The Hollow Read Free Page A

eye—hovering there just not able to be clearly seen. She had interviewed models, hesitated over Greek types, felt profoundly dissatisfied….
    She wanted something—something to give her the start—something that would bring her own already partially realized vision alive. She had walked long distances, getting physically tired out and welcoming the fact. And driving her, harrying her, was that urgent incessant longing—to see —
    There was a blind look in her own eyes as she walked. She saw nothing of what was around her. She was straining—straining the whole time to make that face come nearer…She felt sick, ill, miserable….
    And then, suddenly, her vision had cleared and with normal human eyes she had seen opposite her in the bus which she had boarded absentmindedly and with no interest in its destination—she had seen—yes, Nausicaa! A foreshortened childish face, half-parted lips and eyes—lovely vacant, blind eyes.
    The girl rang the bell and got out. Henrietta followed her.
    She was now quite calm and businesslike. She had got what she wanted—the agony of baffled search was over.
    â€œExcuse me speaking to you. I’m a professional sculptor and to put it frankly, your head is just what I have been looking for.”
    She was friendly, charming and compelling as she knew how to be when she wanted something.
    Doris Saunders had been doubtful, alarmed, flattered.
    â€œWell, I don’t know, I’m sure. If it’s just the head. Of course, I’ve never done that sort of thing!”
    Suitable hesitations, delicate financial inquiry.
    â€œOf course I should insist on your accepting the proper professional fee.”
    And so here was Nausicaa, sitting on the platform, enjoying the idea of her attractions, being immortalized (though not liking very much the examples of Henrietta’s work which she could see in the studio!) and enjoying also the revelation of her personality to a listener whose sympathy and attention seemed to be so complete.
    On the table beside the model were her spectacles…the spectacles that she put on as seldom as possible owing to vanity, preferring to feel her way almost blindly sometimes, since she admitted to Henrietta that without them she was so shortsighted that she could hardly see a yard in front of her.
    Henrietta had nodded comprehendingly. She understood now the physical reason for that blank and lovely stare.
    Time went on. Henrietta suddenly laid down her modelling tools and stretched her arms widely.
    â€œAll right,” she said, “I’ve finished. I hope you’re not too tired?”
    â€œOh, no, thank you, Miss Savernake. It’s been very interesting, I’m sure. Do you mean, it’s really done—so soon?”
    Henrietta laughed.
    â€œOh, no, it’s not actually finished. I shall have to work on it quite a bit. But it’s finished as far as you’re concerned. I’ve got what I wanted—built up the planes.”
    The girl came down slowly from the platform. She put on her spectacles and at once the blind innocence and vague confidingcharm of the face vanished. There remained now an easy, cheap prettiness.
    She came to stand by Henrietta and looked at the clay model.
    â€œOh,” she said doubtfully, disappointment in her voice. “It’s not very like me, is it?”
    Henrietta smiled.
    â€œOh, no, it’s not a portrait.”
    There was, indeed, hardly a likeness at all. It was the setting of the eyes—the line of the cheekbones—that Henrietta had seen as the essential keynote of her conception of Nausicaa. This was not Doris Saunders, it was a blind girl about whom a poem could be made. The lips were parted as Doris’s were parted, but they were not Doris’s lips. They were lips that would speak another language and would utter thoughts that were not Doris’s thoughts—
    None of the features were clearly defined. It was