spoke and even joked about the difficulty he had in moving his limbs.
Shortly afterwards he dozed, and sliding gently from sleep into death, he expired at six in the evening, December 10, 1884.
I saw him next day lying on his mortuary bed, in the midst of a thick covering of flowers. His poor emaciated face, with its sightless and deeply sunk orbits, made him look like one of those Spanish figures of Christ, fiercely cut in wood by Montanez.
On the 12th of December a long train of friends and admirers accompanied his remains to the Eastern Railway Station, whence it was conveyed to the Meuse. The next day, Sunday, the whole population of Damvillers waited at the entrance of the town for the funeral carriage, which brought back Bastien-Lepage to his native place.
The sad procession advanced slowly on that road from Verdun where the painter had loved to walk at twilight, talking with his friends. A pale mist blotted out those hills and woods whose familiar outlines he had so often reproduced. The cortège stopped before the little church where he had intended painting his Burial of a Young Girl. The morning was showery; the wreaths and festoons of flowers, placed the night before on his coffin, were revived and refreshed by the moisture; when they were heaped up upon the grave they seemed to come to life again, and to send out with their renewed perfume a last adieu from Paris to the painter of the peasants of the Meuse.