Produced by Katherine Delany, Suzanne L. Shell, Charles
Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
By
VERNON LEE
1890
To COUNT PETER BOUTOURLINE,AT TAGANTCHA,GOVERNMENT OF KIEW, RUSSIA.
Do you remember my telling you, one afternoon that you sat upon thehearthstool at Florence, the story of Mrs. Oke of Okehurst?
You thought it a fantastic tale, you lover of fantastic things, and urgedme to write it out at once, although I protested that, in such matters, towrite is to exorcise, to dispel the charm; and that printers' ink chasesaway the ghosts that may pleasantly haunt us, as efficaciously as gallonsof holy water.
But if, as I suspect, you will now put down any charm that story mayhave possessed to the way in which we had been working ourselves up,that firelight evening, with all manner of fantastic stuff—if, as Ifear, the story of Mrs. Oke of Okehurst will strike you as stale andunprofitable—the sight of this little book will serve at least to remindyou, in the middle of your Russian summer, that there is such a seasonas winter, such a place as Florence, and such a person as your friend,
Kensington, July 1886.
1
That sketch up there with the boy's cap? Yes; that's the same woman. Iwonder whether you could guess who she was. A singular being, is she not?The most marvellous creature, quite, that I have ever met: a wonderfulelegance, exotic, far-fetched, poignant; an artificial perverse sort ofgrace and research in every outline and movement and arrangement of headand neck, and hands and fingers. Here are a lot of pencil sketches I madewhile I was preparing to paint her portrait. Yes; there's nothing but herin the whole sketchbook. Mere scratches, but they may give some idea of hermarvellous, fantastic kind of grace. Here she is leaning over thestaircase, and here sitting in the swing. Here she is walking quickly outof the room. That's her head. You see she isn't really handsome; herforehead is too big, and her nose too short. This gives no idea of her. Itwas altogether a question of movement. Look at the strange cheeks, hollowand rather flat; well, when she smiled she had the most marvellous dimpleshere. There was something exquisite and uncanny about it. Yes; I began thepicture, but it was never finished. I did the husband first. I wonder whohas his likeness now? Help me to move these pictures away from the wall.Thanks. This is her portrait; a huge wreck. I don't suppose you can makemuch of it; it is merely blocked in, and seems quite mad. You see my ideawas to make her leaning against a wall—there was one hung with yellow thatseemed almost brown—so as to bring out the silhouette.
It was very singular I should have chosen that particular wall. It doeslook rather insane in this condition, but I like it; it has something ofher. I would frame it and hang it up, only people would ask questions. Yes;you have guessed quite right—it is Mrs. Oke of Okehurst. I forgot you hadrelations in that part of the country; besides, I suppose the newspaperswere full of it at the time. You didn't know that it all took place undermy eyes? I can scarcely believe now that it did: it all seems so distant,vivid but unreal, like a thing of my own invention. It really was muchstranger than any one guessed. People could no more understand it than theycould understand her. I doubt whether any one ever understood A