by James Reese
Typically, I would arrive for a sitting to find the Countess prostrated on one divan or another, black-clad and barefoot. On the carpet beneath her lay one of a corps of serfs charged with the recitation of the Countess’s favorite stories, to which she’d doze each day between the hours of two and six. During our sittings—which were uncommonly easy, as the Countess could sit still for hours, like no other model I’ve known—box upon box would arrive from the capitals of fashion. The Countess would offer these boxes to me, unopened. She was disinterested, in fashion as in all else. Having hired a seamstress both talented and discreet, I eventually appeared in society very much à la mode; and jeweled at the ears, throat, wrists, and fingers. Doubtless it was Potemkin who caused to flow this steady stream de luxe.
Prince Grigori Alexandrovitch Potemkin was said to be the richest man in all the Empire. He was uncle to Catherine as well as her four sisters, two of whom, Alexandrina and Barbara, had preceded her as his mistress. For reasons I neither know nor care to contemplate, the Prince preferred his third niece to her sisters. The Prince showered her daily with silks and satins, and jewels. She had a jewelry box the size of a child’s coffin!
I am reminded of a particular day that I must and will recount, shame-faced as I am.
This day, which, for reasons that will soon become clear, I will never forget…this day I arrived early for our sitting (for I was always rushing to paint by the earliest light, though the Countess would not be woken before noon) and I witnessed, in a far corner of the salon, the scene of the serf’s preparation. Mon Dieu, what a tableau it was! Behind a half-screen of taut muslin, which was of no effect against the noonday light, a young serf—raven-haired, pale, and lithe, no older than eighteen, perhaps twenty—stood shin-deep in a copper tub while two other lecteurs washed him. These three possessed a fraternal familiarity with one another’s bodies. Clearly, the ritual was familiar to them all. Clearly, too, it was conducted at the Countess’s insistence: wafting up from beneath her divan would come not only her favored tales but the scent of rosewater and lime powder. Finally, the serf stood robed, awaiting the Countess’s sign; with a wave of her fleshy hand, he came and took his position beneath her; a second wave of her hand and his recitation would begin. But on the day in question the Countess sought no story; instead, uncharacteristically, she spoke.
Trailing her hand through that jewelry box—always within reach—she said, rather absently, “It is a shame, really, that I dislike such things. So hard, so bright.” She moved her hand through the jewels as one would through water. She held a diamond up to the light. She could not close her fist around this rock, which shot light to the four corners of the room! She added, addressing me, “…but I was heartened to hear you say the other day that you dislike them as well—and you so fine an artist.”
“I beg your indulgence, Countess, but I meant only to say that diamonds are rather difficult to paint.” (This is true; one tries to render their brilliance without success, achieving but a mass of white pigment.) “In fact,” I ventured on, “I am quite fond of diamonds.”
“Are you?” she asked, her voice uncommonly light.
“I am indeed.”
“Well, then…” and she handed the diamond down to the serf, gesturing over to the large canvas bag at my side in which I carried my brushes, half-opened tubes of pigment, spatulas, blades, and…The serf dropped the diamond into the bag: it was mine. The Countess proceeded to arrange herself just as she had for our previous sittings.
The serf, returned to his place, showed his amusement at my shock and surprise; and he showed much else. In crawling toward my bag, his robe had opened, and now he let it fall open farther. And there the two of them lay: the Countess teetering on the brink of sleep, the serf penetrating me with a stare so deep, so…Dare I tell all?
Within the quarter-hour it was the sighing of the serf I heard, broken only by the dissonance of Skavronsky’s rattling snore. My subject asleep (as often she was), I finally felt my brush fall still; and I returned the boy’s dark, unsettling, and oddly satisfying stare. Did I raise my skirt well above my ankle, did I unfasten the brooch that held tight a lace fichu over my bosom? Perhaps I did…. Time passed. We did not touch, of course; but with our eyes in a heated lock, that boy—and what life was that, for a boy of such beauty and grace?—from that boy’s flattering tumescence there issued a stream of…of pearlescent compliment. Or at least I took it as such. No words were said, but there came then two complicit smiles, sighs, and finally laughter loud enough to rouse the Countess.
“I am ready,” announced she, her piled hair askew; she wiped backhandedly at a string of spittle that slid from her thickly painted lower lip.
“Ah,” said I, “but the day’s work is done.” My brush was atremble in my hands. I stood no hope of harnessing discipline that day; indeed, what little I’d managed to add to the countess’s portrait had to be scraped away that evening.
“So it is,” sighed the Countess, “so it is.” She excused the serf. (I asked his name, but she did not know it; indeed, stunned was she to consider that he might even have a name.) Soon, she descended again into sleep. And I took my leave, amused and newly rich.
(Eventually, upon my return to Paris, I took the diamond to three jewelers. Finally, a fourth dealt honestly with me and said these things: that the diamond belonged in a museum, not a jeweler’s shop; that I was doubtless being trailed though the streets by agents of the first three jewelers; and lastly, should I ever find someone with resources enough to purchase the diamond, I might live out my days in an excess of luxury. As I was making money enough, and as no purchasers presented themselves, I kept the Countess’s diamond. I have it still.)
…Ah, yes, such luck and fun I found in Russia!…And first love, too; or so it seems now.
When I met the Prince of Nassau (at a supper held at the home of the Countess Stroganoff) he was in full bloom. As a younger man, he’d proven himself in the Seven Years’ War, and spent three years with Bougainville circumnavigating the globe. Wherever he went, detractors and admirers alike spoke of his storied encounter with the Tahitian Queen. It was reputed that she’d offered him a crown. (She had, and he’d declined.)…Tall and broad, he was, with black hair and the bluest of eyes. And what a repertoire of love he’d amassed the world over!
Knowing each other but a few weeks, the Prince and I set out one winter morning in a carriage-and-four, eventually debarking along the banks of the Neva, where, to my astonishment, there were gathered hundreds, nay thousands of pilgrims, come for the blessing of the river.
When the ice of the Neva is about to break, the archimandrite comes to its banks in the company of the Imperials to bestow a benediction. Holes are cut in the ice and the faithful draw up a share of what is now holy water. In a cruel custom, women dip their newborn children in the water; not infrequently one slips away beneath the ice, leaving the mother not to grieve but to give thanks for the angel that has ascended.
The horror of having this told to me by the Prince—while we sat riverside in the fur-lined comfort of his carriage—was underscored by the groaning of the ice. I watched horrified as the pilgrims leapt from floe to floe, each making the sign of the cross, each convinced that should they fall in the river and freeze it would be…providential. The first to succeed in crossing the Neva presented a silver cup of river water to the Imperials; they, in turn, filled the cup with gold and passed it back.
The Prince enjoyed this day-long spectacle. I found it enervating—two men and a child drowned that day—and so perhaps I did not respond appropriately when, timed to coincide with the presentation of gold to the pilgrim, the Prince slipped a large bracelet onto my arm. Made of hammered gold, and inlaid with sapphire and pearl, it bore this inscription: “Ornez celle qui orne son siècle.” Adorn she who adorns her century.
It was days later that I was summoned home by my Queen, never to see the Prince of Nassau again.
…Jewels, jewels, jewels. Just so many rocks and stones, really,
however exquisite. But that bracelet—touched as it was by first love and bearing that inscription—means a great deal to me. I do not wear it. I never have. (What painter wears bracelets?) But I have it here now, heavy in my free hand, as I write to you, for you, whoever you are.
Adorn your century, witch, in whatever way you can, for it is the application of our talents, with beauty our intent, that empowers us—and power, thus achieved, that renders us whole.
21
From the Book of Sebastiana d’Azur—
“To the French Court
I Meet My Queen—Preparations
for a Southerly Escape”
WHEN WORD of my return to Paris—and my riches—reached my husband, he sent his man around with his card, seeking my assent to a visit. I struck a line through his name and sent the card back; this quite piqued him; and when next his man came around it was to deliver a letter bearing a thinly veiled threat. (My husband alone knew of my provenance; and it is far easier to fake the provenance behind a portrait than behind a person, this I know.)
We met at a café, and spoke at length of nothing. Eventually it became clear: I sought his silence and he sought a quantity of my cash; a deal might have been struck if only I hadn’t…Alors, it was when the man dared speak of that sum of money that would secure but one year’s silence—he’d keep me on a tether, would he?—that I began to…to trouble him. Pain him. (It was my witch’s will at work, perhaps for the very first time; of course, I did not know that then.)
And so, as he drew from his breast pocket a contract of sorts, I, indignant, angry, envisioned his heart to be a seizing machine; and watched with satisfaction as his hands returned to pat that same pocket, this time to press away the sudden sharp pains beneath it. Had I effected this? I wondered. Impossible! A moment later, when, recovered, Monsieur oh so politely suggested we might negotiate the sum, my world went red again, and this time it was his tongue I imagined as I knotted a cherry stem with my ungloved fingers. And, yes…he set to choking. Perhaps I was somehow effecting this. Intrigued, I was; and pleased. I watched as his hands ringed his thick neck and the flesh of his face progressed from pink to purple to white. If it was my will at work, what a wondrous discovery! (Of course, never for a moment did witchery figure into this; only in hindsight would I understand what I’d done that day.)…For certainty, for vengeance, and yes, for fun, I played upon my husband’s lungs, saw them as the closing locks of a canal; and when he tipped backward in his cane-backed chair, I rushed around the tiny table to his side—ever the faithful wife—and, kneeling, lowering my lips to his ear, whispered, “You’ll go away, won’t you? And never utter my name in less than admiring tones?” Only when he nodded and snorted out his assent did I stand; closing my eyes, I let the locks of his lungs open and air flood in. Leaving him to the ministrations of strangers, I slipped from the café unseen, and greatly satisfied; but still I attributed the “success” of the mission to luck and the dissolute ways to which my husband had long ago taken, the toll of which showed: his burgeoning belly, his cherry nose, his shallow breathing.
As for my old friends, the people of the streets of Paris, they’d helped me so often, had taught me so much; but hadn’t I crossed the continent in search of a new life? I had, and so I saw none of them. I even denied a few of them. I am not proud of this—no, not proud at all—but neither do I have any regrets. When I saw someone I knew from days past I ignored him or her. Those people did not recognize me, for I bore no resemblance to the girl I’d been. Once, in fact, an old woman with whom I’d huddled one winter night begged of me, of me. I gave her all I had, of course—money enough for several weeks’ worth of food, or drink. But I found I could not bear the sight of my new and finer self as reflected in her jaundiced eye.
Some days after my arrival, I sent word to the Court that I was prepared to paint the Queen. I received this response: I was to copy four existing portraits of the Queen, hanging about the capital, in both public and private places, and only upon approval of these would I be invited to paint a portrait from life.
I was enraged; naively, briefly enraged. But what choice did I have? And so I dashed off the four copies and had them delivered to the Court. By what criteria they were judged, I’ve no idea. In due time, three liveried men arrived at my door bearing my invitation to Court—I noted pridefully that it bore both the royal seal and signature.
And so I went to Versailles, the splendors of which I will not describe, as such accounts are easily come by.
That first day I sat waiting for hours on a stiff-backed chair in a hall whose every surface seemed mirrored. The walls—mirrored, yes—were hung with mostly inferior portraits. Thankfully, there was a lone Van Dyke, as well as some heads by Rubens and Greuze to hold my interest.
Long hours passed. Finally, another coterie of liveried men arrived and issued me into an antechamber. (At Court, wherever one looked, there were servants or nobles in attendance; the French Court suffered a surfeit of servitude, the like of which I have never seen elsewhere.) More waiting. Finally, I was joined by Madame de Guéménée, a favorite of the Queen; she was also governess to the King’s sisters, Clotilde and Elisabeth. This woman—and here I will suppress my initial opinion of her, owing to later kindnesses received from her—this woman, decorated to excess, entered the antechamber trailed by no fewer than a half-dozen pugs.
Soon more attendants arrived to lay a small table with the midday dinner. (I’d arrived at the palace just after break of day—as always, seeking to paint by early light—and now here it was suppertime!) Madame and I—and the dogs, porcine pests, no higher than my shin—proceeded to dine. The dogs had bowls with a china pattern all their own. An attendant fastened bibs around their thickly fleshed necks.
Some of the dogs, said Madame de G., were the Queen’s. Indeed, they bounded about that antechamber barking and nipping and…and relieving themselves as though the throne were theirs. Amazingly, not one of the many servants present—there was one in each corner of the room, and two beside each door—seemed to have full charge of the mean-spirited, muscular mutts. I watched in horror as these dogs chewed the edges of age-old tapestries, shat on the Savonnerie carpets, and scratched at the parquet floors with their tiny clicking black-lacquered nails. They scrambled up onto damask-covered couches. They chewed the gold leaf from chair legs. (Perhaps that is the true and lasting measure of Versailles: that the dogs there passed precious metals!)
Only after supper was I informed that the Queen was unable to see me that day. “You are to return on the morrow,” announced de Guéménée, reading from the note that had been carried into the room by not one but two men—the one to carry it and the other, presumably, to catch it should it fall.
I was angry. Again, what could I do? I could refuse to return. I thought of those artists, my lesser peers, who sought constantly the Queen’s attention. Tischbein, Grassi, Lampi, Vestier, Mosnier; and the women, Marguerite Gérard, Marie-Victoire Lemoine, Rose Ducreux—and despicable Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, whose work was indistinguishable from her master’s and who…ah, but it is of no import now…. Yes, I thought then of those painters, rivals all, any one of whom would have crawled to Versailles to paint that corps of the Queen’s pugs, and I said yes, fine, I would return on the morrow. I departed then, but not before I succeeded in showing the snapping, cerise-collared pug—it was worrying my hem—the pointed part of my shoe!
Neither did I meet the Queen my second day at Court.
The third morning at Court, I left my assigned chair in yet another vast and drafty hall, this one crammed with history paintings hung floor to ceiling, four-high, and went for a walk. I was growing increasingly indignant with each passing hour. I determined that I would never again be used in such a way, neither by queen nor pauper.
I was walking along a thin avenue bordered by high shrubs, fragrant with jasmine and honeysuckle, considering my proper vengeance—perhaps I’d portray the Queen with pendulous earlobes, or a too-thin upper lip, or large hands.
Just then, hearing a commotion, I rounded a hedge and came full upon the Queen and her party. There she stood. Only at some pointed sign from an attendant did I remember to curtsy; unpracticed at that art, I nearly overbalanced.
It was Madame de G. herself who stepped forward and presented me to the Princesse de Lamballe and Yolande de Polignac, and then, finally, the Queen herself.
I said nothing. The Queen said nothing. Only the birds in the trees dared speak. And then, in a move which sent her party into paroxysms, the Queen slowly, slowly, took a half-step backward, snapped shut her fan, and with a grand gesture bade me continue my walk in whatever direction I chose. The sudden intake of breath among the Queen’s courtiers sounded like the whistling mistral! This was, of course, an uncommon courtesy. Quite uncommon.
Arriving at Court for the fourth consecutive day, I was told that the Queen would see me directly, and so she did.
I confess: I became an admirer the moment I met her. Then—this was the middle eighties—the Queen was still quite beautiful, or so she seemed to me. She was tall and well-built; if one liked her, she was “large-boned,” “stout” at worst; if one disliked her, well, there were adjectives in abundance. Her features were not quite regular: she had inherited the long and narrow, oval-shaped face of her Germanic ancestors. Her eyes were a beautiful blue, but not large. They seemed to me kind eyes. Her nose was slender and fine. I will say that I found her mouth too small to be beautiful, and yes, her lips were a bit thick—but these faults will not be seen in any portrait I painted of her! No indeed.
Her walk was…stately. She carried her head—mon Dieu! the irony there—she carried her head, I say, with a dignity that stamped her “Queen” in the midst of all the Court.
What I most clearly recall these long years later is the splendor of her complexion. Her skin was nearly transparent. I had some difficulty rendering its true effect, for it bore no umber in the painting. I chose a fresh, delicate palette, and after only three sittings showed the Queen a bust that pleased her greatly. It was then she extended that invitation most sought after by all the portraitists in France—no, in all of Europe! She invited me to paint the royal children.