She rolls her eyes. For a moment we paint in silence. “How is Adolphe?” I ask.
“Fine. Is Manet very tall? You did not mention his height.” “Edma, this is becoming tiresome. You have spoken
of nothing else this morning. Tell me about your visit with Adolphe.”
“There is nothing to speak of where Adolphe is concerned,” Edma says. “It is all so very dull. My whole life is dull. You could at least humor me. When you tell me of the meeting, it makes me feel as if I shared the experience. I should think you would realize that, but non, you choose to hoard him all to yourself.”
I am hoarding a few details. One in particular: that despite
Rosalie’s presence, it seems he saw only me. And I am happy for it.
I cannot tell this to Edma or Maman. It would sound foolish. So I hold back this delicious detail. Something to savor. Like a child with a stolen sweet, I shall enjoy the private thought as I lie awake retracing the meeting in my head.
Second-guessing every gesture. Every smile. Every word. His hand on mine.
In my mind, I move toward him without hesitation. We stand so close I feel his breath on my cheek, my ear, my neck—
“Are you listening to me?” Edma huffs and scoots her chair away from her easel. The legs sound the impatient growl of wood raking over wood. But she does not stand up. Instead, she leans into the portrait and works with staccato jabs.
“Perhaps now you shall be more interested in your copy work at the musée?” I arch a brow at her in a way that usually makes her smile. She frowns, but then her scowl gives way to a wicked smirk.
“Oui,” she says. “Perhaps we have gained a great eagerness for what the masters might teach us.”
We laughed together. I am happy to see her spirits rise.
“In fact,” she says, her eyes bright with a fresh scheme, “let’s visit the masters now. Come, Berthe, let’s go.”
This suggestion, or possibly her exuberance, makes me feel as if I am walking down a steep staircase unsure of my footing. I inhale deeply—the scent of paint and oil and hydrangeas. My stomach pitches.
“Lunch is almost ready. We shall go Friday.”
“But today is Wednesday. That is two days away. Why not today?”
“Edma, think. Do you believe he lives at the Louvre day
and night? We have no guarantee he shall be there. Besides, I do not wish to appear overly anxious. A few days absence shall suit us.”
“It shall not suit us. You are only thinking of yourself, and that is not fair.”
“Non, my dear, dear Edma, what is not fair is that you are having a tantrum over something so minuscule.”
She stamped her slippered foot, the thud punctuating her temper. Her dark, upswept hair emphasizes her f lushed cheeks. She looks so childlike with her pink dress peeking out from her open painting smock. Paintbrush in hand, her arms dangle along the sides her chair, and she pouts.
I chuckle. I cannot help myself.
Edma glares at me and f lings her brush onto the paint-splattered table that stands between our easels. It sounds like a carillon as it strikes the grouping of glass jars—some holding pigment and brushes, others half full of linseed oil—finally resting among the mélange of sullied palettes and stray paint tubes.
She stands.
I turn back to my still life and blend a perfect highlight on the f lower petal. She plops down onto the brown divan along the wall behind me. The old piece of furniture poofs and creaks under the stress.
“Hmmph.”
I see the action so clearly in my mind’s eye, a most unre-fined expression of displeasure reserved strictly for the rare occasion when my sister and I disagree. Three hundred and sixty days of the year we get on famously.
When we do not, even the smallest issue seems catastrophic.
It hurts me to know she is angry. But it nearly paralyzes me to think of facing him again today.
Too soon.
Too eager to see how he plans to paint himself in a better light.
The odd swirling sensation returns to my belly. It curls my toes inside my slippers. I squeeze them hard to counter-act the wooziness. At least this time the feeling does not take me by surprise. I can best just about anything that does not surprise me.
I turn in my chair to my face my sister, sitting on the divan with her elbows resting on her knees, her chin on her palms, a scowl firmly fixed on her pretty face.
“Do not pout, Edma. If you must go to the Louvre, see if Maman will accompany you. If he is there, you may hoard him all to yourself.”
“Qu’est-ce que c’est?” Maman’s voice, as crisp as a primed white canvas, calls from the doorway. She breezes into the room, clutching a letter. Her rosy cheeks and the pale blue of her dress in harmony with her silver hair. She looks from Edma to me. “Is everything alright?”
Edma snares me with her eyes. Her glance is a warning.
Her eyes are two poison darts.
I say to Maman, “We were just discussing technique.”
“Oui,” murmurs Edma, still glowering. “I was telling Berthe her perspective is all wrong. The f lower—” she frowns at me, “it is much too big for its vase.”
Maman walks over to my painting. She studies it for a moment, then turns back to my sister.
“I think it is charming. I see nothing wrong.” She frowns. “Sit like a lady, Edma. I have brought you up better than this. You are peevish today.”
Edma scoots to the edge of the divan and sits rod-straight, but she does not try to hide her displeasure.
“Perhaps this will cheer you up.” Maman waves a crème-
colored note. “Madame Auguste Manet has invited us to supper tomorrow evening.”
The name Manet crashes like cymbals in my head. I feel a light-headedness that seems to lift me up and render my body numb. I watch Edma spring to life and hurry to Maman’s side.
It takes a moment for the implication to register: The note may have been sent by Madame Auguste Manet, his mother, but the invitation has Monsieur Édouard Manet written all over it. So this is how he plans to impress me. On his own terms, his own turf.
I should have guessed as much.
“One day’s notice?” Maman looks pointedly at me, and I feel myself settle back into my body. “Does he think we are so unpopular we have no other engagements?”
I open my mouth to speak, but Edma cut me off.
“We do not have plans. If we did, I should think we would cancel them. It is not every day we receive such an invitation.”
Maman holds out the letter to me. A briar rose. If I do not handle it carefully it will prick me. With my forefinger and thumb, I take it from her outstretched hand. Edma appears at my side, grinning, a sheepish gesture of reconciliation. Her shoulder presses against mine as she leans in for a better look. I hold it so we may both read.
The note, dainty black script on steadfast crème card stock, simply says, “Please come for dinner, forty-nine rue de Saint-Pétersbourg, Thursday evening, seven o’clock. Regrets only.”
Regrets.
Is that what I fear? Regret that I will discover him a mere mortal? That the champion of all that is shocking and real will be a fraud? Proven to be just a man?
“We will go?” I ask Maman.
“I suppose. Since your father is away, it shall give us something to tell him when he returns. And I shall have the chance
to judge for myself if your Édouard Manet is as charming as you claim.”
My stomach feels like a rock dropped into deep water.
Edma grabs my hands and pulls me up from my chair. She turns us about in circles, crushing the note in her grasp. The corner of the stiff paper cuts into my palm.
Why should I worry?
I have always been immune to the wiles of courting men, why should this be different? Most men are all charm and very little substance. Each with expectations for me to favor him above my painting. Each one demanding a compromise. Sadly, I have never met a man who outs
hone the promise of the next image that would court me. Tease me. Seduce me. Until I lay it down on my canvas and have my way with it.
Edma and I stop spinning, but my mind continues to whirl. The paintings, hung one upon the other on the studio walls, dance around me as I try to regain my equilibrium. I glance down at the crumpled paper in my hand, and I have the very unsettling sensation of the world shifting under my feet.
In a boudoir perfumed with Violettes de Parma, Edma and I chatter and share confidences. Giddy worries. Sudden panics. Trepidation born from silly designs.
“When Fantin called yesterday, he told me Emmanuel Chabrier played Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre last week at the Manet’s soirée,” Edma says, breathless. Her eyes sparkle as she brushes my hair. She pauses and studies me in the glass. “What shall be your first words to Manet?”
In my mind, I have rehearsed the scene a million times, but put to the test, I cannot recall a single syllable.
“I suppose I shall say, ‘Bonsoir.’”
“That shall certainly set his heart af lame.”
“If so, I would say he is too easily impressed.”
Edma sets down the brush. I know she can see right through my act. I pick up the silver hand mirror with trembling fingers and study my ref lection.
I close my eyes, draw in a shallow breath, and set down the mirror. There is the crash of crystal. My eyes f ly open, and I catch a perfume bottle just before it rolls off the dressing table. The stopper comes lose and liquid splashes on my hands. The sweet scent of violets f loods my senses and calms my rattled nerves.
Edma giggles.
I cannot help but laugh with her. Dear, sweet Edma, the one who knows me so well, sometimes better than I know myself.
As we tie laces, cinch corsets, smooth folds, and straighten bonnets, the mood is lighter than it has been in days. Hiding my desire like a gold ring tucked away inside a delicate ivory box, I perfume my dreams with what remains of the spilled violet water and still my unsteady hands with the sweep of satin gloves.
Finally, when there is nothing left to do save leave for the soirée, I check my ref lection in the hand mirror one last time. The pretty trinkets on my dressing table shimmer in the half light. One careless gesture will send the bibelots smashing to the f loor.
But this time, as I return the mirror to the table, a slow, deliberate gesture, my hand does not shake.
Chapter Three
Entering the hall, she meets the wife . . . Words stick; does not manage to say anything. Presses hands together; stands hesitating.
Agitates moon-like fan, sheds pearl-like tears. Realizes she loves him as much as ever, Present pain never comes to an end.
—Anonymous, China
W
e travel in the cold rain from our home on rue Franklin to the soirée on rue de Saint Pétersbourg. The foul weather does not dampen my spirits. Yet it takes but three
hateful words to ruin my evening: Madame Édouard Manet.
He is married.
It does not make sense. Elle est une vache. She is a cow. Inside the lavish drawing room, the distant rumble of thunder sounds as I gape at the profile of the fat, dowdy woman playing Chopin on the piano. Her hair, parted in the middle, is pulled back in a severe chignon. The style emphasizes a round face that seems to have swallowed up her chin and redistributed it in three tiers of gelatinous f lesh that dance as she pounds on
the keys. Her upturned nose is too small for her masculine face, and in conjunction with her pursed, thin-lipped mouth, she looked as if she smells a fetid odor. All broad shoulders, bosom and tree-trunk waist, she is a sausage stuffed uncomfortably into her gray silk dress.
This is Madame Édouard Manet?
I wonder if I have heard Madame Manet, mère, correctly.
Edma leans in and pinches my arm. I want to scream, but I do not.
Madame Manet, la mère. Madame Manet, la vache.
Unfathomable. Obviously, there has to be something more to this relationship than beauty. I do not know why it throws me. I guess I thought a man whose very existence was built on aesthetics, a dandy in his own right, would surround himself with beauty in every facet of his life.
“Suzanne is a very gifted pianist.” Our hostess pauses as if to let us appreciate the melody drifting from the instrument. Madame Manet, mère, is petite with dark auburn hair and large, worried blue eyes, which swim like twin oceans across her angular face. Her narrow shoulders slope under her black mourn-ing dress, and her mouth turns down at the corners giving an air of downtrodden displeasure even when she speaks of the positive.
As she talks, my gaze drifts across the line of gilded crown molding to a large portrait suspended by a maroon cord. The canvas hangs in front of the mirror above the f ireplace’s intricately carved mantelpiece. The painting is of Madame Manet and a handsome gentleman, who must have been her late husband as I can see a marked resemblance to Édouard.
My gaze falls to the lush deep red Turkish rug stretch-ing the length of the parquet f loor. Reflected in the mirrored
walls, the lavishly furnished room seems af lame in tones of gold and red.
The tempo of the song increases, and I glance back at Suzanne. Her pudgy hands f lying over the keys.
Je ne comprends pas. I do not understand how a man with such an eye can find anything beautiful in this woman, and it irritates me.
It must be a joke. But common sense dictates the high improbability of our hostess making a joke of her son’s matrimonial status. Never in my life have I so desperately craved inappropriate behavior in an elder.
Suzanne pronounces the final weighty chord, and two men standing near the piano applaud. She smiles demurely and immediately begins another song.
“The great composer Franz Liszt encouraged Suzanne to come to Paris from Holland to pursue her music,” says Madame Manet. “She and Édouard moved in with me after they were married.”
The comment buzzes like a gnat I wanted to swat.
“Was she the success Monsieur Liszt predicted?” I surprise myself with my irreverent tone. I cannot look at Maman.
Madame Manet lifts her lorgnette as if peering through my veiled words to the heart of the insult.
She tilts her head to the right. “But of course she was successful, Mademoiselle. She married my son.”
Thunder erupts, closer this time. Edma giggles a nervous little laugh. I am sure she intended to cover my rudeness by treating the exchange as folly.
I suppose I deserve the verbal slap, but I do not need my sister making excuses for me, spoken or implied. The stuffy room is closing in on me. I want to leave. I do not belong here.
It is on the tip of my tongue to ask for the return of my
mantelet so I might bid the good Madame Manet adieu, when I spy him across the room, standing just outside the far inte-rior doorway; an apparition under the chandelier’s f lickering, yellow candlelight.
From the tip of the knotted tie, peeking out from his tweed vest and buttoned-up waistcoat, to the smart line of his trousers, he is a startling sight.
Suzanne shifts into Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.
Not as difficult as the Chopin, but even I must admit its beauty. She plays it f lawlessly. No doubt showing off her range.
I wonder how long he has been watching us, and whether he read the affront in his mother’s body language after my gauche comment.
The pull of his gaze promises to monopolize my attention, but I resist. After all, he is a married man. I do not care to f lirt or be f lirted with by someone who is otherwise attached. What is the point?
I focus on an arrangement of six landscapes hung on the wall between him and the piano.
Again, thunder roars outside, a clap loud enough to command attention away from Suzanne’s droning music. Everyone starts, but she does not break her rhythm. She does not even glance up at the commotion of newly arrived guests in the entryway.
Édouard moves toward us. I fold my hands into the pleats
of my skirt so not to fidget. It is a foolish notion to think I could travel home alone in such weather. If I mention it, Maman and Edma shall not hear of it. And I cannot bear to spoil their evening.
“Madame et Mesdemoiselles, welcome.” He takes my mother’s hand and bows.
“Ah, Édouard,” says Madame Manet. “Please entertain the Morisots. I must greet our new guests.”
Manet straightens. “With pleasure.”
His mother ambles off toward three men, two of whom I know; Alfred Stevens, who has recently painted my portrait, and a waterlogged Fantin, who looks as if he has blown in with the storm. He spies Edma and turns the brightest shade of red I believe I have ever seen.
The third man looks rather sour. In fact, he emits all the joy of a wet cat. He seems quite disgusted as he roughs rain from his beard.
“I am so very happy you would brave such weather to join us,” Édouard says to Maman.
She titters and purrs an appreciative greeting, but by that time his eyes are already fixed on Edma.
“Who is this lovely young woman?”
Edma swoons. Like clay waiting for his warm hands.
I have the urge to pinch her like she pinched me earlier. Luckily, Maman takes charge. “Monsieur Manet, this is my daughter, Mademoiselle Edma Morisot.”
“Enchanté.” He bows, but does not take her hand.
I am glad. And even happier when his attention shifts to me, his gray eyes like a stormy afternoon sky.
“You have already made the acquaintance of my youngest daughter, Berthe.”
“Of course.” He neither bows nor takes my hand, but his words are a warm embrace. “I have been anticipating this evening, Mademoiselle.”
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