Pages from the Life of Gibran and Howayek in Paris — 6 — Gibran's Return to America and His Letters to Howayek

... I added the two hundred dollars to the money I had already saved up for a pleasure trip I had grown accustomed to making every August. So I visited some of the cities of Germany and Austria and reached Istanbul, where I found awaiting me a letter from Gibran in which he said:

"... You are of course happy in the city of caesars and sultans, standing like a question mark between East and West. However matters may turn, you will come back from the resting-place of happiness filled with the ghosts of bygone generations and the phantoms of the nations of today...

"In the Astana there are many things that call for study and demand contemplation, chief among them the ancient churches and mosques, with their Byzantine carvings and the paintings that came before the age of the Italian Renaissance... Beware of leaving the Astana before you have studied it well. No doubt the Imperial Museum holds precious Greek and Roman antiquities; look at them, and remember me when you stand before something tremendous in its beauty and beautiful in its terror...

"And how did you find the Syrians in the Astana? Did you find them among the living who move, or the dead who stand still? The Syrian, Youssef, is a ewe in his own country and a lion abroad. If this saying holds true of the Syrians of the Astana, then give Syria tidings of a manifest victory..."

Here I shall pass swiftly, without dwelling at all on the marvels I beheld during my journey to the Astana and elsewhere. But I remained in constant touch with Gibran, conveying to him by correspondence my chief artistic impressions — more than there is room to mention here... I continued my travels to Athens, then Rome, and returned to Paris by way of Florence and Geneva, to find Gibran absorbed in preparing some of his canvases to show at the Autumn Salon... Gibran was visibly anxious and careworn. His economic circumstances might force him to return to Boston, and it mattered greatly to him, before that, to have exhibited something at the Paris salon...

Of his paintings Gibran submitted the one "Borne on the Arms of the Angels" and two others; only one of them was accepted... but its lot was one of the secondary corridors, not the grand hall as he had hoped.

In the evening Gibran laid bare to me the cares of his heart, saying: "Rodin is bound to visit the salon, Youssef, and how I long to show him something of my work and to hear from his lips a word of appreciation that would find an echo in American society... He never comes, as you know, except surrounded by a company of American ladies, and it will not do for my picture to be shown in the corridor... That is impossible!" And Gibran sprang to his feet and began pacing the room nervously...

— "Take it easy, Gibran. The matter is simpler than you imagine. Let us spit on a dollar, and I guarantee that the guard will move the picture inside the hall"... And so it was!

I was standing on the other side of the hall when Rodin passed by like a demigod! Fluttering about him was a flock of perfumed ladies, like a bevy of houris in long, flowing gowns, high heels, and great hats sprinkled with colored flowers...

And I saw Rodin pause a moment before Gibran's painting; Gibran stepped toward him, held out his hand in greeting, and uttered a few phrases which I did not hear, nor did I ask him about them afterward... Rodin nodded his head to the young artist, and presently walked on, completing his round amid the flock of perfumed ladies...

Thus at last did Gibran meet the master Rodin — who by then had passed seventy and stood at the summit of his artistic glory... He had created his immortal masterpieces: "The Age of Bronze, The Burghers of Calais, The Kiss, The Thinker, Hugo, Balzac," and others, and was wrapped in a halo of fame and wealth... and pride... while Gibran was still a young man of twenty-seven, a stranger in Paris, speaking French with difficulty, cutting his artistic path through toil and want... His work and his writings in those days brought him nothing and drew no attention... Hence all that has been said of his connection with the famous sculptor and his apprenticeship to him, and what has also been said of his birth in Bombay, of his family's descent from men of eminence... of a diploma of distinction from the French academy of fine arts and honorary membership in the society of English painters — all this is nothing but sheer illusory fabrications...

The movement of artistic liberation in the Parisian air at the opening of the twentieth century was nearing ripeness, but Gibran was untouched by it and paid it no attention... His imagination teemed with philosophy, doctrines, and symbols...

and with vague things whose meanings he himself had not yet made clear or grasped... The "man of letters" in him overwhelmed the "artist," and painting remained bewildered between his fingers... groping its way laboriously toward the assertion of self... Thus the artistic profit of his stay in Paris was of no great consequence... And he left France, which he had loved and been enamored of — left it in late autumn, against his will, a tear in his eye... I alone accompanied him to the Gare de Lyon; I helped him settle into a comfortable seat by the window and arrange his baggage in the rack above the seat... and I sat beside him, keeping the place, filling the remaining minutes with talk and last recommendations, until, when the signal was given for the train to move, I stepped down quickly and left him to occupy both places by himself and stretch out his legs at ease... And there is nothing like travel to teach a man and open his eyes upon the world!

Gibran did not cut off his news from me; from time to time letters would reach me in which he yearned for Paris:

"Boston, January 19, 1911"

"My brother Youssef — Happy is he who has a resting-place of glory in — Paris! And blessed is he who walks along the banks of the river Seine, contemplating the stalls of old books and antique prints. I, in this city full of friends and acquaintances, am like one exiled to the farthest ends of the world, where life is cold as snow, dark as ashes, and silent as the Sphinx. My sister is at my side and those who love me are around me everywhere. People come to my house morning and evening, and yet I am not pleased with my life, Youssef... My work is moving toward the mountain's summit, my thoughts are calm, and my body enjoys all the pleasure of well-being that health can give... but I am not to be envied, Youssef... My soul is hungry and thirsty for some food and drink I know not where to find... The soul is a celestial flower that cannot live in the shade; thorns, however, live everywhere... Rihani is in a place near New York, and he is wretched in his life. Each of us complains to the other of what is in his heart, and yearns for Lebanon, and sings the praises of its charms... Such is the life of the sons of the East stricken with the disease of art. Such is the life of the sons of 'Apollo,' exiled to this strange world — frozen in its works, rigid in its course, whose laughter is its weeping... And how are you, Youssef? Are you happy among the human phantoms you see on either side of the road? How goes your work — is it as you would have it be? And what drawings have you made in my absence? Madame Hamilton has written me kind words about you. Remain her friend, for she is gracious, and beyond that she is one of the martyrs of the god of art — unjust and merciful, dark and luminous... And how far has Dante carried you? Are you in his company in that deep 'abyss' and among those perilous crossings? And where have you come with 'the golden-haired one, the companion of Botticelli's soul'? Are you standing at her side before the face of eternity, in those theaters far from the world of measures and quantity? I have many questions ranging between the depths of Hell and the heights of Heaven, but I do not wish to consign them to ink and paper. Speak my name in the palace of the Louvre and before the goddess of Victory. Greetings to 'Mona Lisa.' Greetings to the spirits hovering about your head... Greetings to you from your brother and your loving friend — Gibran."