human sitting there all gaunt and hollow. An angel fallen to earth.
“So what is this I hear about Puvis courting you?” Degas’ words pull me back. His arched brows and curled upper lip leave no margin to ponder his opinion of the matter. “What exactly is the nature of your relationship?”
He drums his fingers on the back of the divan while I try to formulate words for that which I cannot explain. Finally I shrug and throw up my hands. “He has been a good friend to me during a very difficult time. Unlike others whom I shall not name.”
I pointedly avoid looking at Édouard.
Degas strokes his thin mustache and makes a satisfied grunt. “Yes, and didn’t I warn you that you could not count on Manet when it mattered? You didn’t believe me. Perhaps you will listen to me now when I warn you away from Puvis.”
I roll my eyes. “I beg you watch what you say. He’s my good friend—”
“No, Mademoiselle, I beg you listen to me. It is my duty to make you aware of the rather scandalous relationship your good friend, Puvis, has been carrying on with Princess Marie Can-tacuzène. Are you aware of his relations with her? It has been going on for the past fifteen years.”
The pit of my stomach feels as if it has dropped to my knees, and I shift in my seat to glance around to see who might have heard his rubbish. But everyone, including Eugène, who still sits next to Degas, seems to be engrossed in anecdotes all their own.
“You know nothing of the kind, do you?” His nostrils f lare as if he smells something foul. “Um-hmm. I f igured as much. Allow me to enlighten you. She’s the estranged wife of the Rumanian prince, but they are still very married. What makes it even more interesting is that she is your mother’s age if she’s a
day old.” Degas examines his nails in that bored manner he has perfected, and I want to slap him.
“Do not look at me like that,” he says. “I haven’t manufactured this for my own entertainment.”
I run a hand over the dark blue f lowered-chintz upholstery, knowing full well he hasn’t made it up. That makes it worse. Suddenly everything makes perfect sense. Puvis’s hesitation to talk to Maman and Papa. Their irrational distaste for him. They knew. Yet they didn’t bother to tell me. I wonder what might have transpired had Puvis found them at home when he called? Were they at home and thought it best to not receive him? Oh, how ridiculous. I could speculate for days and it wouldn’t change a thing.
The air in the room is stale and close with so many chattering people. It is hard to breathe. If I sit here for another moment, I think I shall scream. “Please excuse me for a moment.”
Degas nods. “Naturellement.”
My shoes sound too loud on the parquet f loor; I can hear the tread over the din of conversation as I walk to the window at the other end of the large room.
I twist the knob until my knuckles turn white and wonder if there is anything in this world that is real, that turns out as it seems.
My hand slips off the knob and smacks against the wooden casement. My ref lection stares back at me and I try to process the odd emotions brewing inside. The ache that pulses inside me in the chasm that should contain my heart; the melancholy discontent bubbling up from the depths of me. The calm final-ity that it is over with Puvis.
Click. Just like that.
It is almost a relief and that in itself worries me more than the discovery of his unattainable lady love.
I lean my forehead against the cool glass. A white moth performs loops outside the window. I hear the hopeless thud as it futilely throws itself against the pane. The little creature does not know that it is not always better on the other side.
If I loved Puvis, I should ask him for the truth. I would if it mattered.
I reach up and give the knob one last grinding crank. It turns. The bar latch gives. I stumble backward, into someone standing behind me.
It is Édouard. His hands fall to my waist. I pull away.
“I came to assist you with the window. You were struggling.”
It is not much what he says, but how he looks at me as he speaks. He so thin, so intense, a shadow of the carefree dandy who used to own the city. My heart aches because the man I loved is still very much intact.
“Thank you, but I have managed quite well on my own.”
“Oui, I can see that.”
I turn back to the window. The cool night air washes over me. The moth has f lown in and rests on the windowsill. Now that it is in, I wonder if it is damaged from banging so fiercely against the glass.
“I couldn’t help but overhear what Degas was saying to you. He has no manners. I’m sorry he revealed Puvis’s secret to you in that manner.”
I wonder who else might have overheard.
“I suppose I’m a bad judge of character,” I say, not quite sure why. Not quite sure how I expect him to respond. I can’t see his face because he stands squarely behind me, but I can imagine his expression, see him crossing his arms and stroking his beard as he frowns.
“Au contraire, Mademoiselle. You’re quite astute. Save for the misconception that you believe I do not care for you.”
He shifts behind me. I can see his face ref lected in the angled glass. It’s a gentle face, and my heart softens.
“Do you care, Édouard?” I whisper.
“I love you. I wish you would stop punishing me long enough to believe me.”
A chestnut dances in the breeze and a slip of pale moon-light peeks through. Édouard steps closer. Runs a finger along my arm. I cannot speak as each caress stitches closed the chasm around my heart.
“Berthe,” he whispers. “I have not been able to eat or sleep or paint without you. I need you. Come to me tomorrow.”
A bell rings in the background. As if from another dimen-sion, Maman’s voice announces dinner is served.
Édouard joins the others on their pilgrimage to the dining room. I linger a moment, as solitary as Victorie de Samothrace, and stare at the sliver of moon that lights the black abyss of night.
High above the Aegean Sea, Victorie unfurls her wings in celebration. Zephyr’s warm wind blows in from the west, and the white moth takes f light.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward in the same direction.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
MAY 1873
É
douard is as bold as the blue violets he sends early the next morning. An unsigned note accompanies the f lowers. It
simply says: I care.
The truth in Édouard’s voice last night steals my breath.
Blue violets. I try not to think about the symbolic meaning—love. I know it is not coincidence. What man but Édouard would be schooled on the significance of f lowers?
I take them to my chamber and set them on the dressing table, where I can see them as I attend to my toilette.
I take my low-cut black dress from the armoire—the pretty one with the lace around the neckline and the black ribbon that ties at the waist. I hang it on the door and sit down at my vanity to brush my hair.
It is by sheer luck that Maman is still sleeping. Papa has already gone to work. Amélie received them, brought them to me with a knowing sparkle in her eyes.
I pick up the small nosegay, twirl it in my fingers, and sniff it. The petals tickle my nose, but it’s his audacity that makes me smile.
I will go to him.
I can no more stay away than the Seine can keep from f lowing down stream.
Perhaps it is my destiny to be the other woman. It seems my lot. Should I have married Puvis, I would have been the respectable wife. Yet the Rumanian princess would always possess his heart.
Suzanne is Édouard’s wife. Yet she is most certainly not the woman of his heart. Either way, I am the other woman.
Is it such a terrible position?
He is not at all surprised to see me.
Édouard’s new studio takes up the entire second f loor of
number four rue de Saint-Pétersbourg, two blocks from his home at number forty-nine. Suzanne could walk down if she dared. Or cared. Somehow, I find it hard to believe she would expend that much energy.
Édouard moved his studio after his atelier on the rue Guyot was destroyed during the Commune. A total loss.
My eye is drawn to Le Balcon. It is hung, not merely propped haphazardly against the wall. Next to it hangs my painting of Edma at the Lorient harbor. My hand f lutters to my lips, and I swallow against the emotion bubbling in my throat. Maybe I haven’t been so absent from his life for all that we have been apart. Merci Dieu he had the foresight to entrust his paintings to Théodore Duret, or all would be lost.
It’s a beautiful place. Spacious and elegant with high ceil-ings and walls of tall windows.
Rubbing the stem of the nosegay between my thumb and f ingers, I stand near the door and look around the cavernous space in wonder. Not quite as much natural light as the rue Guyot with its windowed roof, but the light here is quite nice. It will be cooler in the summer.
I walk to the center of the room, turn in a slow circle, memorizing every detail, picking out the old familiar pieces, learning their place in the new environment. The big red buttoned divan. His easel. The stool. The table with paint tubes and brushes. Jars of pigment in jeweled colors. The books. The props. The rolls of fabric and paper.
The dressing screen. The bed.
It’s all here, like old friends welcoming me home. But somehow everything is different.
The studio must be twice the size of the other. Everything has its place. Nothing is haphazardly tossed or strewn. Even the bed is made. Guyot had the air of a rogue artist’s atelier. But this place—this place has the feel of a master.
“It used to be an old fencing school,” he says.
The f loor trembles like the hand of God is shaking the building. I brace a hand against his easel and fear for a moment that the earth will open and swallow us whole.
“The Gare Saint-Lazare,” he says over the rumble. “The trains coming and going—makes the place shake all day long.” He smiles. “Keeps me awake.”
My gaze darts to the bed. The blanket is pulled taut. The pillows are f luffed. It looks as if it has never been slept in. A sharp contrast to the rumpled mess that stood in the corner of the atelier on rue Guyot. As often as I have been to his studio I have never been in that bed.
I release my grip on the easel, and only then does it dawn on me that it is empty of canvas. That his pallet is hanging on a hook and the brushes look almost dusty.
“The place is lovely, Édouard. Please show me what you have been working on.”
His face goes blank. He crosses his arms over his chest, tucking his fingers in his armpits.
“I have not yet begun to work.”
“Surely, you’re joking? It’s been several months now. You should see the canvases I have completed. I should have taken you out to the studio last night . . .” As I speak, I am looking for hints of new work and realize the only canvases I see are old ones.
White-hot sparks of concern pop in my belly and I look at him askance. He shakes his head. Shifts from one foot to the other. Extracts a hand to rub his eyes, and mutters, “I told you, I have done nothing since we returned to Paris.”
“Édouard?”
He is looking at me, his eyes dark and forlorn. A helpless child of a man.
I don’t know who moved first, him or me, but we stand together now, inches apart. He cups my face in his hands and holds me like that, rubbing a thumb over my lips, then two over my cheekbones. He slides his hands back and laces his fingers in my hair. A pin falls to the f loor and the back of my hair falls free. He runs his fingers through the curls, slides them down my shoulders, over my breasts.
He pulls me to him, and I can feel his hardness as we stand together, like two parched travelers preparing to drink from the well of life.
I lean into him, aching for the feel of his body against mine, and kiss him. Softly. Tentatively. Reminding myself this
is the fork in the road. If I embark in the direction my body burns to travel, there is no turning back.
I know where I must go. It has been a long journey to this point, but every step I have taken has led me to this very spot.
“I will make what is between us right.” His whispered promise is rough as gravel. “I will make you happy. You’ll see—”
“Shhhhh.” I drown his words with a deep kiss. At that moment, I love him so much it is painful.
There is only one way to ease my ache. I take his hand and lead him to the bed.
“Let’s go away.” He punctuates the words with a kiss on the top of my head.
I snuggle into his chest, molding my body to his side. He pulls me closer.
“I want to stay here. With you. Just like this.” I snuggle into him, relishing the scent of our union. Mon Dieu, I love the smell of him. I duck my head under the blanket and plant a kiss on his belly.
He sighs. “This is nice, but I want to go somewhere we can be like this every day, every night.” With one finger, he tilts my chin up to him. His eyes are bright. I am glad to see the energy shining in him again.
“Let’s go,” he urges. “Right now. I’m serious.”
He pushes himself up. The blanket slides down my naked back.
I run my fingers through the hair on his chest. “Édouard we can’t. Not right now. Not like this.”
“Of course not. We’ll put our clothes on first.”
He arches a brow at me, grins, and pushes himself to a sitting position.
He is serious.
I fall onto my back.
A funnel swirls in my stomach as I contemplate the logistics of what he suggests. All the work I have started, the dealers I have interested . . . I rest my arm across my forehead. My other hand grasps the covers to my breast. If we leave we must start over professionally, too.
You’re afraid to go because he hasn’t exactly proved to be reliable in the past, has he? says Propriety. What do you expect, falling in love with a married man? If you run away with him, he will only end up leaving you for someone else.
Be reasonable, says Olympia. It’s not as if the relationship has had a chance to grow under normal circumstances. You’ve been through a war. Give the man a chance to prove his worth.
“Papa has not been well. I can’t go off and leave him now.” I hear him rustling around and sit up to watch him dress.
Wrapped in the blanket, I draw my knees to my chest. “I thought it was what you wanted?” he says.
“I did. I do. But everything is so different now.”
He finishes buckling his trousers and stands there— shirtless, his hair rumpled and his eyes looking deeply into me. I desire him all over again. I want to cry for the astonishing depth of my love for him.
“Édouard.” I motion for him to sit on the bed. He does, and I lace my f ingers through his, and bring his hand to my lips and kiss them. “There is nothing I want more than this. But we can’t go now. We need to be here. For Papa. For our futures. Together. We must both draw on the resources we have built in Paris to build a new life for ourselves. A life together.”
He shakes his head. “It will never work here, Berthe.” He draws his hand away and braces stiff arms on the bed. “We will both be ruined.”
“Since when have you been concerned about that?” I caress his bare back. “Édouard, I am not afraid to face the music here. You can withstand it, too. You have before, and you’ve come out stronger on the other side. Stand tall. Let us be who we are in the place where we belong.”
A train rumbles past and shakes the room. I get out of bed, aware of his eyes on me, quiet, contemplative. I pull my black dress over my head. Not bothering with my corset, I tie the black ribbon at the waist, then pin my hair away from my face, leaving the back to fall free about my shoulders.
I sit down next to him on the bed again, leaning back on my elbows.
“You look like an angel sitting
there like that,” he says.
He goes to the chest of drawers and pulls out a slip of black velvet ribbon and ties it around my neck, forming a little bow, then picks up the bouquet of violets and tucks it in the bodice of my dress. He backs away until he reaches his easel, where he touches his brush to the paint, touches paint to canvas.
With each brushstroke, we talk, and a picture of our new life together emerges.
La Figaro—by Ansel Racine—May 25, 1873
Manet’s New Olympia?
Speculation on the exact nature of the relationship between Mademoiselle Berthe Morisot and Monsieur Édouard Manet is the talk of Paris. Given his Salon entry, Repose, his sensual portrait of her sprawled, seductively and inviting, on the red divan, one cannot help but wonder. The black shoe is a sharp contrast peeking out from beneath the virginal white froth of dress. Alas, it is the way she holds her red fan in her right hand, while her elegant left hand is placed so boldly on the seat next to her. That
coupled with that come-hither expression, she seems to beckon the viewer to sit next to her for an intimate tête-à-tête.
Given Monsieur Manet’s well-known propensity to paint what he sees, one cannot help but speculate that Mademoiselle Morisot’s smoldering glance is meant for him and him alone. I wonder what his wife has to say about that.
I suggested to Édouard it might not be prudent to enter Repose in the Salon. Not until he was ready to reveal our relationship. But he would not hear of it. He insisted it would show in good contrast to his painting Le Bon Bock. He painted that portrait of me before the war, and while I am quite fond of it, it’s an extremely intimate portrait, so telling. He certainly captured everything I was feeling that day, as Racine pointed out.
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