New York_ The Novel - Edward Rutherfurd [222]
Fifth at Fiftieth. St. Patrick’s Cathedral. A decade had passed since Cardinal Hughes had laid the cornerstone of the great church which the city’s huge new population of Irish Catholics so obviously deserved. And there was no doubt about its message. If Trinity’s claims on the Gothic style had seemed impressive for a while, the vast new Catholic cathedral rising on Fifth would put the Protestant Episcopalians in their place—and provide a mighty reminder that honor was due to the Irish Catholics too.
Mary was proud of St. Patrick’s. Increasingly, as time went by, the Church had been a comfort to her. The religion of her childhood, and of her people. At least you knew that it would always be there. She went to Mass every Sunday, confessing her few, small sins to a priest who gave her kindly dispensation and renewal of life. She prayed in the chapel, where the shadows comprehended all human tears, the candles promised love, and the silence, she knew, was the stillness of the eternal Church. With this spiritual nourishment her life was, almost, complete.
They swept on down Fifth, past the orphanage for poor Negro children at Forty-third, past the fortress-like splendor of the reservoir, all the way down to Union Square, where they picked up the Bowery.
“Have you guessed where we’re going?” asked Gretchen.
Theodore Keller’s photographic studio was well equipped, and divided into two sections. In the smaller section, there was a camera set in position opposite a single chair placed in front of a curtain. For like the other photographers on the Bowery, his bread-and-butter business in recent years had been taking quick portraits of young men standing proudly, or sheepishly, in their unaccustomed uniforms, before they went off to fight against the South. Quicker than the old daguerreotype to take, easy to reproduce on paper, he’d get thirty a day sometimes. It paid the rent. At first, these small “carte-de-visite”-size portraits had seemed jolly enough, like taking someone’s picture at the seaside. Gradually, however, as the terrible casualties of the Civil War had mounted, he had realized that the dull little portraits he was taking were more like tombstones, last mementoes before some poor fellow vanished from his family forever. And if he tried to make each humble one as splendid as he could, he did not tell his customers the reason.
The larger section was a more elaborate affair. Here there was a sofa, rich velvet curtains, numerous backdrops and props for grander pictures. When not working, this was the part of the studio where he relaxed, and to the discerning eye, there were hints to suggest that he privately considered himself not only a professional, but an artist and even, perhaps, something of a bohemian. In one corner, in a case, there was a violin which he liked to play. On a small round table against the wall, he would often drop any books that he happened to be reading. Today, besides a well-thumbed edition of the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, there were two slim books of poetry. One of them, the Fleurs du Mal of Baudelaire, was safely in French. But the other poems were by an American, and if it hadn’t been his own sister that was coming to visit, he’d have put those verses safely out of sight in a drawer.
As he prepared for Gretchen’s arrival, he still hadn’t decided which backdrop to use. If there was time, he liked to look at his subjects, decide the scenery and arrange them on the inspiration of the moment. He saw his sister and her family frequently, of course, but he hadn’t seen Mary in quite a while. And besides, he wanted to see the two of them together, see how they looked and what they were wearing, before he decided on the best tableau.
His sister’s idea of giving Mary a portrait of herself as a present had struck the young man as an admirable idea, and he’d offered to do it for nothing.
When