Galatea

Galatea in an earlier version first appeared in the Atlantic Advocate. It is now defunct, a victim of TV, but I have good memories of kit, for what it paid me for my contributions allowed me to  buy a life membership in the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, and so copies of The Journal of Roman Studies would appear regularly each year in my mailbox.

                I first met Carscallen at Dalhousie, when we took a Latin course

together on Catullus, but I never knew him well. He had eyes that were

disconcertingly blue, and in his second year he wore a

scraggly beard which he discarded in his third, and he wrote poetry

in the style of Kenneth Rexroth, who was much in style then. But

what else he did, I neither knew nor cared. I never expected to

meet him again. But I did. Ten years later.

                Ten years had changed him very little, except that he was

plumper and drove a racing green MG sports car. And, it seemed, he had become an artist. And very affable, considering our brief acquaintance

                "You must come and see my paintings sometime," he said. "I

have a studio. Upstairs, in the Bigelow Building."

                I mumbled something -- expressed surprise that Carscallen had

taken up painting.

                "I have talent," he replied, soberly. "Not genius, perhaps,

but real talent."

                It seemed that he meant the invitation, too. He gave me his

address, and set a date, and for some reason, I said I would come.

                It was a bona fide studio, all right. Carscallen must have

come into money, I thought. He used to mention a wealthy uncle who

may have gone to his reward and as a welcome

byproduct left Carscallen richer, but I felt it improper to pry. His paintings, -- well, clearly Carscallen was enjoying a  cubist period. With the signature of Picasso or Bracque, they might have sold well. They were surrealist expressions of Carscallen’s soul, all of them. Except one. An

unfinished canvas that seemed to reveal an unexpected side to

his talents. He paused in front of it as if he expected

me to comment. I didn't. I could think of nothing to say.

                "This is - ah, my latest," he said. "You can see, I am

refashioning  my style and attempting a new expression of my inner psyche."

                "Uh-huh," said I. It was a woman. There could be no doubt

about it, even though her complexion was blue, and she had only one

arm and one good eye, like a Cyclops, and with it, she fixed

Carscallan with a possessive stare.

                "This," said Carscallen, "is Galatea. She’s my attempt to meld the concept of beauty that we inherited from the Greeks to modern cubism.”

                "But Galatea?"

                "You remember the old story from Ovid? Pygmalion created Galatea. She was his

most beautiful sculpture and he fell in love with it."

                "But Galatea came alive," said I.

                "For Pygmalion, yes, she did. You must understand. Beauty is up here.” He tapped his forehead. “Galatea came alive in Pygmalion’s altered sense of reality.”

                “But I mean she was beautiful in a realistic sort of way. Classical sculpture never looked like this. This woman is blue, and she needs another eye." The single eye seemed to give an imperceptible wink.

                "This the way my inner life force sees it," said Carscallen. "And that's all I

can do. Paint beauty the way I see it. It’s in my soul."

                The Carscallen I knew at college did not have a soul, as far as I knew at the time, but it was clear there was no point arguing. He was an artist. I returned to see him once again, and Galatea was

finished. Her complexion was egg-shell blue, and the fingernails on

her single hand were a deep green. Her eye looked like a replica of

Carscallen's own, when I came to think of it, but

she still had only one. I tried to say the proper

things about her, but saying proper things is not my cup of tea. Galatea kept her disconcerting gaze upon us. I

think Carscallen thought my praise rather tepid, for he seemed a

trifle hurt, and he did not look me up again for three months.

                Then he came to my flat after dark, with a rather furtive air. I invited him in for a drink. But no, he didn't want a drink.

                "Come out for a drive," he said. "The night is fine, and I

want to talk to you about something."

                "I'm rather busy."

                "It won't be long, Jim. I haven't a lot of people I can talk

to. You’re the only friend I can talk to. Don't let me down."

                "Well," said I, "I'll fetch my coat."

   Carscallen had sold his sports car, I noticed. I mentioned it,

and he mumbled something mysterious about there no longer being

enough room. It was an odd reply. Room for what? But I soon came to understand.

 When Carscallen opened the door of his sedan, there sat Galatea,

in all her cubist beauty, fixing upon us her one blue eye.

Carscallen turned to me with a kind of awkward pride.

“It’s just like the myth,” he said. ‘One day she just stepped out of my painting.”

“Oh,” said I. What could I say? My grasp of reality felt a little uncertain.

                "I wish now," Carscallen said wistfully, "I'd given her two arms. It's

terribly hard for her to do the cooking and washing with just one. I have to do it myself."

                “Couldn’t just paint one in?”

                “Not really,” said Carscallen. “The picture is finished. But every creator must look on his creation and wish he had done better, don’t you think?”