The Young Lady in Blue by Adeline Adams
Adeline Adams's narrator, a New York sculptor, confesses his weakness for beauty of color over form, which explains why he yielded to the young lady who arrives at his studio one May afternoon dressed in black mourning. His assistant Gigi Arcangelo, ordinarily disciplined, breaks studio rules to admit her despite the sculptor's crowded schedule, which includes a tiresome sitting with Senator Bullwinkle, a head of Christ, figures for Iowa, a bust of General Daly, and a cracked relief of the Spanker-Sampson children. The visitor, whose card reads a name he mistakes for Chittenden, carries a plaster cast of her dead mother's hand and asks the sculptor to carve it in marble as a personal keepsake, wanting a Bible, lace at the wrist, and knitting-needles included. The sculptor, who considers copying casts beneath his art, tries to dissuade her, explaining that modern sculptors no longer do all their own carving and that such literal mourning-pieces may seem outdated to her later. Gigi, smitten with the visitor, interrupts to praise her mother's hand and produces a block of fine pink marble that his brother-in-law once took from the workshop of a cathedral in Italy. The sculptor agrees to have Gigi rough out the hand and book in that marble while he finishes it for four hundred dollars, refusing the lace-and-knitting-needles combination. Before leaving, the girl corrects her name: Mariellen Clarenden, not Chittenden. The sculptor tells her that if, after a year abroad seeing real art, she no longer wants the piece, the agreement is void. A year later, on the same May date, Mariellen returns from Paris and Italy, now accompanied by her fiancé Jack, an engineer. She tells the sculptor he was right: travel has changed her taste, and she wants only the plaster cast back, not the marble hand, and takes the box away with her, leaving the finished marble hand unclaimed behind a curtain. The sculptor and Gigi are crushed, since they had intended the fee to fund art education for Gigi's disabled son Mario. That afternoon Senator Bullwinkle's sitting goes badly until he notices the marble hand and reacts with sudden passionate recognition, revealing unexpected depth that lets the sculptor finally capture his likeness in clay. The Senator reveals the hand reminds him of his late twin sister, and that the mother in question, Clarenden's wife, was his own sister; Mariellen is his niece. He buys the marble hand on the spot for five hundred dollars. Moments later Mariellen returns, having secretly come back to pay for and claim the marble hand herself without Jack's knowledge, since Jack is anxious about their finances. She finds her uncle already holding it, and the two are reconciled over the piece, with the Senator keeping it and Mariellen adding a promised contribution toward Mario's art education a year later.
By Adeline Adams · Genre: Literary Fiction, Short Story, Art Fiction · 10,200 words
First lines
As my wife says, I am by nature unduly sensitive to beauty. You would hardly expect this fault in a sculptor-you who perhaps judge all sculptors from the war memorials you have seen. And with me, the worst of it is, I am even more susceptible to color than to form. My long acquaintance with form has put me on my guard against its wiles, and my joy in beautiful shapes is forever enhanced by the free play of my critical faculty. But in the presence of lovely color, I am unarmed, weak-kneed. All I can do is to take pleasure in it, for I do not know enough about it to be critical, in any satisfying way. This explains why I fell, and fell far, for the young lady in blue. I admit that I would not have done for Senator Bullwinkle just what I did for her.
What this Textopian page supports
The Young Lady in Blue is listed on Textopian as a short story by Adeline Adams, dated Date unknown.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Short story
- Author: Adeline Adams
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Literary Fiction, Short Story, Art Fiction, Character Study, Slice of Life
- Length: 10,200 words
- Structure: 1 section, 78 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
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- Work identity for The Young Lady in Blue by Adeline Adams
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
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Genres
- Literary Fiction — The narrative employs sophisticated introspection, psychological depth, and philosophical reflection on art, beauty, and human nature. The prose style, unreliable narrator perspective, and focus on internal experience over plot events are characteristic of literary fiction.
- Short Story — The work is formally structured as a short story with concentrated action, a limited cast of characters, and a focused narrative arc that develops themes within a limited timeframe and space.
- Art Fiction — The central plot revolves around the sculptor's artistic practice, the tension between commercial demands and artistic integrity, artistic philosophy, and the relationship between artist, patron, and creative process.
- Character Study — The narrator provides extensive psychological analysis of himself and others—the sculptor's susceptibility to beauty, Senator Bullwinkle's hidden depths, and Mariellen's evolution—prioritizing character development over external action.
Tags
sculptors · sculpture · marble · New York · artist studio · mourning · grief · memory · beauty · form and color · artistic integrity · commissioned work