Chapter 10
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Translator: Silver Dragon
Chapter: 10
Chapter Title: Revenge Coldly, Art Hotly
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The smell of money was more intense than the smell of paint.
When Morgenstern piled the bundles of bills he'd exchanged at the bank onto the table, I felt it bone-deep.
The musty scent of ink and the human touch on the worn paper currency. It wasn't just paper. In the vast jungle of Vienna, it was my ammunition and shield.
"Hitler, no, Mr. Hitler! We're rich now! And this is just the beginning!"
Morgenstern couldn't hide his excitement as he spun around the room. Gone was his usual pretense of decorum.
The rumor that the crown prince had bought my painting spread faster than any telegram. Newspapers that had been pointing fingers at me just yesterday now splashed headlines like "Genius Rises Like a Comet" and "Artist Chosen by the Imperial Family" in their morning editions.
It was a nauseating about-face. But that nausea tasted surprisingly sweet.
I picked up a wad of bills. It was heavy. Even combining my memories from my past life, this was the biggest sum I'd ever held. What could I do with it? Buy paint by the factoryful. Commission a top-tailored suit. Or maybe shower the landlady who'd looked down on me with cash right in her face.
But there was something more urgent first.
"Franz."
I called out to the kid in the corner, eyes wide as he gawked at the pile of money.
"Yes, sir?"
"Get dressed. We're going shopping."
We headed to the Graben. Vienna's most bustling, expensive street lined with shops. Just days ago, I wouldn't have dared step foot in there. Now, hands in my pockets, I strode down it confidently.
I felt people's stares. Plenty recognized my face. The papers had only printed photos of the painting, but the "Eye of Blood" incident had made my features pretty well-known.
"Isn't that the guy? The mad painter."
"The crown prince bought his work? And he's wandering around looking like a bum?"
The whispers reached me, but I ignored them. In fact, I enjoyed it. Geniuses were supposed to look a bit eccentric, after all.
We entered a men's clothing store. The clerk scanned us up and down, frowned, and started to approach.
Without a word, I pulled a wad of bills from my jacket pocket and flashed it. The clerk's face instantly morphed into capitalism's warmest smile.
"Welcome, gentlemen! How may I assist you?"
"This kid. Outfit him head to toe in the best fabrics."
Franz stood in front of the mirror, looking dazed.
As clerks swarmed to take measurements and drape fabrics, he stood rigid like a robot.
"Not getting anything for yourself, sir?"
He asked from across the mirror.
"Just grab me something off-the-rack. Something comfortable for working in."
I had no real interest in dressing up. I'd end up splattered with paint in the studio anyway. What mattered was making sure my "assistant" didn't look shabby. If the guy next to me looked poor, it made me look diminished too.
In his new getup—stripped of his ragamuffin clothes, now in a velvet jacket, shorts, and gleaming shoes—Franz looked like a different person. A proper young master from a wealthy family.
"Wow... I don't even recognize myself."
He scratched his head, embarrassed.
"Handsome devil now. No more getting called a bread thief wherever you go."
We strolled the street, arms loaded with shopping bags. Stomachs rumbling, we ducked into a fancy restaurant we passed. The waiter politely showed us to a table.
Slicing into my steak, I gazed out the window. The street buzzed as always, people chasing their desires in a frenzy.
Just days ago, I'd been drooling on the other side of that glass, peering in. A single pane divided the classes. Now I was inside, but strangely calm.
Success wasn't all that special after all.
Then the entrance grew noisy.
"Fully booked? Don't you know who I am?"
A familiar voice. Arrogant, irritated, with that peculiar nasal German twang.
I turned. An elderly gentleman in a bowler hat was berating the manager. White beard, stern eyes, cane.
Christian Griepenkerl.
Professor at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. The man who'd rejected historical Hitler twice. The one who'd sneered at my work, saying I had talent only for architecture.
My heart sank, then flared hot.
Fate had a twisted sense of humor. Running into the source of my trauma right when I was at my peak.
Griepenkerl shoved past the manager and locked eyes with me as he tried to enter.
His eyes widened. At first he didn't recognize me, but then he took in the shopping bags, Franz's polished look, and my distinctive gaze. Recognition dawned.
"You..."
He approached my table.
"Adolf Hitler? Right?"
I chewed my meat slowly before looking up. Even setting down my knife oozed leisure.
"Long time no see, Professor. Eaten yet?"
Griepenkerl's face twisted in fury. He'd seen the papers, no doubt. The reject he'd dismissed as trash, chosen by the crown prince. Cognitive dissonance between his professorial pride and reality.
"So you're the sort who eats here now? Sold one freak painting?"
"Freakish? His Highness called it 'insightful.'"
He flinched at the crown prince's name. Power was the universal key, indeed.
"Hmph. His Highness just got a passing whim. How long do you think your unskilled scribbles will last? Art isn't some trendy cheap trinket."
He was still stiff-necked. Couldn't admit his eye was wrong. That the academy walls he'd defended his life for had cracked under a street painter.
I wiped my mouth with the napkin and stood.
"Professor. What do you consider fundamentals?"
"What?"
"Copying plaster casts exactly? Memorizing anatomy textbooks? That's fundamentals?"
I stepped closer. He retreated a step.
"To me, the academy's paintings are dead. Pretty like pinned butterflies, but they can't fly. The students you teach—they all paint the same thing, don't they? Like canned goods off a factory line."
Diners stopped eating to stare. Griepenkerl trembled with insulted rage.
"You insolent pup! Blaspheming the sacred academy! You'll never cross our threshold!"
"No desire to. I'll build my own door."
I called the manager.
"Bill here. And add the professor's meal. Call it a pupil's final courtesy to his master."
"No need! I won't touch food bought with filthy money!"
Griepenkerl slammed his cane on the floor and stormed out, huffing. His retreating figure looked oddly small. Like a loser from a bygone era exiting stage left.
Franz's eyes sparkled as he asked,
"Sir, who's the old man? Why's he so mad?"
"The examiner who flunked me."
"Oh, that cross-eyed professor?"
"Yeah. But I just got one over on him."
I thought it'd feel good. But actually facing him left a strange emptiness. The old professor had just lived by his beliefs. Beliefs out of step with the times.
He wasn't who I needed to fight. Something bigger. People's prejudices, outdated customs ruling the world, the trend of treating art as power's ornament.
"Let's go, Franz. Got work to do."
We left the restaurant. Instead of heading straight to the studio, I walked along the Ringstrasse.
Majestic buildings lined the way. Parliament, city hall, the art academy.
Through the main gate, I glimpsed the courtyard. Students with easels, painting. All the same poses, compositions, styles.
Fundamentals, as Griepenkerl said.
But no "me" in any of them.
"Franz, see that?"
"Yeah. Big brothers painting."
"That's school. A factory turning people into machine parts."
I pulled out my sketchbook from my pocket. Inspiration struck.
Subject for the next piece.
[Slaughterhouse of Souls].
Academy classroom backdrop. But the students aren't human. Headless mannequins. Professors in butcher aprons, jamming identical plaster busts onto the dummies' necks.
Floors slick with severed individualities like blood. Outside the window, free birds smashing into the glass, dying.
This wasn't personal revenge against Griepenkerl. It was a declaration of war on the education system.
"Sir, your eyes look scary again."
Franz tugged my sleeve worriedly.
"Don't worry. This time it's something fun."
"Liar. Whenever you say it's fun, people freak out."
"That's what makes it fun."
We returned to the gallery. Morgenstern was already squealing happily into the flood of order calls.
"Hitler! Inquiries from Paris now! You're on track to be an international star."
"Paris? Where that monster Picasso lives."
"Picasso? Oh, the Cubist? Different vein from you. Yours is more... dramatic, say."
Dramatic. Good word. My life was a soap opera melodrama.
I climbed to the attic. Set up a fresh canvas, grabbed charcoal.
Drew lines boldly.
This painting needed to be colder. Not exploding emotion, but dissecting the system's flaws like a surgeon, cool and precise.
Colors restrained too. Grays, blues, pale whites. To capture the academy's authoritarian chill.
Mid-stroke, a thought hit.
The original Hitler turned to politics after failing the academy. Dragged the world into war's inferno.
What if he'd passed? Become a mundane painter, ordinary citizen?
No. That destructive energy inside him would've erupted somehow. If not on canvas, then on maps.
Now I was channeling that energy onto canvas. A war, not with guns, but brushes and knives. A cultural war.
"Sir, I wanna go to school."
Franz, rolling on the bed, said out of nowhere.
I paused my brush and turned.
"School? Didn't you see what I showed you? A factory."
"Still. Wanna learn letters, make friends..."
His eyes were earnest. To a street kid, school wasn't prison—it was a dream.
I blanked for a moment. Had I forced my views too hard?
"I'll teach you letters. Friends... you can make 'em here."
"You don't have friends, sir."
Ouch. Right on target.
"Egon Schiele's there. That nutcase."
"He's more patient than friend."
Speechless. Kid had sharp eyes.
"Fine. We made money, so school it is. Not the academy—someplace freer."
"For real? Yay!"
Franz bounced on the bed. Should've sent him sooner, seeing him this happy.
Back to the painting.
Education.
I painted critiques of the system, yet denied the kid beside me a real chance to learn.
Hypocrisy.
I was no different from the hypocrites I mocked.
Set down the brush, smudged the canvas corner.
In the painting, beside the butcher-professor, I added a small window. Light seeped through the crack. One mannequin turning toward it.
Not yet fitted with a plaster head. The only one with its own face.
Could be Franz. Or my past self.
Hope.
First time adding hope to my work. Cringe-worthy, but it felt right.
"Franz, come here."
"Why?"
"Model for me. Mannequin this time? Nah, need a real person."
"Again? Model fee this time?"
"Tuition."
He grinned and rushed over.
Night deepened. Vienna's streets glittered, but my attic light burned hotter.
Professor Griepenkerl, look forward to it.
Your reject will show you exactly how he dismantles your school.
Revenge is a dish best served cold, but art? Pour it scalding hot in their faces. That's the taste.