— Yes. . Stephen whispered, — it's very delicate work. Why you can change a line without touching it. Yes. . "all art requires a closed space," ha! remember Homunculus?
— But wait, stop! What are you doing? Ludy brought a hand up as though he were going to interpose. — You can't. .
Stephen turned to him sharply. — Be careful now, he said, as Ludy dropped his hand and sank back against the stone wall. — I've passed all the scientific tests, you understand. And I have a lot of work here, very delicate, strength and delicacy. .
— But you can't. . Ludy protested weakly.
— That El Greco up in the Capilla de los Tres. .
— Yes. .?
— I'm going to restore it next.
— But you. . there's nothing wrong with it at all, it's. . it's in fine condition, that painting.
— Yes, he studied with Titian. That's where El Greco learned, that's where he learned to simplify, Stephen went on, speaking more rapidly, — that's where he learned not to be afraid of spaces, not to get lost in details and clutter, and separate everything. .
— But you ean't, they won't let you just. . take that painting and. . and do what you're doing. . Ludy was rising slowly, the Irish thorn-proof back against the stones, sliding upward with his weight as he drew away from the figure on the floor, still busily working the blade. But his stare was transfixed by the squared hands, one of them gripping the picture with the long thumb along the top, the other blinking the two diamonds from the middle finger as the sound of the blade went on. Ludy closed his eyes, and opened them again, as he neared his height, and sniffed. — You. . He was looking at the face, where nothing moved but the curls of thick smoke against its hollow surfaces. And then he cracked his head against the stone wall behind, so startled that he threw both hands up before him.
Stephen had jumped to his feet. — Do you want to see. . see one I've already restored?
— But you. . you. . The Irish thorn-proof, the back of his head and his hands drawn back, Ludy stood flattened against the stone wall. He stayed so as though pinioned there, staring at the moving figure before him in the dim light, as the table was dragged away from the opposite wall, all the while Stephen was talking in a voice which was strangely breathless and at the same time unexcited,
— A painting… a… a Valdés Leal, I worked a long time on it, it… yes there's warmth in it, I worked a long time on it, you'll see that. Venice, Venice… we all studied. . yes Titian, you'll understand, we all studied. . with Titian, working out this. . harmony, yes, it… you'll understand when you see it, this. . this picture.
Holding to the end of the table with both hands, he stopped and stared at Ludy, who had begun to wilt against the gray wall. And when he repeated, — Yes, in a hoarse whisper, the same shock of a burning showed in his eyes, but he turned back to the table quickly, looked there uncertainly and mumbled something, grabbed up the half-loaf of bread he'd tossed there a few minutes before, and went on, looking behind the table and talking and chewing at the same time, so that his words were at once muffled and disconnected.
Possibly if he'd been still and talked evenly, Ludy would have turned and got out the door; but now he stood against the wall, moving his lips slightly as though trying to finish the sentence which would dismiss him, bringing his hands out loose and empty to press them back against the stones immediately, then bringing them out again if only the distance of their own warmth from the wall, to complete the gesture which would allow him to escape.
Meanwhile Stephen was muttering and he kept looking up as though he were talking to people in all parts of the small room, at one moment looking over Ludy's shoulder and hemming him in that way, then addressing an empty corner, or the table itself, with things like, — Separateness, that's what went wrong, you'll understand… or, — Everything withholding itself from everything else. . and the moment Ludy started to turn away the eyes caught him again and he sank his weight in Irish thorn-proof back against the gray stone wall, as the voice broke out,
— You'll say I should have microscopes for this. . delicate work. Yes, egg white, egg yolk, gums, resins, oils, glue, mordants, varnish, you'll be surprised how they're put together just to bind the pigments. We could take X-ray pictures, infra-red, ultra-violet. . Layers and layers of colors and oils and varnish, and the dirt! The dirt! Look at that, that picture there, look at the crackle on the surface, that's from the wood panel expanding and contracting and the paint crackles when it gets dry. If we had a microscope with a Leitz mirror-condenser, we could turn it up to five hundred diameters, put on a counting disc and make a particle count of the pigment. Then we measure its thickness with a micrometer, put the Micro-Ibso attachment on the camera and you… If we had a micro-extraction apparatus we could bore holes in it too and get some nice cross sections out, put them in wax and then you slice them in half just like that with a microtome knife. And when you get that under a microscope with polarized incident light then you can really see what's going on with a carbon arc lamp, you'll see when we get into the high oil immersion series of lenses. You'll see, if we can fix a microscope up with polarized light and put a particle of the pigment under it, we can see whether it's isotropic or aniso-tropic, for that we use nicol prisms. Then we determine the refraction index of the particles of pigment and then, well then of course, then we know exactly. . the dirt that collects, and one layer of varnish after another, and the dirt that collects in every little ridge and crack century after century, then we'll know. Here's the secret, laying transparent oils on heavy thick ones. Bosch. . not Bosch. The transitions. . Leonardo put on wet paint with the palm of his hand. . dark brown underpainting all the way, and. . that plasticity, that plasticity. And. . and… if we can get a good reliable particle count, the refraction index on each particle and whether it's isotropic or… when you get down to the gesso, you. . what was it? What was it?. . You. . yes, the El Greco, I…
— No, you…
— Next.
Ludy still stood with his back flat against the stone wall, and it was not only the eyes, each time they darted at him, which held him there, but the stilling sense, which increased every instant, that the doorway was not open, that there might be no doorway at all; and inching in fear of confirming such a possibility, his hand moved as slowly as he could let it, toward the door frame.
— Yes, the El Greco. . that. . using carmine for shadows, and. . the red and yellow ochre for the flesh. . the flesh, the. . hematitic. . painters who weren't afraid of spaces, of… cluttering up every space with detail everything vain and separate affirming itself for fear that. . fear of leaving any space for transition, for forms to… to share each other and… in the Middle Ages when everything was in pieces and gilding the pieces, yes, to insure their separation for fear there was no God. . before the Renaissance. He stopped speaking with the effort of lifting a panel from behind the table, and he rested it there, its face turned to the wall. But once he got it there he commenced to mutter again, — Everything vain, asserting itself. . every vain detail, for fear. . for fear. . Then he snatched up another of the small loaves of bread in the hand that bore the ring with two diamonds, steadied the panel with his elbow and tore the loaf in half.
Ludy's hand had reached the door frame, and his fingers began to curl against it, pulling his whole weight in that direction of escape, when they touched cloth, and stopped.
— Yes, do you remember, Cicero, in the Paradoxa?. . and he gives Praxiteles no credit for doing anything more than removing the excess marble, until he reaches the real form which was there all the time. It was there all the time, and all Praxiteles did was to remove the excess marble, and here. . here this is the. . the one I just restored, the Valdés Leal. .