With Violets

by Elizabeth Robards

  two raisins pushed into rising bread dough. The simple white frock does absolutely nothing for her complexion.

  “May I offer you some tea?” Édouard asks. “Or a cup of chocolate?”

  “Tea, s’il vous plaît.” Maman pointedly turns her back on me, to talk to Madame Chevalier, Fanny Claus’s chaperone, a formidable-looking woman wearing a matronly navy blue dress with a high, rounded waist and fitted sleeves with epaulettes.

  I am looking at the paintings hung on the far wall. So many of them; it’s difficult to take them all in. Portraits, still-life scenes, fruits, f lowers, vegetables . . . Even more tucked in a little nook around the corner of a partition.

  “Mademoiselle, what may I prepare for you? Tea, chocolate?” Édouard smiles.

  “Nothing for me, merci.”

  “Are you sure there is nothing with which I might tempt you?”

  His voice is a velvet cloak, inviting me to abandon all my apprehensions and allow him to wrap me up in it. It steals my breath and sends my stomach into tight spirals.

  Something f lares inside me, challenging me to call his bluff. “Beyond tea and chocolate, Monsieur, what sort of temptation had you in mind?”

  His eyes widen. I have rendered him speechless. Instantly, I regret being so vulgar. But as the feeling envelops me like the sticky summer air, I turn away to join the others. He detains me with a hand on my arm, stopping me with a simple touch. The others—I cannot see the others, but I can hear them chatting ignorant of our physical contact right behind them.

  “There are a great many offerings with which I might en-deavor to tempt you, Mademoiselle.” His words are a sultry whisper, and he steps closer. “Right now, I daresay, is not the time. But I can make time, if you like. ”

  I close my eyes against the feverish lurch of pleasure that springs forth in my belly. I am powerless to move away. Even if I could, I would not because then I would not be able to savor the nearness of him. His scent—a mixture of coffee and paint and another note uniquely Édouard—beckoning me to lean closer, until the course texture of his beard brushes my cheek.

  I pull back, startled, reclaiming my personal space. Édouard releases me without another word and disappears.

  I linger alone for a moment, trying to regain my bearings.

  When I rejoin the others, he is bent over a small spirit-stove, where he has busied himself heating the water for Ma-man’s tea.

  Monsieur Guillemet’s deep voice resonates through the room. A f lutter of ladies’ laughter erupts. I notice Fanny Claus looking at me. She doesn’t smile, doesn’t blink. The way her morbid raisin eyes bore into me makes me fidget. Had she sensed the exchange that took place between Édouard and me?

  Nonsense. How could she?

  Édouard bangs around, opening and shutting cupboards, setting out tea tins, a kettle, and cups. He seems in no particular hurry to get the painting under way.

  I’m glad because I need to gather myself.

  I am not the type of woman to swoon, but it would be a lie if I said his sudden frankness did not affect me. His offer to make time is a stone plunged into deep water, leaving my emotions rippling from the impact.

  Thank God, Fanny Claus finally turns her boring black gaze back to the conversation. I lift my eyes to the vaulted, paned-glass ceiling to offer a silent prayer of thanks.

  The clear view makes the studio appear larger and brighter than I had imagined. Although if pressed, I could not tell you the mental picture I had conjured of Manet’s atelier.

  I glance around Édouard’s space—at the makeshift

  balcony—complete with a piece of wrought iron—he has as-sembled near the wall of windows. I suppose that is where he will paint us. There’s a dressing screen in the far right corner. How many women have disrobed behind its f limsy veil?

  Leaned against the walls in stacks five or six deep are more canvases in various stages of completion. More paintings hung haphazardly here and there on the walls above a mélange of rolled cloth, clay pots, books, paint-stained rags, the accoutre-ments for a formal table setting, a copper kettle turned on its side, a silver candelabra.

  Clutter in every nook and cranny—the sum of these parts equals the man who whispered of temptation and forbidden promise; a man I want to know much better.

  I turn away from the place I had been looking, as if the motion will erase my illicit thoughts, to a window covered by a large sheet of muslin tacked to the frame. Midmorning light filters through. The determined rays stream in around the loose edges like the splayed ribs of an open fan. It reminds me of the fitful luminosity of the Tintoretto that had so captivated Édouard the very first day I encountered him.

  I walk over to a worktable shoved into the corner against the far wall. The wooden surface is heaped with rolled canvases, discarded drawings, and dust-covered sketch books and volumes of literature.

  I run my finger over the dusty cover of Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal. A number of years ago, the poetry caused quite a furor, and some of the poems were banned after he stood trial for obscenity. I have never seen a copy of the book.

  I glance over my shoulder and lift the volume from the table, thumbing through, stopping occasionally to read a verse or register a sentiment.

  Why was it judged obscene? Based on the brief passages I read standing there, I do not understand. I glance up every now

  and again to assure myself Fanny Claus, or worse yet, Maman, is not watching me.

  No. Fanny still has her back to me. Maman is still ignoring me. But my heart is thudding at the thought of her discovering my perusal of something so risqué, something judged obscene.

  Why all the fuss?

  Nothing about it upsets my sensibilities. Lightning did not strike me dead for opening it. I did not faint or feel sickened, or otherwise harmed.

  But if it was judged obscene, what does it say about me that I see nothing wrong in it?

  And what, too, does my fascination with Édouard’s work say about my sensibilities? I can see grounds for raised eyebrows: He has painted nude women out of context. It is no wonder someone of weaker constitution would take offense.

  Yet, I think him brave and heroic for being so modern, so willing to challenge the stodgers of the Academy.

  What does that say about me?

  If I cannot discern what’s improper in something that has been judged obscene, might there be something inherently wrong with me?

  I return Les Fleurs du Mal to its place and pick up a sketch book and f lip through roughs of still lifes, the unfinished profile of a delicate-looking woman. But it is the full-length nude stretched out on a bed that gives me pause.

  Olympia.

  My breath catches.

  A preliminary sketch? Even in its crude state its allure is undeniable. I stare in awe at the drawing for a moment and notice something different about it. It takes me a moment, but I realize she is lying in a different position from the finished painting.

  In the final version, her legs are outstretched and her left

  hand covers her sex, but in this rendition, her right knee is shamelessly bent and her left hand rests across her body.

  I turn the book to view the sketch from a different angle, and I recall the other day, Edma and me in our studio. How we dissolved into nonsense after Maman’s severe disapproval of Édouard’s visit. It is Edma’s way to make folly out a grave situation. While I obsess over the unpleasant, she makes light of it. That’s just her way.

  True to form, I was sulking at my easel trying to work, trying to not think of how mad Maman was at me, when Edma started making silly remarks, taking on the voices of the men who had attended the soirée at the Manets’ home on the Thursday prior. She was trying to make me laugh, but was failing miserably. I was growing quite irritable because she was making it nearly impossible for me to concentrate.

  She held a paintbrush under her nose. I guess it was supposed to be a mustache, and she could barely keep a straight face.

  She deepene
d her voice into a slurred, faux baritone, imitating Stevens’s drunken antics. “Just ask her, or must I do it for you, you poor, poor miserable man?”

  I don’t know if it was the way her voice cracked during her ridiculous imitation of a drunken man that tickled me so, or the ridiculous way she looked with that brush balanced between her nose and upper lip, but I succumbed to her giddy buffoonery and said, “You want misery? I shall give you misery.” I grabbed the paintbrush from her and pretended to fence.

  Edma clapped.

  “Mesdames et messieurs, I present to you the new Olympia.”

  I performed a dramatic, slow curtsy, waving my brush with a f lourish.

  Edma clapped louder, “Brava!”

  The memory teased a smile to my lips.

  “Do you like it?” Édouard’s deep voice, all too real sounds behind me, and I snap the sketch book shut and return it to its place on the worktable.

  The silence between us is a silken cord that binds me to him. It is too much, pressing down like a lover’s body. All my senses meld together until I hear my own blood rushing through my veins; or perhaps it is his breath against my neck or his hands in my hair.

  Yet when I turn to face him, he stands at a respectable distance. “I hope you do not mind my looking. I was just . . .”

  His expression, a look of sultry longing, of want and raw need, catches me so off guard I cannot speak.

  “Not at all. By all means, please look until you have had your fill.” He picks up Baudelaire’s book of poems and holds it out to me. “Would you like to borrow it?”

  I do not answer because the studio’s front door bangs open, and Madame Manet staggers through the threshold, holding a large picnic basket with both hands.

  “Bonjour, everyone!” she calls.

  Édouard hands me the book, which I take, for lack of knowing what else to do, and rushes over to take the basket from her.

  “Maman, what a surprise. I had no idea you were coming today.”

  I set down the book, knowing I cannot bring it home. I cannot even allow myself to imagine the scene it would cause in the carriage on the way home. Fully expecting Suzanne to trail in after Madame Manet, I move away from the table to join the others, feeling more than a little indiscreet at having lost myself in Édouard’s belongings.

  “I thought I would bring your lunch.” Madame Manet greets Maman. “I brought enough for an army. There is plenty for everyone.”

  Édouard closes the door. No Suzanne.

  Why did she not accompany Madame Manet? Why would she let her mother-in-law bear the burden of the long journey and transporting the food alone?

  Édouard sets down the basket and kisses his mother on the cheek. “What a surprise. How very kind of you to come all this way, Maman.”

  Madame Manet beams and retreats to Maman’s side. “Madame Morisot, I am so very happy to see you here today.” She hesitates, and I wonder if she will mention the unfortunate events at the soirée, but she does not. Probably for the best, because I’m not sure how Maman will respond.

  Instead, she asks her son, “How is the painting progressing?” “We have not yet begun. But I was just about to suggest we

  get to work.” He looked at me. “Shall we?”

  He drags a chair to the balcony setting, and indicates for me to sit. Once I am in place, he lifts my left arm to rest on the makeshift railing. My body hums at his deliberate touch. Yet, there’s nothing personal in it. It’s all in the name of work.

  He steps back to look.

  “Mademoiselle, if you please, tuck your skirt underneath you so we might see the legs of the chair. Mademoiselle Claus, would you be so kind as to help her fix her train so it f lows nicely over the back?”

  Fanny Claus does as she’s asked, but to accomplish the task, I must stand so we can turn the chair back so it will not ob-struct the line of the dress.

  When I sit, Édouard studies me for a moment, brows knit. I wonder if he is displeased with what he sees, with both of us being dressed in white gowns?

  He says nothing but, “This painting will take several days.

  Are you prepared to wear the same dresses for the duration?”

  I nod. “Will they not get dirty, monsieur?”

  He strokes his beard and turns to Maman and Madame Chevalier. “Mesdames, would it be possible for the mesdemoiselles to wear a different dress tomorrow and bring the white frocks with them? They can leave them here to change into each morning. Mademoiselle Morisot is right, if they wear them back and forth every day, I am afraid they will get soiled.”

  My eyes dart to the dressing screen, and my breath catches at the thought of undressing behind it. Then my gaze shifts to Maman to gauge her reaction.

  Madame Chevalier looks to Madame Manet, who seems undaunted by the request. Maman stares at me with narrowed I-told-you-so eyes, as if the suggestion has f lown from my lips. “As long as you are comfortable with the idea, Madame

  Manet,” says Maman. “I suppose I am, too.”

  Much to my surprise, Madame Chevalier agrees, and that is the end of the discussion. Fanny Claus and I will be dressing partners, for there was no possible way we can navigate the buttons that run the length of the back of our dresses.

  “Angle your body to the right, but look slightly to the left.”

  I do exactly as he instructs.

  “No, too much. Back to the center. Just a bit. Yes, there.

  Good. Good. Hold that.”

  He turns to his worktable and comes back with an armful of items, among them a red fan and a necklace. He hands me the fan, then walks around behind me and slides a slip of black velvet around my throat.

  I only catch a glimpse, but I see the choker consists of a heart-shaped medallion strung on a piece of ribbon. I feel his hand working at my nape, and I wonder if the choker belongs to Suzanne or whether it is just a prop he keeps in the studio for just such an occasion.

  After he finishes tying, he walks around to the front. “Hold the fan in your left hand and bring it up so it rests on your right arm.

  “Yes, that is it. Perfect! Hold that pose while I arrange the others.”

  It takes him an instant to accomplish the task. He directs Fanny Claus to stand next to me, and places Monsieur Guillemet in the middle, slightly behind us.

  With my face angled away, it is hard to see the props he has selected, but I get the idea from conversation.

  “Mademoiselle Claus, let the umbrella fall across your body, anchoring it with your left arm. Bend your arms at the elbows, like so.” He demonstrates. “And act as if you are putting on these gloves.”

  His instructions for Monsieur Guillemet are as simple as, “Stand between the two ladies, s’il vous plaît, with your arms like so.”

  Édouard bends both arms at the elbow, one slightly higher than the other, as if Guillemet is walking midstride.

  I believe Manet is about ready to start, but he frowns and walks over to the worktable and rummages around for a while, then comes back with the homeliest hat I have ever seen—a close-fitting cap with a big, ugly dried pompon of a f lower pinned to it.

  For a split second I fear he will pull it onto my head as fast as he slipped on the necklace. Alas, it is Fanny Claus who wins the pleasure. I hear Édouard rustling around next to me, but I dare not turn my head to look and lose the perfect angle he has assigned me.

  I smile to myself, as I can only imagine how ridiculous her long, expressionless face must look in that unfashionable hat.

  Maman, Madame Chevalier, and Madame Manet sit in the background chatting. They do not prove to be a distraction to

  Édouard during the morning’s preliminary setup, but as the day wears on, and he begins to put charcoal to canvas, he grows visibly tense, occasionally looking over his shoulder at them.

  “Are you all right Mademoiselle Berthe?”

  His question startles and embarrasses me out of my trance. Although I have been daydreaming, I know very well he has not asked after the others
’ well-being.

  I adjust my pose, but try to sit straight. True, I am growing tired of holding the same position, but I won’t complain. I knew what was expected of me before I agreed to the task.

  “I am fine, merci.”

  Although, I suppose I forgot how exhausting it could be to sit in one position for hours. I heard Monsieur Guillemet fidgeting behind me.

  “Antonin, please stop moving about. I am trying to capture your pose.”

  Guillemet groaned. “My friend, we have been here for hours, it seems. I believe I speak for everyone when I say we need a rest.”

  “Bear with me for a few more moments . . .”

  Édouard’s words trail off, and his “few more moments” stretch on like a river meandering without an end.

  I gaze at the fan until my eyes water. My arm is falling asleep and I want so badly to shift, but I do not dare after Édouard reprimanded Monsieur Guillemet. Careful not to move, I glance at Maman and try to catch her eye. I want her to know I am concerned about her comfort after sitting for such a long time. Surely, her back hurts.

  “Mademoiselle —” Édouard looks up. “Mademoiselle Berthe, I realize your kindness to pose for me is taking you away from your own work. I do appreciate it. Are you planning on entering anything in the Salon this year?”

  “It is only July, Monsieur. Too early for me to decide.”

  “Au contraire, Mademoiselle, it is never too early to have a goal in mind.”

  I am embarrassed by his attentions. He had been so quiet until now. His sudden interest in my plans, our conversation in general, seems too conspicuous.

  I am glad he has me angled away from Fanny Claus. That way I do not have to look at her, or what might be worse, I do not have to make an effort to not look at her.

  “Perhaps it is a good thing I do not have a goal in mind. For if I did, I should not be so content to sit here and ponder it when time in the studio would be the only action that would help me reach that goal.”