Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XII. The Giant
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in need of money. Hundreds of painters,
sculptors, authors of unwritten chef-d’œuvres in prose
and verse, exotic survivals of Henri Murger’s
‘Vie de Bohême.’ A few of them were already
on the eve of success like Edelfeld, Carl Larson,
Zorn and Strindberg,[1] but the majority had to
subsist on hope alone. Biggest in size but
shortest in cash was my sculptor friend, the
Giant, with the flowing blonde beard of a Viking
and the guileless blue eyes of a child. He seldom
appeared in the Café de l’Hermitage where most
of his comrades spent their evenings. How he
got his fill for his six feet eight body was a
mystery to all. He lived in an enormous, ice-cold
hangar in Montparnasse adapted as a sculptor’s
studio, where he worked, cooked his food, washed
his shirt and dreamt his dreams of future fame.
Size was what he needed for himself and for his
statues, all of superhuman proportions, never
finished for want of clay. One day he appeared
at Avenue de Villiers with a request to me to act
as his best man for his marriage next Sunday in
the Swedish church, to be followed by a reception
in his new apartment to “pendre la cremaillère.”
The choice of his heart turned out to be a frail
Swedish miniature painter less than half his size.
Of course I was delighted to accept. The
ceremony over, the Swedish chaplain made a nice
little speech to the newly married couple seated
side by side in front of the altar. They reminded
me of the colossal statue of Ramses II seated
in the temple of Luxor beside his little wife barely
reaching his hip. An hour later we knocked at
the door of the studio, full of expectations. We
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