The Glassblower(132)
Though Marie was about to protest, she realized that looking for art books had made her quite hungry. No sooner had the waitress put down the platter in front of her than Marie picked up a slice of bread and took a hearty bite.
“I keep my ears open when I’m running errands, that’s all,” Magnus said, picking up the thread of their conversation. “But God knows, it’s hardly a job to be proud of. The way you work with your hands and your imagination, the way you mix craft and art—that’s really something. Do you know that I almost envy that?”
Marie laughed. “Lots of people have ideas,” she muttered, a touch embarrassed.
“But not as good as yours! Many glassblowers don’t even do Christmas decorations. And the ones who make them . . . well, you should see the plain designs they use. No extra details, maybe a layer of mirror finish on the inside, and that’s that. They’re downright boring compared to your works of art.”
“I don’t know whether to even believe you,” Marie said. Magnus’s words were music to her ears but she felt self-conscious at his outspoken admiration.
“Believe away! After all, I’m the one who carries everybody’s samples here and back again. But let’s not talk about everyone else.” He leaned across the table toward her. “Do you want to know what I really admire about you?” He didn’t wait for an answer but kept straight on. “Your single-mindedness. You’re so sure about everything you do. Whenever you . . .”
“Me, sure of myself?” Marie interrupted. “You’ve really gotten the wrong idea. I’m besieged by doubt the moment I sit down with my sketchpad or at the lamp. I’m always asking myself whether I’ll be able to blow the shape. Or whether my designs can even work in glass.” She shook her head. “I’m plagued by doubt most of the time in fact. Then I convince myself that I don’t have the skills to create what I’ve pictured in my mind’s eye. How could I? I mean, what little I do know I taught myself.” She sighed.
“Have you never considered enrolling in the glassblowers’ trade school in Lauscha?”
She gaped at him. “You mean where they teach technical drawing and modeling? But that’s for the sons of glassblowers! Not for their daughters!”
“They might take you all the same. The way I hear it, they’re not exactly oversubscribed . . .”
“That’s the worst thing about it,” Marie chimed in. “Either the boys don’t want to learn anything or their fathers force them to sit down at the lamp just as soon as they’re done with ordinary school!” She shrugged. “One way or another, that school’s not for me. And as for the doubts I have . . . when it comes down to it, I don’t think there ever can be any such thing as certainty in art. Oh, I don’t know . . .” Even talking about it brought back all the helpless loneliness she had felt during the long nights at the lamp.
She had never talked about any of this, not even to Peter. In the end she was just a woman who was trying to persuade herself she could hold her own against the men in their trade. Who wanted not solely to understand the most difficult material any craftsman could work with but to master it.
“Which is why you bought all those books, isn’t it?”
Marie laughed, embarrassed. “There won’t be anything about Christmas tree decorations in any of them, but I’m bound to find something I can use. It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”
Magnus considered this for a moment.
“More than that,” he answered, his voice ringing with conviction. “Perhaps you should spend a certain amount of time each day with your books from now on. Be your own tutor, so to speak.”
Marie looked at him in astonishment. “That’s just what I was going to do. Can you read my mind?”
Magnus grinned. “Perhaps I’m just good at knowing what an artist might be thinking. But joking aside”—he reached for her hand—“if you want my honest opinion, given how important your art is to you, you’re not giving it nearly enough of your time.”
“How can you say such a thing?” Marie protested, pulling her hand away. “Who spent night after night sitting at the lamp blowing glass these last six weeks? That was me, wasn’t it?”
Magnus smiled. “That’s exactly what I mean.” When she frowned, he continued. “You were working to earn your living. Now you should take some time to develop your gifts as an artist. I can’t imagine that the old masters like Rembrandt and Rubens would ever have become so famous if they had to paint night and day to make money.”