Debbie Nathan

An immigrant Jewish bohemian on the Left Bank squares off with an “Allrightnik” — a fellow immigrant who’s turned into a parvenue in America and come to Paris to flaunt his wealth.

With paint box in one hand and a large sketchbook in the other, the artist Persky was walking around the coffee houses of Boulevard Montparnasse with searching eyes and a deeply furrowed brow. He was thinking his usual doleful, angry thoughts: laying waste in his mind to a world that had no understanding of art or any need for it. He was wreaking revenge (strictly in his thoughts, of course) on the artists who were desecrating art before a cup of coffee at Cafe La Coupole, by sketching portraits of the gluttonous bourgeoisie and American Allrightniks — those philistine businessmen — then selling them for a few dollars. Persky knit his brow tightly. His gaze intensified, and he thought angrily about how unsurprising it was that artists and art enjoyed such respect from the bourgeoisie, and how none of the artists were creating anything meaningful.

Persky sat down at a little table and ordered coffee, not thinking about the fact that he had no money to pay for it. All his thoughts were occupied with the bitter fate of art and the moral downfall of the artist. His anger grew so strong that he could find not the slightest redeeming quality in artists — not one thing to forgive them for. He always got like this when he was hard up. During periods when he could really use a little money, he would start feeling (though he’d never admit it) that if he had the chance to draw an Allrightnik and make a few bucks, he might not refuse, either. At times like this, he got so mad at artists who desecrated art that he could find no reason at all to justify them.

As he sat aflame with ire, an intense look and a knitted brow, Persky spied a curious character at the opposite table. He was tall and ample, with an overstuffed face as red as if it had been dyed. His eyes were so small they were almost inviisble, and his thick brow met up with a head that was white, shiny, bald and lumpy. Persky looked the fellow over and saw how his little eyes sparkled and crinkled at the edges. It was clear to Persky that this Allrightnink was examining him with an ironic gaze. That merely intensified Persky’s anger, and his eyes ignited with bilious, venomous hatred. He felt compelled to avenge himself on this smug, philistine Allrightnik.
Persky believed that an artist’s sole weapon is paint and pencil. He looked closely again at the man and saw his fat lips; his red, pocked neck; his huge, pendulous double chin completely covering the handsome diamond pin on his tie. An idea suddenly flashed in Persky’s mind: to make a sketch of this guy, and later do a portrait that he would title Patron of the Arts. Persky unclasped his paint box, leafed through his sketchbook, and started drawing the outlines.

The man noticed, and his little eyes began to shine and crinkle afresh. He figured he knew what this was all about: a starving artist out to earn a few dollars had started sketching his portrait. He knew the trick; he already owned perhaps a dozen such portraits, done of him by the artists of the Montparnasse. Some would simply come up and ask to draw him. But others, the haughty ones, would sit down and sketch, supposedly strictly for themselves, but it you asked them firmly they would sell. With this kind of artist you had to pay ten whole dollars for a picture. Actually, he thought, the portraits looked better when they were done by people who didn’t put on a shtick and who only charged two dollars. Those portraits made a person look respectable — nicer, even, than in reality. But art experts said that the other portraits, the ones he considered less impressive, were more important, and that some would eventually be worth lots of money when the painters became world famous.

That’s what the Allrightnik was thinking with a smile. And though he made himself appear not to be looking, he was careful to strike a weighty pose so as to produce an interesting portrait. He could see that Persky was becoming absorbed in his work by the way he squeezed his eyes together, opening them only a crack. And by how he glanced at him, squinting, and turned backwards as far as the chair would allow.

This was nothing new to the Allrightnik. It was all just play acting, he thought to himself, to get a few dollars from him. Smiling, he imagined how this fellow would do the picture — how he would put the finishing touches on the eyes in order to impress him, then supposedly put the drawing down and pretend to leave, meanwhile waiting to be asked if he wanted to sell it. Oh, he knew these starving artists, the Allrightnik thought to himself (all the while thinking that a portrait with him smiling would be interesting). He knew about them, and if he ended up liking the portrait he wouldn’t act as though he wanted to buy it until the fellow offered to sell it. He’d watch and muse with total indifference, he kept thinking as the little smile spread over his face, and he would hand the portrait back. If the fellow offered to sell it, he’d give him no more than five dollars.

This is what the Allrightnik was thinking as he grinned broadly and cheerfully. Persky snatched up the smug, contented smile as though it were a bargain. He captured the laughter with his pencil and smeared it over the entire, corpulent face. He turned the Allrightnik into a symbol — a symbol of cynical, Mephistophelian laughter. He would definitely put that laughter into the caricature, which he would title Patron of the Arts.

Persky worked feverishly, energetically, intensely. He didn’t notice what was going on around him. Nothing existed for him but a figure — an ugly, worthless figure with a fleshy smile, whose ugliness and worthlessness must be brought out in all its vividness. He needed to unleash into the drawing all the hate and scorn which he felt toward idle, self-satisfied creatures.

The man saw how intensely and feverishly the painter labored over the portrait. He saw the rapt gaze, the nervous hand movements, the total distraction. Involunarily his smile disappeared. He had developed a certain respect for this serious artist and could not help feeling curious about how he looked to someone who’d worked so gravely and intently on his portrait. Perksy finished, cast a glance at the model and the drawing, then closed the sketchbook and paint box. Forgetting that he needed to pay for the coffee, he stood up. The Allrightnick completely forgot his earlier decision not to show any interest. Standing and putting on a new smile that was as forced as the earlier one, he approached Persky and asked politely, “Mind if I have a look?”

Persky opened the sketchbook wordlessly, and with vengeful fire in his eyes shoved the picture under the man’s nose.

He took a look and felt frightened. Was this of him? Some of the features were definitely his: the large brow with the bald head, the little eyes surrounded by fat, his double chin — he even recognized his smile. Still, he was scared of how the picture portrayed him. It gave the impression that he was not a man but some sort of monster. What was the painter with the unsettling gaze trying to accomplish with this portrait? What was he planning to do with it?

He felt at once angry and fearful. As Persky took back the drawing and calmly put it down, he asked him, “What — is this how I look?”

“It’s how you look to me.”

“What’s this all about? Why have you done a picture of such a frightful person?”

Persky didn’t answer, and he prepared to leave.

“How much do you want for it?”

Just then Persky remembered he hadn’t paid for his coffee and didn’t even have the two francs that it cost. This renewed and rekindled the anger he had unleashed into the portrait.

“A hundred dollars!” he answered.

“A hundred dollars?” The man fumed with anger. “Other artists who are better than you do nicer portraits for ten dollars.”

“I didn’t do it for you. Or for me. I don’t want to sell it.”

The man clenched his fists. He saw how Persky was preparing to leave, and it seemed to him that if he let this portrait get into the hands of strangers, he would bring utter disgrace on himself. He angrily pulled a hundred-dollar bill from his wallet and flung it at Persky.

“Take that!”

Persky slowly tore the drawing out of his notebook. He threw it at the man with the same words:

“Take that!”

The man took the picture and started ripping it up, first into a few big pieces, then a hundred little ones. When they were very tiny bits, he threw the pile at Persky.

“Take that!”

Persky took the hundred-dollar bill, did the same to it that the man had done to the portrait, and threw the pieces at him.

“Take that!”

Then, as if nothing had happened, Persky got up and went to find someone to pay for his coffee.