"Schalken The Painter" by Joseph Sheridan LeFanu
commentary by rbadac
SPOILERS-SPOILERS-SPOILERS-DON'T COME IN HERE UNLESS YOU'VE ALREADY SPOILED YOURSELF!!
I can't remember where I first read "Schalken The Painter," but it was a long time ago; somehow it managed to be one of the very first supernatural stories I was exposed to. I remember this because it was also one of the first I ever read that had such an unremittingly unhappy ending, & my youthful sensibility at the time was outraged on so many levels that I was unable ever to forget it from that day to this.
One thing I have never been able to reconcile (and never will, having no desire to) is how anyone in the position of parent or guardian could have custody of a girl he supposedly felt paternal affection for, & just hand her over in marriage to a complete stranger for a hunk of money. It violates every romantic principle I ever had, even the very few I have left. Yes, dear reader, rbadac is a rotted gallant after all. Even more incomprehensible is the damnable tendency of women in this position to "try & make the best of it," again irregardless of the factors mentioned above; & then turn around & call the barely less-voluntary example of sexual manipulation "a fate worse than death"!
However, while my ideal woman was jumping out of the window or hanging herself from the ceiling fixtures or gasping her last from an ingestion of poison, lying akimbo across her tear-stained counterpane, the majority of these compromised females apparently just shrugged their shoulders & went shopping. Even in "Schalken," LeFanu gives us this bit of observation on the part of Gerard Douw, Rose's uncle:
"He was resolved, however, as far as he could, to check his niece's disposition to dilate upon the ugliness of her intended bridegroom, although he was not a little pleased, as well as puzzled, to observe that she appeared totally exempt from that mysterious dread of the stranger which, he could not disguise it from himself, considerably affected him, as also his pupil Godfrey Schalken."
Hah! Well, she gets over that damn fast, lemme tell you. Between the wretched callousness of men & the infuriating tractability of women, a taste for terror as retributive justice is born. It is of course a capricious judgement; no one, no matter how idiotic they may be, can honestly be said to deserve this.
Vanderhausen, the intended bridegroom, is a blue-faced, white-eyed, black-lipped horror. He does not blink. He does not breathe. His motions are "unnatural, inhuman; it was as if the limbs were guided & directed by a spirit unused to the management of bodily machinery." He keeps his speech to a minimum & he doesn't tarry long. He can't. He's dead.
He may in fact be the old painted wooden figure in the Church of St. Lawrence in Rotterdam that so frightened Rose Velderkaust when she & her uncle visited there. Vanderhausen himself says he saw Rose for the first time on that occasion, in that place. And he almost certainly resides in the burial vaults beneath, if not in some murky limbo to & from which he glides effortlessly when he is not engaged in maintaining his gimcrack physical charade. He's dead, anyhow.
But does Schalken interrupt the marriage ceremony by banging on the glass & assaulting the guests with a big crucifix? Hell, no, that was Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate. LeFanu's having none of that:
"I have no sentimental scenes to describe, no cruelty of guardians, no magnanimity of wards, no agonies, no transports of lovers. The record I have to make is one of sordidness, levity, & heartlessness."
Tell me about it ! The poor girl shows up months later, dressed in what is apparently, judging from the description, a winding-sheet; she calls for wine, meat, & prayer, three things she hasn't been getting much of lately; begs not to be left alone, but of course, in a moment of prime stupidity, is; & after a touching reunion with her hubby ("shriek after shriek burst from the inner chamber..."), she's out the window & in the canal.
And in a final nasty touch Schalken, on the occasion of a visit to Rotterdam & the same church for his father's funeral, falls asleep & dreams of his beloved Rose taking him down into the vault, where he is invited to be a voyeur of the
See here, by this dim lantern's lift
My suitor, in our bed --
Look ! You who made to curse your gift
Who left me helpless, lost, unshrift,
And married to the dead.
from 'The Ballad of Schalken the Painter' by Heathrowe Hedges
Gerard Douw, or Gerrit Dou (1613-1675) was a real person, a painter of great stature who actually did live in Leyden, & was one of Rembrandt's most famous pupils. Douw's own pupil Gottfried Schalken (or Godfried Schalcken) is also a real person, born in 1643 at Dordrecht, who studied under van Hoogstraten before moving to Douw's studio. He was particularly admired for his mastery in reproducing the effect of candle-light. He visited London for a time, but his uncouth manner & bad temper alienated him from society there, & he returned to Holland & settled in the Hague where he continued to paint until his death in 1706. The National Gallery & the Dulwich Gallery contain examples of his work; the Buckingham Palace Collection has an interior by him which is regarded as a masterpiece. Sorry I don't have the link for it ! It is, no doubt:
"...the interior of what might be a chamber in some antique religious building; & its foreground is occupied by a female figure, in a species of white robe, part of which is arranged so as to form a veil. The dress, however, is not that of any religious order. In her hand the figure bears a lamp, by which alone her figure & face are illuminated; & her features wear such an arch smile, as well becomes a pretty woman when practicing some prankish roguery..."
I don't know if Wilken Vanderhausen was a real person or not. Next time I'm in Rotterdam, I'll ask him.
But if you wish to see Rose by candlelight with her arch smile, I refer you to The Dutch Painters (Barron; NY, 1978) by Christopher Wright, where, on page 181 she gazes out at you from the canvas entitled "Girl With A Candle" by Godfried Schalcken, presently in the Galleria Pitti in Florence. I am convinced this is the picture that LeFanu had in mind.
The Biblical verse which introduces the story is Job IX: 32-34, a somewhat strange usage of it; in context, it is Job expostulating why it is useless to argue with God. Personally I would have preferred a verse expostulating why it is useless to argue with greedy bastards with good-looking nieces they can't wait to pimp out to the first walking corpse that comes along with a little cash.
And I continue to be mystified by the text early in the story which reads:
"The patience of the young painter was exhausted, & he stood before his unfinished production, angry & mortified, one hand buried in the folds of his long hair, & the other holding the piece of charcoal which had so ill-performed its office, & which he now rubbed, without much regard to the sable streaks it produced, with irritable pressure upon his ample Flemish inexpressibles."
Schalken. Dude, yer gettin' streaks all over your inexpressibles.