Chapters 22-26 Summary

Henri the Painter is not French, not a painter, and not born Henri. He has so steeped himself in stories of the Left Bank in Paris, which he has never visited, that he lives there in imagination, studying in magazines the latest artistic movements and regularly changing his techniques and materials, which include not paint but colored chicken feathers and nutshells. He is a superb craftsman. He lives on his unfinished thirty-five-foot boat, whose design has been in flux over the last ten years. Lacking money, Henri scrounges materials and wants never to finish the craft. He houses it on a wooded lot rented for $5. The compact cabin is where he sleeps and entertains friends. Swarthy and morose, he wears a beret long after they are out of fashion, and smokes a calabash pipe. He has married twice and had numerous...