"No,--I've made a mess of this arm, and for the life of me I can't see
how I came to paint such mud as that into the canvas," I replied. "Don't I pose well?" she insisted. "Of course, perfectly." "Then it's not my fault?" "No. It's my own." "I am very sorry," she said. I told her she could rest while I applied rag and turpentine to the
plague spot on my canvas, and she went off to smoke a cigarette and look
over the illustrations in the _Courrier Français_. I did not know whether it was something in the turpentine or a defect in
the canvas, but the more I scrubbed the more that gangrene seemed to
spread. I worked like a beaver to get it out, and yet the disease
appeared to creep from limb to limb of the study before me. Alarmed, I
strove to arrest it, but now the colour on the breast changed and the
whole figure seemed to absorb the infection as a sponge soaks up water. Vigorously I plied palette-knife, turpentine, and scraper, thinking all
the time what a _séance_ I should hold with Duval who had sold me
the canvas; but soon I noticed that it was not the canvas which was
defective nor yet the colours of Edward. "It must be the turpentine," I
thought angrily, "or else my eyes have become so blurred and confused by
the afternoon light that I can't see straight." I called Tessie, the
model. She came and leaned over my chair blowing rings of smoke into the
air. "What _have_ you been doing to it?" she exclaimed

"Nothing," I growled, "it must be this turpentine!" "What a horrible colour it is now," she continued. "Do you think my flesh
resembles green cheese?" "No, I don't," I said angrily; "did you ever know me to paint like that
before?" "No, indeed!" "Well, then!" "It must be the turpentine, or something," she admitted. She slipped on a Japanese robe and walked to the window. I scraped and
rubbed until I was tired, and finally picked up my brushes and hurled
them through the canvas with a forcible expression, the tone alone of
which reached Tessie's ears. Nevertheless she promptly began: "That's it! Swear and act silly and ruin
your brushes! You have been three weeks on that study, and now look! What's the good of ripping the canvas? What creatures artists are!" I felt about as much ashamed as I usually did after such an outbreak, and
I turned the ruined canvas to the wall. Tessie helped me clean my
brushes, and then danced away to dress. From the screen she regaled me
with bits of advice concerning whole or partial loss of temper, until,
thinking, perhaps, I had been tormented sufficiently, she came out to
implore me to button her waist where she could not reach it on the
shoulder. "Everything went wrong from the time you came back from the window and
talked about that horrid-looking man you saw in the churchyard," she
announced. "Yes, he probably bewitched the picture," I said, yawning. I looked at my
watch. "It's after six, I know," said Tessie, adjusting her hat before the
mirror. "Yes," I replied, "I didn't mean to keep you so long." I leaned out of
the window but recoiled with disgust, for the young man with the pasty
face stood below in the churchyard. Tessie saw my gesture of disapproval
and leaned from the window. "Is that the man you don't like?" she whispered. I nodded. "I can't see his face, but he does look fat and soft. Someway or other,"
she continued, turning to look at me, "he reminds me of a dream,--an
awful dream I once had. Or," she mused, looking down at her shapely
shoes, "was it a dream after all?" "How should I know?" I smiled. Tessie smiled in reply. "You were in it," she said, "so perhaps you might know something about
it." "Tessie! Tessie!" I protested, "don't you dare flatter by saying that you
dream about me!" "But I did," she insisted; "shall I tell you about it?" "Go ahead," I replied, lighting a cigarette. Tessie leaned back on the open window-sill and began very seriously. "One night last winter I was lying in bed thinking about nothing at all
in particular. I had been posing for you and I was tired out, yet it
seemed impossible for me to sleep. I heard the bells in the city ring
ten, eleven, and midnight. I must have fallen asleep about midnight
because I don't remember hearing the bells after that. It seemed to me
that I had scarcely closed my eyes when I dreamed that something impelled
me to go to the window. I rose, and raising the sash leaned out. Twenty-fifth Street was deserted as far as I could see. I began to be
afraid; everything outside seemed so--so black and uncomfortable. Then
the sound of wheels in the distance came to my ears, and it seemed to me
as though that was what I must wait for. Very slowly the wheels
approached, and, finally, I could make out a vehicle moving along the
street. It came nearer and nearer, and when it passed beneath my window I
saw it was a hearse. Then, as I trembled with fear, the driver turned and
looked straight at me. When I awoke I was standing by the open window
shivering with cold, but the black-plumed hearse and the driver were
gone. I dreamed this dream again in March last, and again awoke beside
the open window. Last night the dream came again. You remember how it was
raining; when I awoke, standing at the open window, my night-dress was
soaked." "But where did I come into the dream?" I asked. "You--you were in the coffin; but you were not dead." "In the coffin?" "Yes." "How did you know? Could you see me?" "No; I only knew you were there." "Had you been eating Welsh rarebits, or lobster salad?" I began,
laughing, but the girl interrupted me with a frightened cry. "Hello! What's up?" I said, as she shrank into the embrasure by the
window. "The--the man below in the churchyard;--he drove the hearse." "Nonsense," I said, but Tessie's eyes were wide with terror. I went to
the window and looked out. The man was gone. "Come, Tessie," I urged,
"don't be foolish. You have posed too long; you are nervous." "Do you think I could forget that face?" she murmured. "Three times I saw
the hearse pass below my window, and every time the driver turned and
looked up at me. Oh, his face was so white and--and soft? It looked
dead--it looked as if it had been dead a long time." I induced the girl to sit down and swallow a glass of Marsala. Then I sat
down beside her, and tried to give her some advice. "Look here, Tessie," I said, "you go to the country for a week or two,
and you'll have no more dreams about hearses. You pose all day, and when
night comes your nerves are upset. You can't keep this up. Then again,
instead of going to bed when your day's work is done, you run off to
picnics at Sulzer's Park, or go to the Eldorado or Coney Island, and when
you come down here next morning you are fagged out. There was no real
hearse. There was a soft-shell crab dream." She smiled faintly. "What about the man in the churchyard?" "Oh, he's only an ordinary unhealthy, everyday creature."