Free Pictures of Fidelman by Bernard Malamud Page A

again to canvas.
    Angelo and Scarpio come up every night and shake their heads over the drawings.
    “Not even close,” says the padrone.
    “Far from it,” says Scarpio.
    “I’m trying,” Fidelman says, anguished.
    “Try harder,” Angelo answers grimly.
    Fidelman has a sudden insight. “What happened to the last guy who tried?”
    “He’s still floating,” Scarpio says.
    “I’ll need some practice,” the copyist coughs. “My
vision seems tight and the arm tires easily. I’d better go back to exercises to loosen up.”
    “What kind of exercises?” Scarpio inquires.
    “Nothing physical, just some warm-up nudes to get me going.”
    “Don’t overdo it,” Angelo says. “You’ve got about a month, not much more. There’s an advantage to making the exchange of pictures during the tourist season.”
    “Only a month?”
    The padrone nods.
    “Maybe you’d better trace it,” Scarpio suggests.
    “No.”
    “I’ll tell you what,” says Angelo. “I could find you an old reclining nude you can paint over. You might get the form of this one by altering the form of another.”
    “It’s not honest, I mean to myself.”
    Everyone titters.
    “Well, it’s your headache,” says Angelo.
    Fidelman, unwilling to ask what happens if he fails, after they leave, feverishly draws faster.
    Things go badly for the copyist. Working all day and often into the very early morning hours, he tries everything he can think of. Since he always distorts the figure of Venus, though he carries it perfect in his mind, he goes back to a study of Greek statuary with ruler and compass to compute the mathematical proportions of the ideal nude. Scarpio accompanies him to one or two museums. Fidelman also works with the Vetruvian square in the circle, experiments with Dürer’s intersecting
circles and triangles, and studies Leonardo’s schematic heads and bodies. Nothing doing. He draws paper dolls, not women, certainly not Venus. He draws girls who will not grow up. He then tries sketching every nude he can lay eyes on in the art books Scarpio brings him from the library; from the Esquiline goddess to “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.” Fidelman copies not badly many figures from classical statuary and modern painting; but when he returns to his Venus, with something of a laugh she eludes him. What am I, bewitched, the copyist asks himself, and if so by whom? It’s only a copy job so what’s taking so long? He can’t even guess, until he happens to see a naked whore cross the hall to enter a friend’s room. Maybe the ideal is cold and I like it hot? Nature over art? Inspiration—the live model? Fidelman knocks on the door and tries to persuade the girl to pose for him but she can’t for economic reasons. Neither will any of the others—there are four girls in the room.
    A red-head among them calls out to Fidelman, “Shame on you, Arturo, are you too good to bring up pizzas and coffee any more?”
    “I’m busy on a job for Angelo. Painting a picture, that is. A business proposition.”
    Their laughter further depresses his spirits. No inspiration from whores. Maybe too many naked women around make it impossible to draw a nude. Still he’d better try a live model, having tried everything else and failed.

    In desperation, on the verge of panic because time is going so fast, he thinks of Teresa, the chambermaid. She is a poor specimen of feminine beauty but the imagination can enhance anything. Fidelman asks her to pose for him, and Teresa, after a shy laugh, consents.
    “I will if you promise not to tell anybody.”
    Fidelman promises.
    She undresses, a meager, bony girl, breathing heavily, and he draws her with flat chest, distended belly, thin hips and hairy legs, unable to alter a single detail. Van Eyck would have loved her. When Teresa sees the drawing she weeps profusely.
    “I thought you would make me beautiful.”
    “I had that in mind.”
    “Then why didn’t you?”
    “It’s hard to say,” says