THE STORY OF A FAMOUS PICTURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2410, 10 May 1900, Page 60

THE STORY OF A FAMOUS PICTURE.

M. Francois Coppee, the sympathetic, ithough somewhat ioolish, French poet, having had a relapse of the cruel Illness ■which makes his life a martyrdom, I called at the house, Rue Oudinoc, to see him (writes our correspondent). For the first time I was shown into his ■beda-oom, where Sic lay smiling and not too sad to look at in' spite of the nasty operation he had just "undergone. 'We wera -talking quietly toge'thsr, when my eyes fell on a curions painting which hung on the wall at the -loot ot his bed, and which, as a matter •of facti hypnotised me so much that 1 ceased to take any interest in what the ipalisnt was saying. At last he caught the direction of mv eyes. "Ah," he said, " mj- tableau has on you the sasne effect that it has on me : it sends me into a" curious drc.my state and makes ane forget everything, even my pains. _1 ■will tell you the story of that picture, it •was in Ib6B I had, gone to Etretat for seaibathing, and one day J was trudging up a narsrow path leading' up hill to a cluster of small villas, -when I stopped short at the Eight of a very ghastly affair. On the panel of a wooden gate, curiously carved, and hanging by a wire, was a mummified shand, on which here and there one could ses streaks of old coagulated blood.

"I remained there a good while, musing and wondering, when the door opened. A Gueer-looking ycung man came out and stared at me feedly. Instead of running away, I remained, and began to study the strange face of the proprietor of the villa, as I guessed him to be. He had the most i extraordinary face, angular, with a tall sorehead and pointed chin, but he looked lan anist from top to toe. At last, gettairig impatient, he put two" fingers_to_ his ■lips and made a funny whistling noise. At 'this call I saw a lanky form hasten from llhe 'back of the liouse. When it cams near, to "ray horror I realised that it was - a "baboon, and, at a sign from his master, '.ihe ticked me on to the path. I landed on lily nose. I was so surprised that I had no time to prepare for such a sudden atiack

"My nose began to bleed profusely, and I "looked so' ghastly white that the young man, frightened out of his wits, kicked the ■foaboon back into the garden, helped me to any feet, and, in a voice as tender as that of a woman, asked ma to come in with him and have some refreshments. My heed <was in a whirl, and, fesling unable to resume my walk, I accented his offer.

• " This is how J made the acquaintance of Algernon Charles Swinburne, the English poet, who had come to spend the summer at Etretat -.vith a friend.

■ " However, Swinburne offered me a nice lunch, and crowned his politeness by showing me his house, which was simply a museum of horrors. Everywhere I saw skele.tons of men and beasts, skinned heads under glass cases, serpents, monkeys, ultrawise cats, odiovis dogs with Chinese faces, /who all but talked; models of the coffins •of different countries, and Heaven knows /what else! I remember a death's head emerging from a large glittering pink shell, ■and the grinning face of a hanged nigger resting on a cushion of white velvet.

"The walls were also covered with ghastly pictures, and this one, as you see, ;*rith its greyish phantoms swinging in a jpale green shy, and lighted by a moon jwith . a human suffering face, took my fancy so t much that, on the spot, Swinburne unhooked, it and gave it to me. It ,-lhas never leffc me since, and never will, isr at'ds a dream-producing work, and the remembrance of many- not to be forgotten houra which I spent in the summer of 1868 at Etretat with the English poet."