With Violets (7 page)

But I am too late.

Maman corners me. “You sit right there and listen to me.” She thrusts her finger in my face and backs me to my place on the divan. “You will not humiliate this family.”

The force of her anger seems to vibrate the house, but soon

I realize it is only her voice that shakes. I could more easily weather another slap across the face. I would have even pre-ferred she drag me by the ear and throw me out into the street at Édouard’s feet rather than face the bald realization of how much I had hurt her.

It is not what I intended, but feeding on itself, the circumstance has taken on a course of its own. The reality is a physical ache that manifests itself in the pit of my stomach, a by-product of the lump lodged in my throat that will not allow me to speak.

She gave me the choice and I took it.

Probably for the best I cannot say this, as this will only worsen the situation.

“I suppose you think you know what is best?” She is screaming at me. “You know what you are doing? How are you going to explain this to your father?”

I try to answer, but my attempt to speak against her barrage of questions is as useless as trying to walk against the winds of the mistral. I let her blow.

After a long while she winds down with, “What are you trying to prove?” I do not answer immediately. She must think I am mocking her with sullen silence.

“Answer me when I speak to you! I asked you what you are trying to prove?”

I cleared my throat. “I am not trying to prove anything, Maman
.
”

Heat f lames my neck and ears. I hope my mother will not

notice. She shakes her head, disgust skewing her small features. “He is a married man, Berthe. You are a single woman. Have you become so blinded by selfishness you have forgotten it is not merely your own reputation at stake here?”

I knew it was not
my
future over which she fretted. It was Edma’s relationship with Adolphe. The one bright spot she had

pinned her dreams upon. Certainly more hope than I had given her.

“Maman
,
I do not know what you mean. Married or not, I have no ill intentions. I simply want to learn from Monsieur Manet
.
”

“Learn? Learn what? You do not need another painting teacher.”

“I am not looking for a teacher as much as I am looking for the inspiration I might receive by just watching him work.”

“Ridiculous. Your father and I have invested far too much money in your lessons with
Messieurs
Guichard and Oudinot. If you must seek inspiration elsewhere, we are not getting our due from them.”

She throws her hands in the air and talks as if someone else is in the room. “We spoil her. That is precisely the problem. I should not be surprised that she turned out this way. But I am surprised.” She turns back to me. “Surprised and shocked and saddened. Because with all we have given you, all the leeway and latitude, you have become a person I do not even know anymore. A person I do not wish to know.”

“How can you claim you do not know me, Maman? I am
your
daughter. I am an artist just as you and Papa have encouraged me.”

Maman f linches, almost imperceptibly but I see her react to the sting. Then she refocuses her glare on me, even more pierc-ing this time.

“Your father and I have encouraged you to be a proper lady.”

I should let it go. I know better, but my ire is like a door forced open under pressure. No matter how I try to bar it shut, bile manufactured by the talk of my place in this world grows until it oozes out between the facade’s cracks and crevices, until the door swings open and everything spills out.

“Proper? As if that were my life’s purpose? It is not my fault I was born a woman.”

My mother stares at me for a moment, cold and disbelieving. When she speaks, her voice is low and uneven, as if I have wrung from her all the energy she possesses.

“Berthe, we have afforded you advantages many a young woman would be delighted to have. Luxuries. The best cloth-ing, the best upbringing, the best possible position to meet a man who will ensure your future. Many respectable young men call, yet you push them aside, when all you would have to do is —”

“What? What should I do, Maman
?
Sit upon the sofa waiting for a
proper
man to give me permission to live? If that is so, it is a dull existence. If that is all you want for me, then why, Maman, did you raise me to think? Why did you and Papa encourage me to have an opinion?”

She closes her eyes against my words. I know I have delivered the fatal blow in our verbal jousting match. Although all the bile has drained from me, I only feel worse. It is as if something, some bond or branch between us that once seemed immovable, has splintered. Panicking, my mind reels, searching for a way to mend the fracture.

“I am sorry, Maman
.
I never meant to . . . I never meant to disappointment you
.
”

I am sincere. But she does not answer me. She simply turns, leaving me alone in the room with my words reverberating in the air.

Two days later, Maman accompanies me to Édouard’s rue Guyot
atelier
. Would she have gone if Papa had not returned home? He did not mention the incident with Édouard to me, but I know she told him. How else would she have explained why she was not speaking to me after our argument in the drawing room?

I am sorry to give Papa such a stressful homecoming. I have missed him. Our house is not the same without him, and my mother has grown so tense.

But I do believe it is he who is to thank for Maman’s accompanying me to Édouard’s studio. He is a strong man. A practical man. He looks beyond the silly superficial dictations of society to the matter-of-fact. The fact that I can learn something from Édouard.

Ah,
Papa, I really do not know what I would do without him.

Maman and I arrive late, or at least later than Fanny Claus and Monsieur Guillemet, the other models Édouard has engaged for the painting.

“Bon jour, bon jour!”
Édouard greets us warmly. Maman is cordial, but aloof—for my benefit, I’m sure—as he takes our wraps and makes introductions.

Tall and distinguished, Monsieur Guillemet bows with a f lourish and works a bit too hard, I must say, to charm us. I’m glad because his agreeable demeanor might melt Maman’s icy formality.

Édouard presents Fanny Claus, a young violinist and friend of his wife, Suzanne. Apparently, she and Suzanne often play duets at the Thursday night parties at his mother’s house.

Fanny Claus nods demurely. I am a bit disappointed when I realized both she and I have worn white dresses for the occasion. They are of vastly different styles, still I worry that the monochromatic sameness will not work for Édouard’s painting and he will require one of us to change. But he will be the one to make that decision, I think eying, the short, puffy Mademoiselle Claus.

I would not go so far as to call her fat, but she is an unre-deemingly plain girl. She has no neck to speak of and a long, pallid face with close-set black eyes that gave the appearance of

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.