And if it be (as Plutarch reports, as Montaigne repeats) that in some part of the Indies there are men without mouths who live only by the smell of certain rich odors, then let Olivier be placed among their allies.

This woman, named Mathilde Christian, was adorable, not only in this respect but in the very particular contrast between the rough texture of her voice and the silky smoothness of her skin, and once I had seen her beat the Parrot and slap his face I saw I might further assist her with this punishment.

Next day she set to "do" my new friend Peek, a banker who-proud and decent though he was-I would not even think to label bourgeois. That is, dear Peek lacked so many of the cultural pretensions with which the bourgeois, wishing to ape his betters, always cloaks himself. Of literature and philosophy he proudly declared himself a dunce. When I mentioned Proudhon, and even Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun, he did not know who they were. And this, I supposed, was what one should expect of this new democracy which made itself without the benefit of a noble class.

To flatter her subject the she-artist invented a jacket with epaulettes-a court coat, or a misunderstanding of a court coat-a luminous pink with trim of gold, which might have you imagining the subject a noble of the sword. In a nod toward the truth, she gave to poor Peek a startled half-finished expression, as if he had just woken and was frightened to see what he had assumed. Of course one could not know what the artist had intended other than-this was blatant-to have us all believe that Peek was what he was not.

Was this so-called likeness not my nightmare of democracy-the fishwife taken to be a great lady, the banker strutting as a noble lord? Was this not the red-clawed creature I had fled? Was I now rushing to its open arms? To a place where I was instructed to share my cabin with my servant?

Standing in the main cabin, just behind the artist, where I could see the lovely loose hair that had escaped its pins and the luscious white neck and very pretty ears, I reflected that my unease with most of the arts might be not only the product of my myopia but a moral scruple, an unease in beholding that which is not. This painting, if one could accept the amateurish approximations, was a dangerous lie.

As a child I would get an asthma to witness my parents act on the little stage at the Chateau de Barfleur, to see my mother be that which she was not, and on more than one occasion I wept and screeched until she removed her makeup so I should know her for who she really was.

My feelings were the same with Hugo, even Moliere-this great unease with what is not. Then how should I explain my passion to be done in oils? I was hardly persuaded (although I pretended otherwise) by Peek who declared his mucky portrait the best bargain he had ever made. The ability to judge value, he told me, was really the great business of being a farmer, and this was why, he said, he had made such a success of being a banker in America. How dear Blacqueville would have laughed and marveled and puzzled, not only at this notion of the bargain, but at the mercurial world of the Americans who have more stages in their lives than caterpillars.

To make my portrait it was decided that my cabin should be dressed. Whether this lifted my spirits or no, I cannot honestly say, but it permitted me to act a great excitement. My cause was taken up by all the cabin passengers and with their assistance various oriental rugs and silks were produced, and then, with a great deal of jollity, draped. To achieve this set there was no question the servant must be evicted, a course of action applauded by the majority. I was then persuaded to the captain's chair where I was to pose.

For the benefit of the artist I wore my court jacket, ultramarine with gold embroidery. This was not the last time I wore this jacket, but it was certainly the happiest occasion, for although it was most admired by the Americans at sea, it would prove an offense to their democratic sensibilities on land. On this highly unstable matter more anon, but for now it is enough to note that Mr. Peek had a card with a crest and Latin motto which Blacqueville would have agreed was a peculiar affectation for a farmer's youngest son.

I cannot hazard whether the reader has been done himself but for those of you who have never sat, I would liken the experience to the barber's visits to the Chateau de Barfleur where I often fell asleep whilst enjoying the most intimate yet innocent attentions of the comb and scissors.

Doubtless an artist of the male sex would provide a different sensation. Blacqueville told me of being painted by Proudhon and described debates so lively and engaging that the subject quite forgot the business of the day.

It was very tight inside the cabin with the artiste, the space between the narrow bunks no more than between two pews. The painter did not speak or even look at me a great deal but she was all I could think about: the rustling of her skirt, her high forehead corrugated with a frown, her breasts tightly contained in a blouse the long sleeves of which she rolled up before-suddenly-producing her palette. She was, needs be, very close to me. She made a sound not quite like humming. Her voice, when she finally spoke, occupied deeper registers, a velvety arena which doubtless vibrated in her lover's ears.

Past and future were blessedly lost to me. I inquired if everything was to her satisfaction.

Frowning, she declared herself as someone who should, as if by the rules of a guild, never be satisfied, and certainly not with these coarse paints. She did not know how one could paint with them. They deserved to be flung into the ocean, but still she would persist and I was reminded of those characters you see at country fairs who affect to have no interest in selling what they have.

She smelled of jasmine, very light. I told her so. She reached to touch my hair, moving the curl on my forehead a little to one side, and then, still frowning, she dipped the tip of her brush into the different pigments, not just one or another as you might expect, but moving from one to the next, light as a bee gathering pollen on its hind legs, circling rapidly. She looked as if she could not decide what color she required but was a modern sensualist who must have a sip of every one.

I can only guess what happened-the three or four fast strokes making a glaze of blue to admit the free air to play around my hair, the hot satin sheen to my cheek, the deep shadow beneath my brimming eyes wherein she blended brown-red with burnt ocher. I swear I felt the real brush beneath my lids.

What occurred on the canvas was a thing I would not waste my time with. What occurred with my other senses made me drunk. As the hours passed deliciously, the beads of sweat gathered upon her forehead and in that place between her breasts. She worked with an unearthly glitter in her eyes, making small convulsive movements and then abating, pouring herself into long slow undulating strokes.

Out of respect for the puritan strains among my new friends I had left the cabin door ajar and now I found myself regretting my sensitivities. I felt her, as if the very brush itself were making Adam's sinful skin and she, although for the most part silent, and somewhat lowering in her countenance, was very charming in her concentration on my person, and I was in no sense offended to have my hair touched by her own hand, or my chin taken and lowered slightly. Why should I not enjoy the lovely small noises of approval?

Only when the sun lay low on the horizon did I realize I had not dined all day. Instead I had fed on her smell, my own desire, the brush now stroking so insistently at my stockings that my animal nature could not have been invisible to her eye. The air was suddenly drunk with turpentine, and she unfolded a cloth and laid it across the canvas. She caught my eye and held it.