Obscurity, The Thirty-Fourth Chapter

e last read The Thirty-Third Chapter, in which the town descended into hysterics. If you have recently joined us, start with The Prologue.

In that town, there was painter who rented out a portion of a more prominent man’s home. The painter was a yet unaccomplished man though there were hints of his genius. He took commissions to pay for his sparse way of life and spent the remainder of his days in pursuit of the masterpiece that had yet to be painted, the view of the world that had yet to be seen.

He searched ruefully for a model who would capture his fancy, and whose fancy could be captured in his art, but she was most difficult to find. On one afternoon, as the sun fell through the well-lit space, a young woman posed in the nude, draping herself upon a most elegant settee with what she presumed was desired aplomb. The painter posed her gently, attempting to find the angle most natural to the eye. The one that brought forward the woman’s charm and youth and hid away the harsh realities of her life.

The nature of nude models at that time was that they were either old and uncaring for their bodies, or they were young and adherent to their morals. The painter grew tired of painting minds that were unencumbered by their nudity and despaired that he might never find a model both chaste and willing, whose modesty would still present itself in the portrait of a nude, and whose figure would look at home in even the most pious salon.

The painter did not find morality in this woman, but he did find, as she looked up into his eyes, a certain sadness. As though perhaps, only a few years prior, she had been one of those young maidens he so wished to paint, with all the promise of a suitable marriage and all the godliness of a noble upbringing, and yet whose wasted dowry could not save her from her most forlorn fate—whom circumstance had forgotten, but perhaps art could find.

Obscurity, The Thirty-Fourth Chapter

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