by Heather Webb
“Don’t the English eat rabbit?” Camille said. “Or are you too civilized there?”
“Some eat rabbit,” Amy said, “though I would call it a dish for the lower classes. It isn’t common in our circles, but then, neither are naked men on pedestals.” The ladies laughed.
After a moment of silence, Camille said, “I have a proposition for you both.” She could not wait to plunge into the topic weighing on her mind. “Would you be interested in sharing a studio?”
Emily bobbed her head forward. “I would love to, but I’m not sure I could afford it.”
Camille swigged from her wineglass. “If we pool our resources, we could split all costs three ways. Tools, materials, models. Rent and firewood. Just imagine—we could work on whatever we like without distractions.”
Amy rotated her glass on the table over and over again. “What about a teacher?”
“I have one already. You may have heard of him—Alfred Boucher?”
“I have heard his name.” Emily blotted her mouth.
“Here we are, ladies.” The waiter placed three steaming plates before them. “I’ll bring more wine.”
“Would your tutor work with all three of us?” Amy asked.
“I’m certain he will. He’s generous and kind. I’ve had to put off my lessons with him many times because of school, but we could schedule regular sessions with him. What do you say?”
Emily forked a large bite of chicken into her mouth.
Camille leaned across the table toward them. “Monsieur Jacques said we must take risks to advance. Women have few chances. This is ours.”
Amy drummed her fingertips on the tabletop. Finally, she said, “I could teach piano lessons for extra money.”
“I’ll ask my father for an increase in my monthly stipend,” Emily said. “I caught him with his mistress so now he gives me whatever I ask for.”
“Emily!” Amy nearly choked.
“So you’re in?” Camille said.
“We’re in!” the ladies said in unison.
Camille whooped. “A toast!” She held up her glass. “To taking risks!”
At the conclusion of class, Camille packed her things and walked home. Her fingers throbbed and her stomach rumbled. A hot bath and a little food would go a long way. Yet she still had a series of sketches to do before bed for a new piece. Madame B, she would call it.
She entered the front door of the building and climbed the stairs to her family’s apartment. She dreaded speaking to anyone. If she could, she would disappear before the family retired to the salon. They had all grown accustomed to seeing her less and less often these days. As she removed her hat and unwound the burgundy scarf at her neck, she felt a trickle of water dampening her shoe. She had knocked over a bucket at school, by accident, and trudged through the puddle. Now, her hem dripped water on the floor. She sighed as she ran a hand, thick with clay, over her hair.
Mother’s voice drifted through the small apartment. “She’s quite beautiful and very intelligent. Your mind for science would be a match for hers. She adores the outdoors and dabbles in artistic pursuits.”
Camille’s hand flew to her mouth. Who in the world could that be?
An unknown male voice replied, “I look forward to meeting her. When did you say she would return?”
“I thought I heard the door now. Camille, is that you?”
Camille froze. Mother had already arranged for a meeting with a suitor? She leaned against the wall for support. The payment had finally come due.
Chapter 4
Auguste pointed to his empty snifter. A barkeep with muttonchop whiskers raised an equally furry eyebrow. Rodin pointed again and fixed the barkeep with his ice blue eyes. The man nodded and pulled a bottle of brandy from the shelf.
Rodin didn’t often drink liquor, but this day required it. He had molded a dozen or more maquettes for his current piece, but none seemed right. His problem wasn’t that he lacked inspiration—quite the opposite. So many ideas bombarded him that the true message of his work eluded him. Usually the miniature clay models helped. Not this time. The fine arts ministers had commissioned a set of bronze doors to pose as the entryway to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs—a building not yet built, but planned for more than thirty years.
He took a long draft before peering at his reflection in the glass. The burnt orange of the brandy matched his amber hair, and his eyes looked, well, distraught. The doors had proved to be hellish so far, but he was happy, was he not? The project meant he would have a fighting chance at the prestigious Légion d’Honneur. With it, he would secure true recognition and acknowledgment from the bastards who had shut him out. Breaking through their ancien sculpture styles, their gilded gates, had been a struggle for twenty years.
Rodin’s own furry eyebrows shot up. Gates! The gates of hell! He looked at the man to his left and back at the barkeep. Had they witnessed this miraculous revelation? Did they know what this meant? A rush of jubilation tingled over his skin. He had to restrain himself from grabbing the barkeep by the collar and shaking him in a fit of joy. Instead, Auguste swirled the ochre brandy in its pear-bottomed glass and gulped it down.
The Gates of Hell, or the gates guarding the museum, would be infested with souls—fools—clamoring outside them, consumed with ambition and lust, begging to be allowed entry.
Auguste’s mind raced with a flurry of ideas. He would read Dante’s Inferno again. He could see the sculpture burdened with man’s suffering, the quivering needs of the flesh. He would create it all! He slammed his fist down on the mahogany bar.
The barkeep, shining a set of glasses, paused to direct a weary glance in his direction.
Auguste smiled and glanced around the room. A smoky haze hovered above the heads of the patrons. The far corners were cast in shadow, though Auguste could make out a pair of drunken young men with pomade-slicked hair and expensive suits. In another corner a woman with an ample bosom laughed at something her companion had said, jiggling the black feather that sprang from the top of her hat. She leaned forward and cupped her lover’s face in her hands. He kissed her greedily.
Auguste grunted and faced the bar. Fools. Their sentiments would fade and veiled dislike would be all that remained. Rose’s haggard face came to mind. Though she was loyal, her desperate need to please him, to control him, grated on his nerves. He avoided spending too much time in her presence. At this point, he considered his live-in lover more of a camarade de chambre. He’d never known love, not as poets spoke of it. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing as romantic, as awe-inspiring as the day he had first touched clay.
A gentleman with a thick salt-and-pepper beard slid onto the barstool beside him. “The same.” Claude Monet pointed to Rodin’s glass. He removed his coat and beret.
“Glad you could make it.” Rodin grunted. “I thought you weren’t coming.”
“It took me a while to hail a damned cab,” Monet said. “I despise this infernal city. I’m leaving as soon as I find a place in the country.”
“Where are you going?”
“I am not sure yet.” He took a swig from his glass. “But I’m done with my father’s place in Le Havre. The pain of it wears on my soul. It washes me out to sea with the tide.”
Auguste snorted. “You’re a poet.”
“I’m a con.”
Auguste laughed, a hearty sound.
“What are you laughing at?” Monet asked. “You’re an ass yourself.”
Auguste laughed again. “I suppose I am.” He scratched his bearded chin. “What are you working on these days?”
“A tableau of sunflowers. Nearly finished, in spite of the dismal light in this town.”
“And how are . . . things?” His good friend had lost his beloved wife two years before and couldn’t shake his melancholy.
A fleeting look of pain filled Monet’s eyes, but he quic
kly composed himself. “Well enough. I’m still here, still working.” He drained his glass. The barkeep filled it again without asking. “Congratulations on your commission. It’s quite an honor, my friend.”
“My first large commission,” Auguste said in disbelief. “I’m not sure if it’s an honor or a curse. They have sent over visitors to check my progress. One even questioned my assistants to see if they cast from wax.” His face heated as anger surged once more. Ever since the blasted scandal with The Age of Bronze, his skills had been in question.
“Let them watch you work. Prove to them you aren’t a cheat.”
Rodin rubbed his eyes. “At least I finally know what I want to do with the doors. I found the cohesive element I was missing.”
The young men in the rear of the room rose from their table and stumbled to the entrance, laughing and shoving each other. Two chairs crashed to the barroom floor. The barkeep made his way across the room and followed them out.
Monet scowled at the men before asking, “Aren’t all projects a curse? They haunt you until you put the image on canvas and out of your head. Even then I hardly sleep at night.”
“This one’s different. I must prove myself to them, or I’ll never see another commission from the institut. My career won’t flourish without it.”
“You will have many others. This one isn’t different. You need to create for yourself, not them.” Monet poked Rodin in the chest. “Find your focus here. If you don’t, your work will be lacking in spirit. You always were too cerebral.”
Auguste raised an eyebrow. “And what should I do? Take up your habits? Brood and carry on with each new project, agonize over details? You don’t need to agonize; you need to work. Pencil on paper. Brush on canvas. Stop lamenting and busy yourself.”
Monet’s expression darkened.
He had said too much. His friend had only meant to help. “We have different processes, that is all.” Auguste stroked his copper-colored whiskers. “I do just fine capturing others’ sentiments.”
“And you strive to please those who prevent us from attaining success! The fine arts ministers who only look to the past. They spurn you and still, you try to please them.”
“I look to make a name for myself,” Auguste said. “I don’t give a damn if they like my work or not.”
“You’re a talented man. I admire your work, but you need to channel what burns inside you. Sort it out, and your genius will be unparalleled.”
Auguste thought his friend would understand his need to be accomplished, to turn the art world inside out. Apparently they had different ideas of how to do that. He grunted. “The next round is on me.”
Auguste slammed the door to his atelier on the Rue de l’Université. A bevy of sculptors, stonecutters, models, and other assistants looked up from their stations. A chorus of bonjours filled the air.
“Bonjour, all!” Rodin bellowed.
He strode through his spacious atelier, one of his two public studios. He had earned it after years of stonecutting and working under others. The time to propel his career forward had arrived.
Three assistants heaved an enormous block of marble into a work space. Another wrapped a finished bust to prepare it for the founder for bronzing. Two men mixing plaster squabbled and pushed one another. One stumbled into the bucket, slopping the liquid on the floor.
“Attention!” Rodin threw his coat and hat over the back of a chair and rolled up his sleeves. “You’ll waste the plaster.” The men glared at each other and returned to their task. Rodin motioned to a female model who idled on a chaise with her handsome male counterpart. “Come.”
Adèle, already undressed, climbed onto her platform.
Rodin walked around her four times, five. She sat with one leg straight, the other propped over it, knee jutting toward the ceiling. Her torso muscles twisted as she looked over her shoulder.
Auguste hadn’t gotten the line of her neck quite right. He ran a well-muscled hand down her bare neck and shoulder. Goose bumps rose on her skin and her rosy nipples hardened. She pushed out her rounded breasts in invitation.
“Don’t move, Adèle.”
“After last night, I cannot resist your touch.” Her pretty mouth formed into a pout.
He had taken her in the back room, after the others had gone. He knew she had bedded several of his assistants. Adèle had little self-control—few of his models did. Once they undressed, they removed their propriety and their sense of womanly decency. Rodin didn’t care. He craved the liveliness of youth, esprit de corps. If she gave, he would take.
He reworked his maquette for more than an hour with a wire end tool, skimming away the excess clay until the dip between her collarbone and her neck emerged.
“I could use a break,” she said at last.
Auguste ignored her. The girl complained every quarter of an hour. If he listened to her constant gripes, he’d never get anywhere. And he paid her well, far more than most sculptors. He did not settle for inferior tools or materials, and certainly not for inferior models—and, despite her complaints, Adèle was one of the best.
Auguste continued to shave bits from the molded thighs of his maquette for another hour. At last, he glanced out the window. Buildings blocked what he imagined as a colorful blaze of sunset. All he could see was an orangey glow fading to evening blue.
“You may go,” he said. “The light is waning and I need a break.”
“Finally.” Adèle stood and stretched, bending over before him. She righted herself and threw her slender arms around his neck. “I’m available . . . if you are.” She pressed her body to his.
“François asked after you this morning. Perhaps you should meet with him.” Auguste pulled her arms from around his neck and cleaned his hands. “I have more work to do at home.”
She frowned. “You are no fun.”
He admired her lithesome limbs and the curve of her hips as she sorted through her pile of clothing and pulled on her underclothes. “And you, my dear, are too much fun. Go play with someone your age.” He kissed her on the forehead like a father.
She laughed. “How old are you? Forty?”
He didn’t see why his age amused her. “Thereabouts.” He removed his apron and tossed it over a chair. “Marcel?” His voiced echoed in the vast expanse of ceiling.
A young man in a filthy smock scurried across the warehouse to meet Master Rodin.
“Tidy my station,” Rodin said. “I’m going for the day.”
“Oui, monsieur,” Marcel said.
Auguste pulled on his wool coat and cap, snatched his sketchbook from his desk, and strode to the door. Adèle’s twisted torso, her seductive look, had given him an idea for The Gates of Hell.
He walked several blocks down the Rue de l’Université, lost in thought. He didn’t notice the lacy drizzle coating his jacket and beard and dampening his face.
Adèle’s eyes had brimmed with lust. Longing burned inside a woman as it did a man, perhaps even more. The weaker sex had to present a refined and docile nature, despite their yearnings. Yet many of those he had bedded longed to break free of those restraints. Somehow it seemed unfair.
Rodin dodged an omnibus packed with passengers as he crossed the street, perched in the doorway of an inn to avoid the rain, and flipped open his sketchbook. In hurried charcoal strokes he outlined a woman on her knees before a man, sitting outside the gates of hell. He smudged the woman’s shock of hair with his thumb, then closed his book and smiled. That image, or some variation, would be a brilliant addition to his work. He would start on the studies in clay right after dinner.
He leapt into a hackney cab and rode the remaining stretch to his apartment. Once indoors, he tossed his hat and overcoat on a white chaise.
Rose rushed from the kitchen to greet him. “Really, Auguste, can’t you hang your coat?” She plucked it from the chair and hung it on a rack. �
��It’s wet. I do get tired of cleaning up after you.”
Auguste glanced at her shriveled lips and mousy brown hair, her dirty apron. He tried to remember how he had come to love this little dressmaker. But still, he could not leave her. She cared for his maquettes when he was busy with others, kept his home in working order, tended to their bills. And she was the mother of his seventeen-year-old son. The thought of young Auguste left a bitter taste in Rodin’s mouth. The drunken lout had no skills, no interest in holding a job or attending school. He slunk out of sight for stretches of time, reappearing only when he needed money.
“Can you put on a pot of tea?” he asked. “I’m going to be up late tonight.”
“You won’t have dinner?” Her face fell. “Who is your muse this time?”
“Would you prefer we pay back the advance?” Auguste asked, tone sharp. He avoided the topic he knew Rose wished to discuss. He would not be baited to talk about the women he had bedded. She had not warmed his bed in years as per her choice, so in his eyes she had lost the right to care.
“We can live on the street. Would that suit you?” He clutched his sketchbook to his chest and headed toward the kitchen. “I’ll prepare my own tea and retire in my room. Suddenly I am not hungry.”
“Don’t you love me?” Tears filled her eyes.
He spun around. “Love? How can you ask me that? Do I not put a roof over your head? Haven’t we toiled together in our poverty? I dine with you in the evenings and we share Sunday afternoons.”
Must she harass him every moment? Rose’s constant need for reassurance wore on him almost as much as her constant admonitions. He never seemed to be enough for her. Yet once, they had shared a passion of sorts. He wondered how it had withered so easily.
“Yes.” Rose dipped her head. She understood the limits of his love, though it was not the love she wished for. But he knew she would not leave him. She had nowhere to go. He was everything to her, and yet, she could not keep from grasping at his coattails as if he might slip away.