The Self-Portrait of Andre Duvall

The portrait of Catherine Derosiers, though perfectly meeting her request, was not quite art, and that irked me. The work captured her innocence and would look fine hanging in her father’s living room, but something was missing. Something important. It needed a dagger.

What an odd thought. I turned in my bed, but I could not shake the idea. A dagger? What about Catherine would warrant such an addition? But it had to be. My inner artist’s voice demanded it. It was the difference between a painting and a work of art. She would never accept the idea and her father would be appalled, so I would have to replicate it, and make the change. Just for me. It couldn’t be sold. No one else must see.

Unable to sleep, I set to work. All the same, the white dress, the smile, the curls of her hair, the curves of her body, set over a field of roses, the red contrasting with the white of her dress, bringing out the red of her lips. But there, also, the dagger. A masterpiece. But why? Why did it please me so? Why did it seem so perfect?

I took some wine and examined it. She held the dagger daintily, with no intent to use it, her eyes downward, toward it. How strange a thing? Was it the juxtaposition of danger with her innocence that made the composition work?

Catherine would be by in the afternoon to inspect the original. I covered my work on the replica and went back to bed. I dreamt of Joan of Arc, a girl younger than Catherine, who had led armies into battle. What a silly thing to dream? Catherine was nothing like Joan of Arc. They tied St. Joan to a pole and lit the fire. I woke with a start. Why should I dream of Joan of Arc? What might be the connection? Surely Joan was no stranger to daggers. Maybe that was it? A young girl using a weapon. But Catherine wasn’t about to use that dagger, the way I had painted it. And the way I had painted it was just right. But who can account for dreams? Maybe there was no meaning?

I examined the original once more and shook my head. It just wasn’t right. I scraped my tongue with my teeth. She would love it, but it just wasn’t right. I uncovered my reworking of the composition. Yes, that was it. Just perfect. A knock on the door. I covered my painting, again. No one else must see it.

I answered the door. 

“So, is it finished?” Catherine asked, beaming with anticipation.

“Of course,” I replied, letting her in. “But we best give it a week or so to dry. I am quite sure it will be to your liking.”

“Oh, I’m quite sure it will be, but it is so much different from your other work.”

I laughed. “It is no more difficult to paint a woman in clothing than one without.”

Catherine blushed, glancing at the other canvases in my studio. All were nudes, many depicting various acts of human depravity. “Well, these are hardly what my father would hang in his living room.”

“No, I should say not. Why did you choose me to paint your portrait, anyway? You know of my work.”

Catherine examined one of the less offensive nudes. “You see this painting? Her expression? The way she looks away, as if there is some secret in her soul that you cannot see, even if you see everything else? You capture something by not capturing it. The thing that is missing is the thing that makes it beautiful. Something is hidden, even in her nudity. That is the kind of thing I hoped you would capture. Something of myself that is there but is hidden.”

How annoying! The thing needed to be there. She was wrong. I repressed my anger. “Well, then, here is your painting. I have been thinking all night the same thing. Something is missing.”

She examined the painting. “Oh, you have captured me so well. The smile on the lips, but the eyes averted, something more serious, something darker, hidden in the mind.”

I had not noticed before. She was right. There was something incongruous and beautiful. A hidden darkness, indeed. As if it were there, unseen. The dagger.

“And over the roses. So beautiful. Like my name. Derosiers. Of the roses. Somehow, you sense there are thorns among the roses.” 

Was that it? The dagger? The thorn among roses? Not held to deliver a wound, but just there, a danger in the midst of beauty.

“How perceptive you are! You see with the eye of an artist.”

Catherine blushed. “You flatter me.”

“I speak only the truth.” I smiled and took her hands in mine. Could I show her my reworking of the portrait? Would she understand? I dared not.

She glanced down, withdrawing her hands.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just you understand my work so perfectly. I lost myself for a moment.”

She met my eyes and smiled. “Will you have it framed and deliver it next Friday? I would like to surprise my father on my birthday.”

“Surely.”

I walked Catherine to the door. 

“Thank you so much, Andre Duvall. I will make sure all my friends know who created such a masterpiece. I expect you will have more commissions come your way.”

“You are very gracious.”

I closed the door. A thorn among roses? Surely, that was why the dagger completed the composition. I took the cover off and glanced once more at the dagger. How she held it so it might just fall from her hand. Not at all like something dangerous. Was it really a thorn? My inner voice scoffed at the idea. A thorn? Really? But, why not a thorn? Whatever the reason, the dagger completed the composition. But no one else must see it. The world was not ready to understand it, to understand me.

I resolved to go back to painting nudes. The whores appreciated the work, light duty for them. Just stand, sit, or lie there while I painted. I did not ask for anything more from them. There was something far more intimate in painting a woman than in having her physically. I felt a kind of union with their souls, as if I could take something of them and put it on the canvas. And at the end of it, I had something lasting, something physical, a painting, and perhaps a work of art. Perhaps something to be kept only for me. 

“And who is this one?” said Sarah. “She might be quite beautiful if she took her clothes off.”

How impertinent. “I don’t pay you to talk. Please, remove your clothes and lie on the sofa.”

Sarah rolled her eyes and huffed. Something in her pout caught my eye, something of her soul. She began removing the strap of her dress, an old frock. The whores did not bother to dress to entice when they knew they came only to pose.

“No, wait,” I said. “Let’s try something different. Today, I will paint you with your clothes on.”

Sarah’s eyes widened. She glanced at the painting of Catherine in her expensive white dress, then back at her stained, brown frock she had worn because it was easily removed. “In this? Let me get something more appropriate.”

“No, my dear, I am the artist. I would like to paint you as you are, in this simple dress. There is something just perfect about it.”

Sarah shrugged and refastened the strap of her dress. “Perhaps you should pay me more for painting my dress as well as me?”

I smiled. “Yes, how about an extra twenty-five dollars?”

Sarah’s eyes alit with a lost innocence, as if she were a child and I had granted her request for ice cream.

“Oh, yes, if you can hold that expression, it will be worth every penny. Now, stand right here, hold your hands together, and glance down at them.”

“Like this?” Sarah asked.

“Yes, that’s it. Just perfect.”

I painted her as she was, her brown, disheveled hair, her eyes gazing downward at her hands, her old brown house dress. And, for the background? Surely not my dingy studio. A church? Why should my painting of a clothed whore be in front of a church door? But it would be perfect, my inner, artist’s voice insisted. I painted the portal entrance to a church behind her. But no cross above the door. Never a cross.

I stepped back and looked over the painting. Almost perfect, but something was missing. It needed something. Something in her hands. A revolver. Why a revolver? But it was perfect. My inner voice insisted. Just the thing.

I went to my desk and withdrew my revolver from the drawer. I heard Sarah’s gasp. I placed the gun on the desk and turned toward her. “No, no. Don’t be afraid.” 

Turning back to the revolver, I unlatched the cylinder and let the bullets bounce with a clatter on the desk. “The painting is just a painting. It needs one more thing to make it a work of art.”

I flipped the cylinder into place and made sure the safety was engaged. I stepped toward Sarah and handed her the unloaded revolver. “Hold this in your hands, not like you will shoot it, just hold it loosely, like it’s no big deal.”

“Like this?” Sarah held the handle of the revolver, the way a gun might be held when shooting it.

I gently removed the gun from her hand. “No, more like this.”

I placed the revolver in her hand, so her palm was over the cylinder, not on the handle. “Yes, that is it. It’s just some thing you have in your hands, not something you shoot with, not something dangerous. Now, just gaze down at it as if it is a kitten or a puppy, something lovable.”

“Maybe another twenty-five dollars? For posing with a gun?”

“Yes, yes. Of course. We are making art. It will be beautiful.”

Sarah gazed down at the revolver. Just perfect. I completed the painting and paid her.

“Can I see?” she asked.

“I pay you to be looked at, not to look.”

“Oh, please? I want to see myself as a work of art.”

I rolled my eyes and relented, motioning her to come and see. 

Her eyes widened. “That’s not me! In front of a church? You can’t paint me in front of a church!”

I had not expected her to take offense. I grabbed her by the arm and ushered her to the door. “I am the artist, my dear. I draw what I see. I pay you to model. You have no say in what I paint.”

“But not a church! Please, no church!”

“Get out!” I shoved her through the door. 

I stepped back to the painting and examined it. Yes, just perfect. My little trollop, before the church, gazing lovingly at a revolver in her hands. A work of art. 

I slept fitfully through the night. I dreamt of painting roses and daggers, young ladies in white, and whores, in frock dresses, caressing firearms at the threshold of churches. Scrambled, senseless images. The red of the roses melted and dripped like blood. I woke in a sweat. An urge came over me. A compulsion. A self-portrait. I captured pieces of the souls of women on the canvas, why not capture something of myself?

I set up a tall mirror and began working. I would paint myself in my painter’s cap and smock, with the paintbrush in my hand. That was me, after all. I worked quickly, using the studio in the background, I referenced the painting of Catherine with the dagger and the whore with the revolver. Another painting just for myself, and no other eyes. I examined it when I thought it complete. But, something was missing. What could it be? A syringe? Why a syringe? I was no drug user. Just a glass of wine, now and again. Had I had a drink last night? Perhaps I had gotten up in the night and had a few glasses of wine when I could not sleep. 

I needed to clear my head, so I went for a walk. How absurd. A syringe? Why did it seem right. I wandered down the street, and there, the church I had attended in my youth, St. Michael the Archangel. I had renounced my faith long ago. I stopped in my tracks and glared at the statue of the angel over the entrance. Here I had met the master, who had trained me in perspective, and the use of light and shadow. Here I had gained my first commissions, depictions of saints—St. Peter upside down on the cross, St. Paul holding a sword, St Bartholomew, holding his flayed skin. I was but a boy when I painted them. Did the paintings still hang here? But that was before. Before my artist’s voice drew me away to create true art. To capture the true, naked forms, to lay bare the souls of my subjects on the canvas in colored oils. The voice promised a greater calling. Great artists no longer worked for the Church. That time was gone. But I recalled my early work. Wasn’t there something special about it? Should I go in? I took a step and stopped. Something held me back. You cannot go back there. 

A priest walked down the steps.

“Father?” I asked, “do the paintings by Andre Duvall still hang in the church?”

“Some very fine paintings hang in the church. I don’t know the artist.”

“I painted for the church, many years ago. St. Peter, St. Paul and St. Bartholomew.”

“Yes, they are there. Very fine work. Why don’t you come in the church and see?”

I scuffed my foot and looked down. “I couldn’t. It’s been too long.”

“I will be hearing confessions. You look troubled. Would you like to come in? Perhaps it will unburden your soul?”

You cannot go back. “I don’t paint saints, anymore, Father. I was just wondering.”

He turned to go up the steps.

“Uh, Father? Perhaps I might paint you, though. Would you mind?” I heard the voice say, as I handed him my business card.

Back in my studio, how did I get here? How long had I been…away? A canvas freshly painted with the priest from St. Michaels holding a hammer, the paintbrush still in my hand as I made the last touch. The priest, had I asked to paint him? Had he posed? With a hammer? Why a hammer? Yes, with a hammer. Just perfect. I marveled at my composition, not recalling any but the final brush stroke. Before the altar with a hammer. But no cross. Never a cross.

I blinked and turned. The painting of Sarah holding my revolver. I turned again. The painting of Catherine with the dagger, uncovered. And turned again. My self-portrait, a great shadow behind my image, my other works included in the background, with the addition of the new one with the priest. And in my hand, a syringe. When had I changed it? I stepped toward it and stumbled on the bodies. There, on the floor, Catherine stabbed. Sarah shot. The priest, his head beaten in by my framing hammer. And the blood.

The police crashed through the door. “Andre Duvall? We have a warrant to search the premises for evidence in the disappearance of Catherine Derosiers.”

“What? A warrant?”

One of the cops examined Catherine’s corpse, searching vainly for a pulse. “Looks like we found her. And two others. My God, one’s a priest.”

“And a few thousand words worth of pictures,” the other cop said, admiring my work.

“No, they are just for me! No one else can see. The world won’t understand me.” I stepped forward, but the policeman turned me and shoved me hard against the wall, slapping the handcuffs on my wrists behind my back.

”Oh, you’ll get the needle for this, for sure.” 

The syringe? It was perfect. My training when painting martyrs: reference the instrument or manner of their deaths in the composition. The beheaded St. Paul with the sword. The flayed St. Bartholomew holding his skin. The stabbed Catherine Derosiers holding a dagger. But I was no saint. My inner, artist’s voice, that demonic voice I had allowed to lead me on the path to create true art, dripped with ridicule. A syringe. Just perfect.