Ripley Under Ground

Honestly, I don't understand why people get so worked up about a little murder!

My God, Tom thought, plunge into a couple of soothing Goethe poems. Der Abschied or some such. A little German solidity, Goethian conviction of superiority and—maybe genius. That was what he needed.

In a way, I have to make more of an effort to be myself than I do to be Derwatt. I did. And it was making me mad, you see. You can see that. I’d like to give myself a chance, if there’s anything of me left.

There's an American named Thomas Murchison, not a dealer, but a collector, a retired man with a lot of money. He bought a Derwatt from us three years ago. He compared it to an earlier Derwatt he just saw in the States and now claims his is a fake. It is, of course, being by Bernard. He wrote to the Buckmaster Gallery (to me) saying he thinks his painting isn't authentic because the technique and colors date back five or six years, in Derwatt's work. I have a strong feeling Murchison wants to make a fuss.

Christopher sipped with pleasure at a single brandy, prolonging it. “I have serious doubts about the value of democracy. That’s a terrible thing for an American to say, isn’t it? Democracy depends on a certain minimal level of education for everybody, and America tries to give it to everybody—but we really haven’t got it. And it isn’t even true that everybody wants it. . . .

It’s wrong and it’s hopeless, and why should someone be reproached for not saying something, when he knows it’s no good to say it?” Tom paused.

Tom laughed, delighted with Heloise’s irreverent attitude, because it resembled his own. Her propriety was a veneer only, Tom knew, or surely she’d never have married him.

He put his fingertips together and stared into space, in the manner of Sherlock Holmes reflecting, an unconscious gesture perhaps, because he had been thinking of a certain Sherlock Holmes story which resembled this situation. Tom hoped his disguise would not be seen through so easily. At any rate, it was better than some of those exploded by Sir Arthur—when a nobleman forgot to remove his diamond ring or some such.

It was best to be alone, stripped for action, in a sense. Stripped of sympathy, even of tender thoughts from home.

Heloise, you’re the only woman in the world who has ever made me think of now, Tom wanted to say, but he was too tired, and the remark was probably not important.

Only classical music did something—it soothed or it bored, gave confidence or took confidence quite away, because it had order, and one either accepted that order or rejected it.

Bernard put his arm over the back of his chair. “And you know, my faking, my forgeries, have evolved in four or five years the way Derwatt’s painting might have evolved. It’s funny, isn’t it?

But Tom felt uncomfortable because he was lying, to Bernard. It was seldom Tom felt uncomfortable, lying.

Chris had something better than manners, Tom saw, which was sensitivity. Tom was fascinated by the candlelight through the irises of his blue eyes, because so often Dickie’s eyes had looked the same late at night in Mongibello, or in some candlelit restaurant in Naples.

Tom found it amusing, strangely nervous-making, Chris’s enthusiasm. Tom remembered his own mad joy—though there’d been no one for him to speak to—at his first glimpse of the Leaning Tower of Pisa from a moving train, his first view of the curving lights of Cannes’ shore.

but they evidently sold newspapers. The activities of the English Royal Family were unbelievable, Elizabeth and Philip on the brink of divorce three times a year, and Margaret and Tony spitting in each other’s faces.

I cannot understand your total disconnection with the truth of things,” Murchison said. “An artist’s style is his truth, his honesty. Has another man the right to copy it, in the same way that a man copies another man’s signature? And for the same purpose, to draw on his reputation, his bank account? A reputation already built by a man’s talent?

Tom painted landscapes and portraits mainly. He was ever trying to simplify, to keep the example of Matisse before him, but with little success, he thought.

No, Tom didn’t think Frenchwomen were more difficult than other women, but they had their own idea of the respect with which they should be treated. This subject did not make much progress, because every woman wanted to be treated with a certain respect, and though Tom knew Heloise’s kind, he absolutely could not put it into words.

As usual, another person’s nervousness was making Tom feel calm.

An artist does things naturally, without effort. Some power guides his hand. A forger struggles, and if he succeeds, it is a genuine achievement.