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Updated: May 29, 2025
Tchartkóff was a young artist of considerable promise, and whose pencil was at times remarked for its accuracy, and near approach to the truthfulness of nature. But he had faults which procured him frequent admonitions from the professor under whom he studied. "You have talent," he would say to him; "it will be a sin to ruin it by carelessness and by pursuing erroneous ideas and principles.
And in another moment there he was, peeping round the screen, with the same bronze-like countenance and fixed glittering eyes. Tchartkóff made a violent effort to cry out, but his voice was gone. He strove to stir his limbs, they refused to obey him. With open mouth and arrested breath he gazed upon the apparition. It was that of a tall man in a wide Asiatic robe.
And of course those who sat to him were in ecstasies, and proclaimed him a genius. Tchartkoff became a fashionable artist in every sense of the word.
Tchartkóff set to work, arranged the sitter in the attitude he required, endeavoured to fix the whole subject in his mind; waved his brush in the air before him, as if establishing the principal points; half-closed his eyes several times, retired back a step or two, examined his sitter from a distance, and in about an hour he finished drawing in the face.
By the clear cold light Tchartkóff set to work to examine and clean his purchase. When the coat of dust and filth that incrusted it was removed, he hung the picture upon the wall, and, retiring to look at it, was more than ever astounded at its extraordinary character and power.
The enormous fortune he had accumulated during his long and successful career as a fashionable portrait-painter, enabled him largely to indulge this infernal monomania. To this abominable end he, Tchartkóff, but a short time before so avaricious, became reckless in his expenditure. For this he untied the strings of his bags of gold, and scattered his rubles with lavish hand.
According to him, labour was every thing, inspiration a mere name; and he affirmed that, in art, all things should be subjected to the severest rules. Fame can give no satisfaction to one who has not earned, but stolen it. It produces a constant thrill only in the heart conscious of having deserved it. Tchartkóff no longer valued fame. All his feelings and desires were turned towards gold.
He soon began to be astonished at the wonderful rapidity and success of his execution. As to the sitters, they were in ecstasies, and proclaimed him every where a genius of the first water. Tchartkóff became all the fashion.
"It's looking at me!" she cried, and hurried away, casting nervous glances over her shoulder. Tchartkóff himself experienced he could not tell why a sort of disagreeable sensation, and he put the portrait on the ground. "D'ye buy?" said the picture-dealer. "How much?" replied the artist. "At a word three tchetvertáks." Tchartkóff shook his head. "Too much.
Already the cry rang in his ears, "Tchartkóff, Tchartkóff! haven't you seen Tchartkóff's picture? What a rapid pencil Tchartkóff has! Tchartkóff has immense talent!" Musing, and castle-building, he paced his apartment till a late hour of the night, and when in bed, could not sleep for ruminating his ambitious projects.
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