Into the Lion's Den Read Online Free PDF Page B

think he's good?”
    “Technically, he's excellent. Although he's naïve, I couldn't place him in that category as his drawing is more appropriate for the XIX century. A real pity he was never discovered.” The barely contained laughter from Oblomov, told Guntram that something was amiss. “How much did you pay for the drawings if it's not too much to ask?”
    “For the drawings nothing so far. There's another box—which I haven't checked so far—and that costed me one-hundred pesos,” Constantin said, making Guntram blanch.
    “I can't believe it! You're joking with me. Those drawings could be valued much more. I could easily sell those landscapes for more than one-thousand pesos apiece. If you're interested in selling them, I know several people who would like to buy. Good painters with such level of attention to detail and economy of resources at the same time, are very rare these days.”
    “No, I don't want to sell. In fact I'm trying to buy some more from him but the artist is terribly temperamental.”
    “Don't tell me about it! This is why I deal only with consecrated and dead artists.” He laughed.
    “Should I send him to school?”
    “To school, Mr. Repin?”
    “Yes, school or a private teacher. He's not exactly naïve; he's very young and still has to study a career.”
    “You must be joking! Those paintings are made by a well trained hand!”
    “I don't deny he has training and I was also shocked when I found out that it was made by a sixteen-year-old and those you just saw by an eighteen-year-old. You even saw Guntram working a few moments ago.”
    “Did you paint them all by yourself?” The man asked in disbelief to a boy slouching in his high chair.
    “If you mean the black portfolio with the Darth Vader's sticker on the left angle, yes, they're mine, but they're a present for Mr. Repin. He liked my other ones.”
    “Do you study at the Prilidiano Pueyrredon School?”
    “No. It's a hobby, nothing else.”
    “You should study and come back in five years, and I'll see what I can do for you. I want to see what you were doing just now.”
    “Just a sketch for later.”
    “If it's not too much to ask, Mr. Repin, do you have a compass?” The dealer asked after he inspected for a long time the drawings Guntram had to fetch from the terrace.
    “We should ask the butler if he can get us one. Why?”
    “I want to try something with this young man, if you will allow me.”
    “As long as you don't torture him with the compass. He's just out from high school,” Repin laughed.

After lunch, the art dealer insisted on checking Guntram's abilities, and gave him a piece of paper and a pencil. “Make a point in the centre and draw a circle around it.”
    “What do I win?” Guntram asked jokingly.
    “An ice cream,” Repin answered dryly, making Guntram flinch.
    Thinking that it was a waste of good paper, as this one was certainly 100g weight, not the usual rubbish he was using.
    He took the pencil and when he was going to make the point, the man repeated. “In the centre, please,” Guntram had a lot of trouble to suppress the grin almost escaping from his face. He made the point and a 12 cm radius circle around it. That was very easy as he was always doing it for his geometry class because he had lost his compass and didn't want to buy another.
    The man took a ruler and traced the diagonal to check if it was well centred but “he missed by 2 mm,” he said very relieved and proceed to check the circle. “It's perfect. I can't believe it,” he said shocked.
    “You missed with the diagonal. It's not well achieved. Try again and you'll see its fine. Boy, where were you when I had to draw all my blueprints? You would have saved me many headaches,” Oblomov said as Repin was looking in disbelief.
    “So, will you pay for the ice cream, Ivan Ivanovich? But I'll tell you something, it wasn't a fair bet. I used to do this all the time in school for Geometry. I lost my compass in the sixth grade and