Luncheon of the Boating Party (26 page)

“You’re not doing dabby strokes, are you? Remember the critic. ‘Pu-trefaction.’ ”

She’d been hurt, poor thing, and now it hurt him that she saw so clearly what was taking him anguished months to recognize, that visible Impressionist strokes didn’t allow him to do what he wanted with fi gures, what Ingres had done with invisible strokes early in the century. A shock ran through him. Carried to the extreme, choppy strokes and feathery touches could destroy figure painting. Where did that leave him?

“
Non, chérie.
I’m leaving no record of my brush on your face. You’ll love it.”

If he had painted her a year ago
not
as an Impressionist, without visible, discrete trailings of his brush, and without the green tinge to her skin that truly was refl ected from her surroundings, if he had painted her as Ingres would have, with subtle shadings to model her form without the slightest demarcation of a stroke, as he had painted Lise as
Diana the Huntress
a dozen years ago—if he had done so with Jeanne, would she still be his? A hard price for artistic experiment, for a style that may vanish someday, a style that may have already reached its apo-gee, at least with him. If he had painted her in her white ball gown as he had painted Marie Antoinette on thousands of plates . . .

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He didn’t ask her. She might not know any more than he did, and it would spoil this intimacy of silence, the oneness of their endeavor.

He had to satisfy himself in knowing that he would always have

that, the act of painting her in that white gown. He would always have the remembrance of her standing there in perfect accord with him as he laid his doomed love on the canvas. He would refuse to let that slip from him. He could continue to love her and it would be none of her business.

Her quietness while modeling was unusual. Maybe she was doing

the same thing he was, taking moments off a shelf, playing out the roles again, a reprise before the final curtain. It was the prerogative of former lovers, a sort of morbid delight. Words, moments, their laughter at forgotten little things, her kindness to adorers when he met her at the stage door after a performance, his impatience when she signed every pro-gram that was thrust at her, the smooth firmness of her inner thigh.

That one time she introduced him at a party of theater people, “This is Auguste Renoir, my painter,” as if to say,
my wallpaper hanger, my
shoeblack boy.
“How about saying next time, this is Pierre-Auguste Renoir, my good friend? Or Pierre-Auguste Renoir, my lover?” he’d suggested later. She had flown into a rage. “I thought I was helping your career,” she’d said. And he’d said, “How would you like it if I said,

‘This is Jeanne Samary, my model’?” That was the beginning of the end. His words had been prophetic. Here she was, his model.

He tried to locate the source of the little pain that announced itself again, traveling the length of his finger. With horror, he realized it was where that hard lump was beginning to grow on his middle fi nger where the brush rested. At least he could say the pain had nothing to do with her, nothing to do with anything except himself.

“That small painting you did of me at the last? The very last. The small one of just my face, done like the ball gown painting?”

“The painting of remembrance of times past? The one you didn’t

want?”

“Yes. Do you still have it?”

He could tell her no, and she would be hurt, if he wanted to hurt her.

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He paused long enough for her to have a pang of anxiety. He set down his brush and rubbed the hard, swollen joint.

“Yes. It’s in my studio.”

“Could I . . . I mean, would you?”

“Give it to you?”

She could only nod. A change had come over her, something of which she was unwilling to speak, but nonetheless palpable between them.

“You would like it
now?
”

She nodded again, not looking at him, keeping her pose.

“More than a nod, and it’s yours.”

“I would like it, as a remembrance of the happy hours in your studio on the rue Saint-Georges.”

“The rue Saint-Georges is only a few blocks from avenue Frochot.”

“Yes,” she said, her eyes moistening. “L’avenue Frochot.”

The happy hours in your studio.
The way she said that lifted him and placed him down in an afternoon more than a year ago when, painting her in his studio, he’d had such an urge, the exquisite, torturous confl ict of two pleasures, that he had set down his brush and had rushed to her and she’d laughed in a wonderfully abandoned way. Open your dress, he’d said in a husky whisper as he was unbuttoning his trousers. They had just enough time before Paul or Pierre would burst into his studio at five o’clock as happened more days than not. We have time, he’d said, and indeed they had, and were buttoned up and at work when his

friends came in, only both of them were giddy and flushed, and she laughed softly at little nothings until she went home to avenue Frochot and he caught up with his friends at Café Nouvelle-Athènes, buoyant.

“Why did you come today?”

“Because I care for you.” Her voice came out in a lower register, that voice that could mold an audience to her will. “I care about your painting.”

Well, now, that was something else entirely. Or was it?

She blinked a few times in rapid succession, holding her pose. “You were always so good to me, so liberal.”

“Liberal in my affection for you? Of course.”

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He knew she had broken the pose even though he was looking at his painting. When he turned to her, she quickly resumed the position and gazed over the railing to the river. In that split second turning toward him, what had been in her eyes?

“I meant in not constraining me. You took an interest to show me you cared for me, and that was all.”

“Constraining you?”

Turning from the painted image to the woman, he saw a tear grow on her bottom lid and tumble. The feathers on her hat trembled. A consummate professional, she kept her pose.

He ignored the great solid shift their relationship had taken, set down his brush and stepped toward her. Holding her by both hands, he backed into a chair and pulled her onto his lap, the feathers tickling his ear. She went limp, her body melding familiarly to his, as he hardened.

There might be a chance. He burned to carry her into his room, not twenty footsteps away, and on the bed remind her of the happiness they had enjoyed.

He whispered, “My little quail.” A new tear swelled when she heard that endearment. Then the earlier tear had not been for him. His urge slackened even while he held her to his chest, crooning to her,
“Ne pleure
pas Jeannette.”

“Is that a song?”

“A very old ballad.”

He sang in a hushed voice the words,
“Don’t cry, Jeannette. We will
marry you to the son of a prince or a baron. I don’t want a prince or a baron.

I want my friend, Pierre, who is in prison.”

She shifted in his arms. “What’s the rest of it?”

“It’s silly.”

“Tell me.”

“You will not have your Pierre because we will hang him. If you hang
Pierre, hang me with him,”
he sang softly.

“And? Sing the rest.”

“Et l’on pendouilla Pierre, et sa Jeannette avec lui.”

“
And they hanged Pierre and his Jeannette with him?
No!”

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“It’s only a song.”

She looked down at his hands and touched an enlarged knuckle as though she remembered it. He felt a sharp grain rubbing between bones.

“Do you want to keep working?” she asked.

“No. That’s all I can do today. It would be helpful to have you here sometime with Paul and Pierre, though.”

“I’ll try.”

It was a long moment before she stood up. He offered her thirty francs, fifteen for each session, the amount she would have required if she’d been a major fi gure.

“To keep it professional,” she said, “but only today’s.” She took fi fteen francs and left fifteen in his palm.

The fi nal curtain.

“Don’t forget to eat the cake,” she said, dropping the coins into her drawstring bag.

He walked her to the middle of the bridge. “Think of me,” she said.

Two brief kisses at each cheek, in the air really, and then she walked away, down the path leading to the station in Rueil, stretching the thread of love until it broke as she went around the corner of the
boulangerie.

Think of her. What a thing to say. A parting shot. She wanted everything. She was in love with mere adoration.

The river glistened with silver highlights riding on the ripples between blue-green furrows, the colors distinct, then blending, then separating as the water moved relentlessly under the bridge. He realized he’d let her go without explaining to her the Impressionist vision of broken strokes, perfectly visible from here. She had eluded him.

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The Convocation of
Flâneurs

Looking down the length of the terrace on the third Sunday, seeing the dozen people posing before him, Auguste was filled with joy.

They had gone boating, eaten Louise’s delicious rabbit stew, had drunk Pierre’s favorite
petit vin
made at a small château that didn’t produce much, but what it did was very fine. They’d sung a few songs while eating the Charlotte Malakoff, a mold of strawberries, ladyfi ngers soaked in rum, and almond cream, and now they were ready to take their poses.

He squeezed luscious, shiny smears of color onto his palette, and fi lled his nose with their sweet oily smells.

This Circe had perfect posture, too perfect. But the dress and the jewel hanging from her blue velvet ribbon like a shard of pale blue ice were exquisite. Her skin was too white. Easy enough to rosy her up a bit. Pale coloring was a sign of a nervous temperament, and he didn’t want to suggest that.

“Circe, I need you to face the table. Not so stiff, so posed.”

“Isn’t that what we’re doing, posing?”

He caught Alphonsine rolling her eyes.

“Pretend we’re not.” He bent her hand back and forth at the wrist.

It went limp. There was hope. “Pretend we’re just sitting here talking.”

He put a glass of wine in her hand. The sheer white ruffle draped down over her blue sleeve like a veil. “Take a drink now and then. See how Angèle is leaning toward Gustave? Look at Alphonsine standing there like she does any other day, relaxed and natural.”

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Circe looked and then leaned forward, hinged like the lid of a

wooden color box, still rigid. Alphonsine couldn’t stifle her giggle.

“What she needs is a good rambunctious lay,” Angèle said. “That’ll get her to loosen up.”

Pierre scratched his beard. “I’m sure someone can accommodate her.

For the sake of art.”

“And there are plenty of secluded sites on the island,” Paul added.

“It’s too hot,” Circe said. “My shoulders hurt.”

“Let me be the first to offer my services as a masseur,” Pierre said.

Auguste ignored their banter. If he were in love with her, he would fi nd a way to work with her, but he wasn’t. Yet. Maybe if he gave her something to do, she would cooperate.

“Didn’t you agree to be
fl âneurs
last week and make observations on
la vie moderne?
” he asked. “Well, what did you observe? Circe, you preside.”

If she would turn her head to look at someone once in a while, he might catch her then.

“Moi? Oh, là là.”

She cleared her throat and sat up straighter, if that was possible.

Maybe this wouldn’t work after all. He hurried to mix colors and have a brush ready with her skin tone, another for the blue stripe, another for the white.

She turned to look at the group and struck her fork lightly against a glass. Three pings. “As Sovereign of the Convocation of
Flâneurs,
our gentlemen social observers, and
Flâneuses,
our lady observers, of the Maison Fournaise, I declare the first session open to undertake an examination of
la vie moderne.
”

He got in a few strokes on her bodice before she remembered she didn’t want a profile and turned back to face forward. He indulged himself by working on the stripes of her dress falling in folds.

“I call on Monsieur Ephrussi,” she said.

The staid and proper Charles Ephrussi tipped his head, the gesture of
un homme galant.
“With pleasure, mademoiselle.”

Auguste had noticed him eyeing her. Maybe because of her this

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painting would hang in his rue de Monceau mansion.
After
the Salon, of course.

“On Thursday, the air was so heavy I thought it might be pleasant to take a ride on the upper level of an omnibus, just to feel a breeze.”

“That’s it? Just that omnibuses are part of
la vie moderne?
” Circe turned to look at Charles. Too far.

“Patience, mademoiselle,” Charles said.

“Circe, keep your pose.” Poor, nervous wisp of a thing, unwilling to yield the center of attention. Her need to interact battled so prettily with her determination to be painted full face.

“I took a seat on the roof. We stopped at Rond Point and the paper-boys lifted their poles with newspapers attached to the clips. I put my coin in the cup on one pole and took
Le Temps.
My eye fell on this curious notice.”

Charles pulled a clipping from his breast pocket and read.

“An old man nearing life’s end wishes to ask forgiveness from one known
as Le Balafré, a frequenter of Montmartre cabarets. The lie about him told to
Madame Marie-Pauline under the gas lamp on the corner of rue de Rochechouart and avenue Trudaine on the night of June 13, 1864, has never ceased
to haunt the mind of him who now confesses it and who wishes to die with a
clean soul. Monsieur Le Balafré, pardon it, and give peace to a troubled man.”