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CHAPTER IX
IN THE LUXEMBOURG GARDENS
There was a time when my dream was not literature, but painting; and I
remember an American giving me a commission to make a small copy of
Ingres's "Perseus and Andromeda," and myself sitting on a high stool
in the Luxembourg, trying to catch the terror of the head thrown back,
of the arms widespread, chained to the rock, and the beauty of the
foot advanced to the edge of the sea. Since my copying days the
picture has been transferred to the Louvre. What has become of my
copy, whether I ever finished it and received the money I had been
promised, matters very little. Memories of an art that one has
abandoned are not pleasant memories. Maybe the poor thing is in some
Western state where the people are ignorant enough to accept it as a
sketch for the original picture. My hope is that it has drifted away,
and become part of the world's rubbish and dust. But why am I thinking
of it at all? Only because a more interesting memory hangs upon it.
After working at it all one morning, I left the museum feeling half
satisfied with my drawing, but dreading the winged monster that
awaited me after lunch. In those days I was poor, though rich for the
Quarter. I moved in a society of art students, and we used to meet for
breakfast in a queer little cafe; the meal cost us about a shilling.
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