The Art of Living (29 page)

Somewhat timidly, Vlemk approached near enough to touch her pale cheek. Then he stood looking down at her, drawing his hand back to the other hand, with which he was holding his hat. After a moment, with a feeble flutter, the Queen opened her eyes.

“Vlemk,” she said softly, with infinite sadness and more affection than she'd ever before shown him.

Instantly, Vlemk's eyes swam with tears. He nodded, sniffled, and bent forward a little to show that he'd heard.

When she tried to speak again, it seemed that she was too feeble to bring a sound out; but after a moment she managed to say, “Thank you for coming. I was terrified that I might die without seeing you, to put your heart at rest.”

Vlemk, hearing these words, opened his eyes wide to stare at her. “Nonsense,” he exclaimed, and then, seeing that she seemed not even to notice that he'd spoken—spoken with his voice—he seized her in both hands.

Angrily, the Prince pushed in beside the painter. “You're not going to die!” he cried, his eyes bright as glass. He turned to look with great fury at Vlemk. All Vlemk could make out was a blur of pinkish light. Turning to the Queen again, the Prince cried out, “You're getting
better
, my dear girl!” To the Queen his guilty concern was touching and amusing, though she was careful to hide what she felt.

“No no, dear Prince,” she said, and sighed, looking at the Prince's trembling face. His teeth were grinding and tears were now streaming down his bright pink cheeks—tears of love for her, she knew, such innocent, open-hearted love—though also, she knew he was hiding something—that it seemed to her criminal that she should trouble him so, be so unworthy of his goodness. Not that she was any longer filled with self-hatred. What more atonement could anyone ask of her than the atonement she was making, death for her sins and crimes? Yet how they had stooped and clasped their hands like supplicants! She did like that, no use denying it! The feeling of queenliness it gave her tempted her for a moment to say no more to either of them, to spare them further pain; but then a kind of heaviness came over her—almost, she thought, like a feeling of old age, or at any rate righteousness—and she felt that, quite simply, she didn't have it in her to die without leaving things straight and clear, clean and open as sunlight, let them handle it as they would. For die she must; her heart was set on it.

Vlemk the box-painter stood pulling first at his left hand, then at his right, filled with alarm at the Queen's words “put your heart at rest.” It was just as he feared, he saw. It was he who had brought her to this sorry pass; and she, knowing that sooner or later he must see what he had done, was eager, for his sake, to deny him any guilt, rise above all such pettiness to deathly, sweet wisdom. She was smiling like an old mother cat. Anxiously, Vlemk looked from the face of the Queen to the tear-stained, indignant red face of the Prince. But though he wracked his brains, Vlemk could think of no way of preventing her from doing what she intended. Her labor so far had greatly drained her, he saw. Her hands had fallen away from the box she'd been holding, leaving it resting on the covers on her waist.

“Vlemk,” said the Queen, her voice growing feebler and feebler, “I was wrong when I told you the original picture on the box was not a good likeness. When I saw the new picture, after you'd made it perfect, I saw with terrible certainty how far I was from the person I imagined myself, how surely I was becoming, from moment to moment, more like those other things you painted.”

“New picture?” said the Prince.

The Queen continued, ignoring him, “Seeing the disparity between what I am and what I wish to be, I have come to the only happiness possible for such a wretch as I am, the sad joy of the old philosophers who at least ‘knew themselves.' ” She lowered her pale blue eyelids and tears slipped warmly from her eyes. “That,” she continued, when her voice was in control again, “that is why I can no longer go on living and have purposely declined to this pitiful state. I want you not to feel guilty when I am dead, just as I hope my dear friend the Prince—”

Here the Queen was dramatically interrupted. Neither she nor Vlemk had noticed that at her mention of the talking picture on the box, the Prince had widened his eyes in horror, everything slowly coming clear to him, and in the first wild impulse of his recognition he had snatched the box from where it lay on the covers and had run to throw it into the fire in the fireplace. There he remained, looking sterner and more guilty than ever. Now it seemed to the Queen—and it was partly because of this that her sentence had broken off—that she was, she herself, on fire all over; and the same instant there came a wail of pain and terror from the fireplace—“Vlemk! Tell her it's not my fault! Oh, Master, dear Master,
save
me!”

At the cry of the painting, the curse was lifted—so they all perceived—and Vlemk, running toward the picture, cried out over his shoulder in a loud voice, “You're mistaken, Queen! Spare the picture and spare yourself!” The words rang as loudly as thunder in the room. “She's not an impossible ideal, she's your own very self! Otherwise how could she speak?”

The Prince heard none of this, for the instant the cry came from the fireplace he whirled around without thinking—Vlemk was still three or four paces away—to snatch out the box and sprinkle it with water and save the poor picture's life.

“Is it possible?” cried the Queen, flushing with pleasure and embarrassment, “is it possible that I have become exactly like the picture on the box?”

“Vlemk,” cried the picture, coughing a little and blinking soot from her eyes, “I hope you don't think—”

Suddenly understanding, Vlemk hit his forehead with the palm of his hand, so hard he nearly knocked himself over. “Treachery!” he bellowed. “You could talk all the time!”

“I could?” asked the picture in seeming amazement, and shot a glance at Vlemk and the Queen to see how much trouble she was in. “You won't believe it,” the picture said, “but—”

“No, we certainly won't!” snapped the Queen. Though she'd been pale as a ghost just a moment ago, she was suddenly as healthy and lively as could be. “Shameless little vixen!” the Queen exclaimed, “you pretended you couldn't talk, just to spite poor Vlemk, and you wouldn't let
him
talk, miserable as he was, until your life depended on it! What a horrible, horrible little creature!”

“Horrible?” cried the picture, bursting into tears. “We're in this together, remember! If I can talk, it's because I'm exactly like you! So who's the horrible little creature?”

The Queen blanched and drew her hand to her bosom. Her face went red with anger, then white. When the words had struck with full force, she was so shocked by the revelation that her eyes rolled up almost out of sight.

The Prince was anxiously pulling at his moustache, waving his cane with his left hand, trying to understand. “Now wait,” he said. “If I rightly follow this ridiculous business, you”—he pointed to Vlemk, squinting—“you changed the picture to get rid of the little imperfections, is that right?”

“Exactly,” said Vlemk, then looked confused. “At least I thought I did.”

The Prince's look became thoughtful. “If it had worked, and if the Queen had failed to come up to the standard of the picture, you'd have been mute for the rest of your life!”

The Queen and the picture looked at Vlemk, then away, embarrassed.

“If it had worked, yes,” said Vlemk, frowning and scratching his head. “But somehow the picture was able to outwit me and hang on to her powers. It's a mystery.”

The picture looked pleased with herself, and privately, the Queen was smiling a little too.

“Is it really such a mystery?” asked the Prince with a laugh. Suddenly he was enjoying himself, as if some burden had been miraculously lifted. There was no longer any trace of the mingled anxiety and anger. He was standing much taller, not gripping his cane like a weapon but playing with it, balancing it on the tip of one finger while he talked. “Surely,” he said, “surely, my dear Vlemk, you painted what you
thought
was a picture of perfection, but it came out exactly as it had been before you started!”

“That must be it,” said Vlemk, eyes widening, and he nodded. He glanced at the Queen, then over at the box, and to his surprise saw that both of them were crying. “What's this?” he said. “Did I say something wrong?”

“You loved me!” said the Queen and the box, both at once. “How
could
you?” Neither of them could say another word, because both of them were sobbing.

Vlemk, confounded, looked over at the Prince for help.

The Prince shrugged broadly, grinning. “God help you, Vlemk. For most men
one
such unpredictable creature would be enough!” He gave the cane a little toss, so that it went gracefully end over end and came down onto his fingertip, where he balanced it as before. “Well,” he said, “since everything seems to be all right again, I'd better hurry home to my wife.” He turned to leave.

“
Wife!
” shrieked the Queen and the picture at once.

The Prince's face reddened and the cane fell off balance. He grabbed it. “How was I to tell you?” he said. “You were sick—perhaps dying, for all I knew….”

“You're married?” asked Vlemk.

“Two weeks ago,” said the Prince. “Politics, you see. But when I heard that the Queen—”

“You did the right thing,” said Vlemk at once. Abruptly, he laughed. “I
thought
you were acting a little strangely!”

Neither the picture or the Queen even smiled. “Oh yes,” said the Queen, and angrily rolled her head from side to side. “
You
can laugh. What if I'd gotten better because I thought he loved me and then I'd found out? Say what you like, it's a cruel, cruel world full of falsehood and trickery and delusions!”

“It's true, all too true,” said Vlemk, trying not to smile. “All the same, I notice there's color in your cheeks. One way or another it seems we have muddled through!”

In secret, the Queen was noticing the same thing. As a matter of fact she had a feeling that if she put her mind to it, she could jump up out of bed and dance. Nothing could please her more than having the Prince with the moustache as only a good friend—he was a wonderful horseman—and not having to worry about that other business. The difficulty was that any minute now he would leave, and so would Vlemk, and there were important matters not yet decided between Vlemk and herself. The thought of his leaving was like a knife in her heart; she would gladly give up her life, her very bones and flesh, and be nothing but a summery warmth around him, a patch of sunlight on his head, anything at all, but near him. Yet try as she might, she could think of no way to keep him here now except petulance and sulking.

“Well,” Vlemk was saying now, fiddling with his hat, stealing a glance at the flowers near the door.

“Oh yes,” said the Queen bitterly, “trickery and delusion are just fine with you. They're the stock and trade of an artist.”

Vlemk looked at her, then down at his shoes, and sighed.

Her eyes became cunning. It crossed her mind that if she knew how to put some kind of curse on him, he'd figure out some way to be near her till the day she lifted it, which would be never.

“Well, it's getting late,” the Prince said.

Vlemk the box-painter nodded.

All the while the box had been watching them with her lips slightly pursed. Suddenly she said, “Vlemk, why don't you marry the Queen and come live with us?”

“Yes, why not?” said the Queen quickly, a little crazily. She felt her face stinging, an enormous blush rushing into her cheeks.

“Me?” Vlemk said, then hastily added, “I was thinking the same thing myself!”

“Wonderful!” cried the Prince. “We can visit each other and go riding!”

Vlemk smiled eagerly. The thought of riding a horse made him faint with terror.

“You mean we—you and I—” stammered the Queen. Her face went pale green, then red, then white.

“If you like,” Vlemk said.

“Oh, Vlemk, Vlemk, I'm sorry about the curse!” the picture wailed. “It was just—I mean …” Now all at once her words came tumbling. “One has to have something to hold back—a woman, that is. If she just gives the man she loves everything, just like that—”

Vlemk nodded. “I understand.” He was thinking, absurd as it may sound, about box-painting, about the risks one ran, the temptations.

“But is it possible?” asked the Queen. “You and I, a box-painter and a Queen?”

“Well, it's
odd
of course,” said Vlemk. “No doubt we'll have our critics.”

“You won't go back to sleeping in gutters or anything?” the Queen asked.

“I don't think so,” said Vlemk, “though life is always full of surprises.”

Abruptly forgetting her fears, the Queen reached out her arms to him, smiling joyfully. He bent to her, smiling back, and they embraced, quick and light as children.

Now the servants, having noticed the change in mood around the Queen's bed, crept in nearer to find out what was happening. The Prince too had noticed that everything had changed entirely. “Well,” he said, “I must go now, as I said.” He made no move to leave.

“You're welcome to stay to supper if you like,” the Queen said.

Vlemk, as if the palace were his own, reached out his hand to the Prince. The Prince looked from Vlemk to the Queen. He stood for a long moment staring into space, puzzling things through; then abruptly his face lit up. “No,” he said, gripping his cane with a sort of easy firmness, “but I'll come for the wedding. I must go home to my wife.”

“And I,” said Vlemk, “must go home and make my various preparations.”

It was now clear to even the least of the servants that everything had changed and all was well. They seized Vlemk's hands, also the Prince's, kissing the backs and fronts of them and thanking both Vlemk and the Prince for what they'd done. Vlemk beamed, nodding and bowing and telling them on every side, “It's nothing! It's nothing!” moving them along with him to the door as he did so, walking with the Prince, waving his repeated farewells to the picture and the Queen, who'd come out to the bedroom door, the box in the Queen's left hand. In the high front room the driver of the carriage was waiting, more elegant than ever, and on either side of him stood servants with armloads of flowers for Vlemk and the Prince. “Come back quickly,” cried the Queen and the picture, both at once.