Speaking of Angels

Speaking of Angels by Adeline Adams

Apollos Rivers, a strikingly handsome eighteen-year-old from Montreal, is engaged by the narrator, a sculptor named Jefferson, to model for a major commission called Three Angels: two winged marble youths and a dominating bronze female figure. Apollos, named by his goldsmith father after the original French name of the elder Paul Revere of colonial history, is resented by studio acquaintances for his beauty, manicured nails, and blushing ears, and is suspected of vanity. To keep him occupied through a rural summer of work, Jefferson also hires Phineas Stickney, a well-bred but poorly-postured boy descended from a Mayor, a Governor, and a Signer. At the country studio, Jefferson works Apollos mornings and Phineas afternoons, hoping Phineas's refinement will improve Apollos's manners. Instead, Apollos proves the far superior model, holding poses with discipline while Phineas slumps and talks. Jefferson learns from Apollos that Phineas once tricked him into wearing stage makeup to win a bet with a rich friend, humiliating him when he realized in a train mirror that he'd been made up to look like a girl; Apollos beat Phineas for it, though the two later reconciled, and Phineas quietly bought Apollos's ill sister Ellie the French doll Apollos had wanted to earn money for. Apollos reveals unexpected depth: he manicures his nails deliberately, copying the hands of Michael Angelo's David because he noticed sculptors favor that type; he speaks French and German fluently from his mixed-heritage upbringing (his mother was from Strasbourg); and he lost a teaching job at Elmdale High School only because a trustee wanted the position for a relative. He calls modeling work a mere pis-aller, hinting at unstated ambitions. Jefferson leaves for a fishing trip, and while away receives a telegram from Phineas: the studio has burned. Phineas, careless with a fire meant to roast corn, let flames spread from a stone wall to the studio. Apollos, working in a nearby garage on a secret clay bust, organized a rescue with Phineas, the town drunkard Prince Eugene Gage, One-Eye Sims, and one of the Beecher boys, saving both angel figures. Apollos then risked himself again to retrieve the half-size study model, sustaining a broken leg and a burned arm and shirt in the process. Returning, Jefferson finds his angels safe and discovers, in the garage, an accomplished clay bust of himself that Apollos had been secretly sculpting from memory, revealing his true ambition to become a sculptor. Phineas, chastened and full of admiration for Apollos, proves himself a capable amateur carpenter, drawing up plans to rebuild the burned studio wing. With the same crew of townsmen, the two boys help restore the angel figures to their stands, and Apollos declares the angels finished. Jefferson agrees and telegraphs for his plaster-moulder. The narrator relates that Apollos went on to become a sculptor and Phineas an architect; the two remain close friends and have together won the commission for a big Unknown Heroism monument.

By Adeline Adams · Genre: Literary Fiction, Coming-of-Age/Bildungsroman, Social Satire · 2 chapters · 6,781 words

First lines

The youth's name was Apollos Rivers. We admired him, used him, and for a time, despised him, too. Why we admired and used, I can easily explain. Apollos was every inch his name-blond, athletic, superb; no model in New York posed as faithfully. Why we despised-well, the logic of that is more complicated. Our contempt was doubtless merely a habit, formed on sight unseen and strengthened by hearsay. Apollos, indeed! How absurd a name for the oldest Rivers boy, seeking work in studios! In vain he had politely explained to us that his late father, a bookish Montreal goldsmith, had so greatly admired the senior Paul Revere of colonial history (the Paul Revere whose Huguenot name had originally been Apollos Rivoire) that he himself, British subject though he was, had bestowed the name Apollos on his own firstborn. Later Rivers arrivals, less magnificent in physique, had to content themselves with names less proud-Tom, Chuck, Nipper, and plain Ellen.

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sculpture · artistic ambition · male beauty · prejudice · hidden talents · character transformation · artistic mentorship · male friendship · appearance versus reality · rural studio setting · coming of age · first-person narrative

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