Plot Summary
On a cold night in 1947, a former Russian tattoo parlor owner named Drioli walks through the streets of Paris. When he passes by an art gallery and sees a painting by Soutine, he reminisces about a time long-ago when they were friends. Thirty years earlier, Soutine had been in love with Drioli's wife Josie. Once when they were all drunk, Drioli asked Soutine to paint a picture on Drioli's back and then tattoo over it. Josie posed for it, and Drioli still has the tattoo on his back. During the Second World War, Josie died and Drioli lost his business, being forced into panhandling.
Drioli enters the art gallery, and shows the crowd his incredible tattoo. Several people make bids for it, also inquiring after Drioli's health because the picture actually does not have any value as long as he is alive. Two men in particular offer unusual proposals. One says he will pay for a skin-grafting operation so that the artwork may be removed from Drioli's back, and that he will also pay for the artwork thus obtained; other patrons warn that Drioli would never survive the surgery. The other man, claiming to be the owner of the Bristol Hotel in Cannes, asks Drioli to become an employee of the hotel and to live a life of luxury while exhibiting his back to the guests, somewhat like a model. Drioli, who is hungry, accepts the latter's proposal (though actually he doesn't like this man's appearance) and leaves the gallery with him. His new "patron" invites Drioli to have a good meal together and asks him how he wants to have his duck.
The narrator then explains that there is no Bristol Hotel in Cannes, and that a heavily varnished painting matching exactly the description of Drioli's tattoo turned up for sale at an auction in Buenos Aires a few weeks later. The implication is that the alleged hotel owner murdered Drioli in order to obtain the art on his back. Rather than stating this explicitly, the narrator says that the evidence "causes one to wonder a little, and to pray for the old man's health, and to hope fervently that wherever he may be at this moment, there is a plump attractive girl to manicure the nails of his fingers, and a maid to bring him breakfast in bed in the mornings."
Read more about this topic: Skin (short Story)
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