by Émile Zola
The background and the dusky forest clearing, broken by a patch of sunshine, were still only roughly sketched in, but the two little female figures, one dark, the other fair, were practically finished and stood out remarkably clearly in the sunlight. In the foreground the man had been attempted three times and then left unfinished. It was the central figure, the reclining woman, that had received most attention. The head Claude had left untouched, but he had worked persistently on the body, using a fresh model every week until at last, despairing of ever finding one to his satisfaction, for the last two days he had been working from memory instead of from nature, in spite of his contention that his power of invention was non-existent.
Christine recognized herself immediately in the woman stretched out on the grass with one arm beneath her head and her eyes closed, smiling into space. The woman was naked, and the face was hers! She was as revolted as if the body had been hers too, as if it were herself lying there, stripped to her virgin nakedness. What hurt her more than anything else was the vehemence, the uncouthness of the painting itself; it pained her as if she had been outraged and beaten. She could not understand such painting; she thought it was abominable; she hated it instinctively, as an enemy.
She rose and repeated curtly:
‘I must be going.’
Claude looked at her, surprised and disappointed by her sudden change of mood.
‘What, so soon?’
‘Yes. They’re expecting me back. Goodbye.’
She was at the door already when he managed to take her hand and ask her tentatively:
‘When shall I see you again?’
Her little hand melting in his, she hesitated for a second and then replied:
‘I really don’t know. I’m kept so busy, you see.’
And, with drawing her hand from his, she left him, with a quick:
‘Some day, when I can … Goodbye!’
Claude stood still where he was, in the doorway, wondering what had come over her this time; why her sudden reserve, why that veiled irritation? He closed the door and stalked about the room, baffled, trying in vain to think what he had said or done to offend her. Then perplexity gave way to anger in the form of a violent oath and a vigorous shrug of the shoulders, as if to shake off his senseless pre-occupation. You never knew where you were with women! But the sight of the bunch of roses filling up his water-jug calmed him down, it smelt so sweet. It filled the whole studio with its perfume and, without another word, he set to work again in the scent of the roses.
Two more months went by. The first few days after Christine’s visit, at the slightest sound, or when Madame Joseph brought him up his lunch or his mail, Claude would look sharply round and could never conceal his disappointment. He never went out now before four in the afternoon, and when the concierge told him one evening that a young lady had called about five he had been unable to set his mind at rest until he realized that his caller must have been Zoé Piédefer, the model. Then day had followed day in a long bout of feverish activity during which he had been so unapproachable, his theorizing had been so alarmingly violent, that none of his friends had dared to argue with him, so sweeping was he in his condemnations. Painting alone was worthwhile, and everything should be sacrificed to that, parents, friends, and particularly women! From his burning fever he had slipped into excruciating despair, a whole week of impotence and doubt, a whole week tortured by the thought of his bungling stupidity. He was gradually recovering and had gone back to his usual routine, his resigned and solitary struggle with his painting when, one misty October morning, he started and hastily put down his palette. No one had knocked at the door, but he had recognized a footstep on the stairs. He opened the door, and she entered. She had come at last.
She was wearing a big grey woollen cloak which completely enveloped her and a little dark velvet hat with a black lace veil beaded with moisture from the mist outside. There was a nip of winter in the air, but Christine was in excellent spirits. She apologized for having delayed her visit so long, and smiled her frank, open smile as she admitted she had been reluctant to come; that she had even thought she did not want to come; ideas of hers, she said, things he surely understood. But he did not understand, and did not try to understand, because there she was. It was enough to know that he had not offended her and that she was willing to come and see him now and again as a good friend. There was no explanation between them. Neither of them spoke of the torment and the struggle of the preceding days; they chatted for nearly an hour, in perfect agreement, without dissembling or hostility, as if, while they were apart, they had unconsciously come to understand each other. The sketches and the life studies on the walls meant nothing to her now. She looked for a moment at the big picture, at the nude figure reclining on the grass in the blazing golden sunshine, and concluded it was not herself. It could not be; the woman in the picture had neither her face nor her limbs. How could she possibly have recognized herself in that frightful mess of colours? And a dash of pity was added to her friendship for this well-meaning young man who could not even paint a likeness. Taking her leave in the doorway, it was she who held out her hand with a cordial: ‘I shall come again, you know.’
‘I know, in another couple of months.’
‘No, next week. … You see if I don’t. … Till Thursday, then.’
And on Thursday she was there, just as she had said. From that day on she never failed to call once a week, though not always on the same day at first, but just on whatever day she happened to be free. Then, after a time, she settled on Monday, as Madame Vanzade had decided she should have Monday mornings for going out and taking the air in the Bois de Boulogne. She had to be in again by eleven, so she walked very quickly and often even ran, with the result that she was quite pink with exertion when she reached the studio, for it was quite a way from Passy to the Quai de Bourbon. For four months that winter, between October and February, she came every week through pelting rain, fogs from the Seine, or pale winter sunshine doing its best to warm the pavements. After the first month or so, if she happened to have an errand to do in Paris, she would pay an unexpected call on some other day of the week, dashing up to the studio with only a moment or two to spare, the time to say ‘good morning’ and call out ‘goodbye’ as she ran down to the street again.
Claude was getting to know Christine better now. With his everlasting distrust of women, his suspicion that she had been involved in a love affair back in the provinces had persisted for some time, but her gentle eyes and her crisp laugh had at last dispelled it, and now he felt she was as innocent as a child. As soon as she came in now she was at home, at her ease, without the faintest trace of embarrassment, ready to start her ceaseless flow of chatter. She had recounted her childhood at Clermont a score of times already, but she always came back to it. The evening her father, Captain Hallegrain, had his last stroke and dropped like a log from his chair, she and her mother were out at church. She remembered their homecoming perfectly, and the terrible night that ensued, with the Captain, who was very strong and heavily built, laid out on a mattress; she remembered so well the way his lower jaw protruded that it was impossible for her to think of him otherwise. She herself had the same shape of jaw, and when her mother was at her wits’ end to call her to order she used to say: ‘You’ve got your father’s chin, my girl. You’ll come to a sad end, like he did!’
‘Poor mother!’ Christine would say as she recalled how often she had nearly deafened her by her rowdy games. As far back as she could remember her, her mother had always sat at the same window painting her fans, a slim, silent little figure with gentle eyes, the only one of her mother’s features she had inherited. People often used to say to the dear soul, knowing it would please her: ‘She has your eyes.’ And then she would smile, happy to feel that she was at least responsible for that one touch of gentleness in her daughter’s face. After her husband’s death, she worked so hard that her sight began to fail. But she had to live somehow. The six hundred francs she drew as a widow’s pension were b
arely enough to keep the child. So for five years the child had watched her mother grow a little paler, a little thinner every day, wasting away to a mere shadow, so that now she could never forgive herself for not having been a good child, for driving her mother to despair by not persevering with her work, starting every week with the best of intentions, swearing she would soon be helping her to earn their living. But do what she might, her limbs would not keep still and every time she tried to make herself settle down she began to be ill. Then one morning her mother had been unable to get up, and had died, without a parting word, her eyes brimming with tears. That was how she could still see her mother, with eyes wide open, staring at her, weeping even after death.
At other times, when Claude asked her about Clermont, Christine would forget her sorrows and call up happier memories. She laughed heartily as she told him about what she called their ‘camp’ in the Rue de l’Éclache: herself born in Strasbourg, her father from Gascony and her mother from Paris, all dumped in Auvergne, and all hating it. The Rue de l’Éclache, which runs down to the Jardin des Plantes, was narrow and dank and dismal as a cellar; not a single shop, never a passer-by, nothing but dreary houses with the shutters always closed; but, as their apartment had a southern aspect and overlooked the inner courtyards, it fortunately got plenty of sun. Even the dining-room opened on to a wide balcony, a sort of wooden gallery with arches buried in the foliage of an enormous wistaria. That was where she had grown up, first with her invalid father, then cloistered with her mother, who was exhausted by even the shortest venture out of doors. She knew so little about the town and the surrounding district that both she and Claude had to laugh at the number of his questions she had to answer by her inevitable ‘I don’t know’. Were there any mountains? Oh yes, there were mountains on one side, you could see them at the ends of some of the streets. On the other side, if you went along other streets, you could see great flat fields stretching away into the distance; but you never went to them, it was too far. The only mountain she could identify was the Puy de Dôme, because it looked like a hump. In the town itself, she could have found her way to the cathedral with her eyes closed; you went round by the Place de Jaude and along the Rue des Gras. But it was useless to expect more of her. The rest was an inextricable tangle of narrow streets and sloping boulevards in a city of black lava creeping down a hillside, along which rain rushed like a torrent in thunderstorms. And they were formidable storms they had in Auvergne; she still shuddered at the thought of them. The lightning-conductor on the Museum, which she could see over the roofs out of her bedroom window, never seemed to be without its tongue of flame. In the dining-room, which was also the drawing-room, she had her own special window, in a deep recess, almost another little room, where she had her work table and kept her most cherished possessions. It was there that her mother had taught her to read; it was there that, later, she had so often dropped off to sleep, tired and bored by listening to her teachers. So now she made a joke of her ignorance: the well-educated young woman who could not even give the names of all the kings of France with the appropriate dates; the famous musician who never got beyond ‘Les Petits Bâteaux’; the marvellous water-colourist who spoilt all her trees because she found leaves were so hard to paint! From there she would suddenly leap to the fifteen months she had spent after her mother’s death in the big Convent of the Visitation in its magnificent gardens on the outskirts of the town. She would tell endless stories about the nuns and tremble to think how jealous, or foolish, or innocent they were. She herself was to have become a nun, though she felt stifled inside any church. Just when she was thinking it was too late to break away, the Mother Superior, who was very fond of her, had headed her away from convent life by getting her this place with Madame Vanzade. One thing about it still surprised her: how had the Mother of the Holy Angels been able to see through her so clearly? For since she had been in Paris she had grown completely indifferent to religion.
When the memories of Clermont appeared exhausted, Claude wanted to know what sort of life she led at Madame Vanzade’s, and every week she supplied him with fresh details. Life in the silent, secluded little mansion in Passy was as smooth and regular as the gentle ticking of its antiquated clocks. Two ancient retainers, a cook and a butler, who had been with the family forty years, were the only people who moved about the empty rooms, with silent, slippered tread, like ghosts. Visitors were few and far between, and then only some eighty-year-old general, so dry and shrivelled that he hardly made an impression on the carpet. It was a house of shadows, where the sunshine was filtered down to a guttering night-light strength between the laths of the window-shutters. Since the old lady had gone blind and lost the use of her legs, her sole entertainment had been to have someone read pious literature to her indefinitely. How dreary they seemed to the girl, those endless readings! If only she had known how, she would have loved to spend her time cutting out dresses, trimming bonnets or making artificial flowers. It was hard to think that she was really good for nothing, that she should have been taught so many things and yet be qualified to do little more than any simple hired girl! Besides, she felt too repressed in such a stern, secluded house that smelt of death and decay, and that same reckless feeling she had known as a child, when she wanted to force herself to work to please her mother, returned and filled her with revolt, making her want to shout and jump and dance for the sheer joy of living. But Madame treated her so gently, relieved her of her duties in the sick-room and told her to go out for long walks, and she was often conscience-stricken when she came back from the Quai de Bourbon and had to lie about having been in the Bois de Boulogne, or invent some religious service or other when she never so much as set foot inside a church. Madame seemed to grow fonder of her every day and was always giving her presents, a silk dress, an antique watch, even linen. She for her part was very fond of Madame, and had cried one evening when Madame called her her little girl, and had then sworn she would never leave her now she was so old and infirm.
‘Oh well, anyway,’ said Claude one morning. ‘Your devotion will not go unrewarded. She’ll make you her heiress!’
Christine could not believe it.
‘Do you think she will? … They say she’s worth three million. … Oh, no! I couldn’t think of it, I shouldn’t want it. Besides, what should I do if she did?’
Claude, who had turned away, said shortly:
‘You’d be rich, of course! … Besides, she’ll probably marry you off first, who knows?’
At that, Christine broke in with a laugh:
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘to one of her nice old friends. The colonel with the silver jaw-bone, for example! … That would be very funny!’
So they remained, on a sound footing of good friendship. He was almost as inexperienced as she was; his knowledge of women he had gleaned from casual affairs, for he lived beyond the pale of reality, in a world where love was a romantic passion. It appeared both simple and natural to both of them to go on meeting as they did, in secret, but as friends merely, with a handshake for greeting on arrival and another handshake for leave-taking. He had even stopped wondering just how much this nicely brought-up girl really knew about life in general and men in particular, and it was she who found him shy, and would often look at him with that tremor of surprise and uncertainty in her glance that springs from passion undisclosed. But so far the pleasure of being together was still unspoilt by any hint of emotional stress. Their handshakes were honest and frank, their conversation varied and lively, and when they argued it was as two friends who know they will never quarrel. But their friendship was becoming so vital that they could no longer live without each other.
As soon as Christine arrived Claude would take the key out of the door. Christine insisted that he should, so that no one should come and disturb them. After the first few visits she had soon taken possession of the studio and made herself at home in it. She was sorely tempted to try to tidy up the place, for she suffered torments surrounded by such neglect. But it was no e
asy undertaking, as Claude refused to let Madame Joseph sweep the floor lest the dust should settle on his wet canvases. So Christine’s first attempts at tidying were looked upon with a worried and anxious eye. What was the good of moving things around? he asked. Wasn’t it enough to have them handy? And yet she seemed to be so happy doing her little chores that he let her jolly him into giving her the run of the place, so that now she no sooner arrived than she took off her gloves, pinned up her skirt to keep it clean, pushed everything everywhere, and had the place straightened up in no time. The heap of accumulated cinders had gone from in front of the stove, the bed and the washstand were hidden by the screen, the divan had been brushed and dusted, the wardrobe polished, the deal table cleared of dirty crockery and paint stains; and over the chairs arranged in pleasing symmetry and the wobbly easels propped against the walls the enormous cuckoo-clock with its blaze of bright red flowers sent out a tick which seemed to have gained in resonance. The result was marvellous. The studio was unrecognizable. Claude could hardly believe his own eyes when he saw her bustling round the room, singing as she worked. Could this possibly be the girl who said she was lazy and that work gave her terrible headaches, he wondered? She laughed. Brain work did give her headaches, but working with her hands and feet did her a world of good, she said, and kept her from wilting. She confessed, as if it were some sort of vice, her fondness for the really heavy work of a house, a taste deplored by her mother, whose ideal in education was the white-handed governess disdainful of anything but the most ladylike accomplishments. The talkings-to she had had, even when she was quite small, for being caught sweeping up, or dusting, or enjoying herself playing at cooking! Even now, if only she could have beaten the dust out of something, she would have found life at Madame Vanzade’s much less boring. The question was, what would they have thought of her? It would have meant she was no longer a lady; so she used to go and indulge her fancy at the studio, where she bustled around until she was quite breathless with a look in her eye like a sinner tasting forbidden fruit.