The Means of Escape Read Online Free PDF

with characteristic types, absolutely natural, busy with picturesque occupations, and above all, plein air. ‘Your work cannot be really good unless you have caught a cold doing it,’ said Hackett.
    They were poor enough, but they took a certain quantity of luggage – only the necessities. Their canvases needed rigging like small craft putting out of harbour, and the artists themselves, for plein air work, had brought overcoats, knickerbockers, gaiters, boots, wide-awakes, broad straw hats for sunny days. They tried, to begin with, St Briac-sur-Mer, which had been recommended to themin Paris, but it didn’t suit. On, then, to Palourde, on the coast near Cancale. All resented the time spent moving about. It wasn’t in the spirit of the thing, they were artists, not sightseers.
    At Palourde, although it looked, and was, larger than St Briac, there was, if anything, less room. The Palourdais had never come across artists before, considered them as rich rather than poor, and wondered why they did not go to St Malo. Holland, Parsons, Charrington and Dubois, however, each found a room of sorts. What about their possessions? There were sail-lofts and potato-cellars in Palourde, but, it seemed, not an inch of room to spare. Their clothes, books and painting material had to go in some boats pulled up above the foreshore, awaiting repairs. They were covered with a piece of tarred sailcloth and roped down. Half the morning would have to be spent getting out what was wanted. Hackett, as interpreter, was obliged to ask whether there was any risk of their being stolen. The reply was that no one in Palourde wanted such things.
    It was agreed that Hackett should take what appeared to be the only room in the constricted Hôtel du Port. ‘Right under the rafters,’ he wrote to his Intended, ‘a bed, a chair, a basin, a broc of cold water brought up once a day, no view from the window, but I shan’t of course paint in my room anyway. I have propped up the canvases I brought with me against the wall. That gives me the sensation of having done something. The food, so far, you wouldn’t approve of. Black porridge, later on piecesof black porridge left over from the morning and fried, fish soup with onions, onion soup with fish. The thing is to understand these people well, try to share their devotion to onions, and above all to secure a good model –’ He decided not to add ‘who must be a young girl, otherwise I haven’t much chance of any of the London exhibitions.’
    The Hôtel du Port was inconveniently placed at the top of the village. It had no restaurant, but Hackett was told that he could be served, if he wanted it, at half past six o’clock. The ground floor was taken up with the bar, so this service would be in a very small room at the back, opening off the kitchen.
    After Hackett had sat for some time at a narrow table covered with rose-patterned oilcloth, the door opened sufficiently for a second person to edge into the room. It was a red-haired girl, built for hard use and hard wear, who without speaking put down a bowl of fish soup. She and the soup between them filled the room with a sharp, cloudy odour, not quite disagreeable, but it wasn’t possible for her to get in and out, concentrating always on not spilling anything, without knocking the back of the chair and the door itself, first with her elbows, then with her rump. The spoons and the saltbox on the table trembled as though in a railway carriage. Then the same manoeuvre again, this time bringing a loaf of dark bread and a carafeof cider. No more need to worry after that, there was no more to come.
    ‘I think I’ve found rather a jolly-looking model already,’ Hackett told the others. They, too, had not done so badly. They had set up their easels on the quay, been asked, as far as they could make out, to move them further away from the moorings, done so ‘with a friendly smile,’ said Charrington – ‘we find that goes a long way.’ They hadn’t