He eases me down onto the dress, behind the screen. His mouth never leaves mine as he explores delicate places never before touched by a man.
I think I hear a woman’s voice in the far reaches of my consciousness.
He tears away from me, and gets to his feet in what seems like a single, f luid motion.
“
Bonjour,
Édouard! Are you here?” Suzanne calls out mere seconds before her footfalls announce her presence inside the studio.
What’s the earth
With all its art, verse, music worth Compared with love, found, gained and kept?
—Robert Browning
stand
trembling behind the screen afraid to move, afraid to breathe. All I can think is how symbolic this is of my life— wanting that which I cannot have. Craving that which is forbidden me. Yet I ignore common sense in search of the illusive
to fill the void that seems to grow larger every day.
I am ashamed to think I believed I might find it in a married man.
On the other side of the screen, Édouard mutters something about taking a walk. “Perfect timing that you should arrive now. I was preparing to go out. Won’t you join me?”
I hope his face does not ref lect the tightness in his voice, and I wonder if Suzanne is suspicious.
“Édouard, I have only just arrived. Might we sit awhile so that I might rest from my journey?”
“Haven’t you been sitting since you left Boulogne? I would think more sitting should only tire you further.”
The dress I wore here is hanging over the screen. If I attempt to pull it down, she would surely see it. That won’t work.
The hem of my white dress is sticking out beyond the confines of the acceptably patrician. Do I dare pull it back and attempt to dress, or do I stand here in my underwear banking on the possibility that Édouard will be able to get her out and away from the building so that I might make my escape.
There is only one exit. Right now, Édouard’s wife stands squarely between me and my freedom. My heart pounds so furiously that it is almost uncomfortable.
“Aren’t you expecting Mademoiselle Claus and the others? I should quite like to see her. That’s one of the reasons I came today.”
“In that case your timing is quite bad. Yesterday, your friend, Mademoiselle Claus quit the painting. Leaving me quite in a lurch. Without her, there was no need to detain the others. So I am left to my own devices.”
Quite convincing.
I wonder for a moment if Fanny Claus might have told Suzanne that she and her chaperone would no longer be in attendance. Did Suzanne think it in her best interest to appear in person to check on matters? But the logistics are nearly impossible. It is highly unlikely that Fanny Claus would have had time to send a note to Boulogne in time for Suzanne to receive it and travel.
No, it was merely coincidence. Or perhaps something even more unsettling—a wife’s intuition.
All I can do is wait and hope that intuition does not alert her to question the blue gown thrown haphazardly over the screen or hang up the white dress that has
fallen
to the f loor.
*
“Amélie promised I would find you here.”
“Édouard—” His voice seems to echo in the Louvre gallery. It sends a jolt up my spine that makes me sit straighter. I f linch, ashamed at having uttered his given name. Too familiar. I am losing myself again.
Edma peeks out from behind her easel and smiles. “Monsieur Manet. What a pleasant surprise.”
“
Bonjour Mademoiselle,
I did not realize it was you hiding behind the canvas. How lovely to see you.” A pregnant pause. “Both of you.” The musée feels tremendously vast and cold despite being crowded for a Thursday. In addition to Edma and me, one other painter copies the Rubens. In the short time he has been here, a handful of onlookers have strolled by pausing to scruti-nize our work. Looking from our easels to the masterpieces on the walls, they utter inane comments as if we are deaf or too
dumb to comprehend their criticism.
It will be hard to speak to him after yesterday, but I desperately need to talk to him. He knew, and he found me, sought me out, rather than leave me in fits and knots over the outcome of Suzanne’s surprise visit.
Edma is watching us. Her eyes dart from Édouard to me. I have not told her of yesterday’s events. I have not told her because it will not happen again. I am ashamed. Ashamed at having narrowly escaped and at the perverse thrill I get now thinking about his hands on me.
It is wrong.
I shall not put myself in that position again. I thought Suzanne would never agree to go with him, but finally after a bit of persistence she did.
Édouard is quite a persistent man.
“What brings you to the Louvre today, monsieur?” she asks. “Business or pleasure?” She giggles. I cringe. It’s so out of character for her to act like a silly, smitten girl.
I grip my paintbrush so hard my knuckles go white. “My business is personal in nature actually.”
He speaks to her, but his gaze is fixed on me.
Edma sets down her pallet. “I see. In that case, I shall get back to work and leave you to your personal business.” She stands. “In fact, I f ind I need a closer look at the folds in Marie de’Medici’s dress for this study. If you will excuse me.”
“Certainly.” He sounds as relieved as I am at having the chance to talk alone.
Behind Édouard’s back Edma makes a face at me, then covers her eyes with her hands before wandering over to a painting hung on the far wall, different from the one from which we are working.
“I had to see you,” Édouard says. “Are you all right?”
I shrug still unable to process the myriad of emotions coursing through me. I am at war with myself:
You are so foolish for longing for him as he stands right in front of you,”
says Propriety
. Even after you spent the past hours fretting, feeling dirty and used, over nearly being found out.
Yes, but underneath it all,
says Olympia,
despite everything that has happened, you hoped he would come today. And he did.
That alone eases my melancholy as a piece of bread can save a starving man from dying of hunger.
I glance at Maman, sitting on a bench across the gallery.
She has dozed off reading her book.
Yesterday morning after f leeing Édouard’s studio, I apologized to her. I walked in, found her, and said, “This standoff has gone on far too long. I have behaved foolishly. I want things to be as they always have been.”
She forgave me.
But only after I told her my days of sitting for Édouard Manet were over.
She agreed this war between us had gotten out of hand and seemed relieved to call a truce. She said she holds no grudge against Édouard. She was angry with me over my choices. The way I have chosen to live my life.
I shudder to think what damage our relationship would suffer if she only knew the choices I had really made.
“It will never happen again
.
” I murmur the words, a little cooler than my initial reception of him, and resume painting— same Rubens I was working on that day I first met him
.
Sure,
taunts Olympia
. You will not let him walk away. You desire him too much.
But Propriety scolds
, After foolishly giving yourself over to him for his balcony painting, you have sorely neglected your own work. If you are to be a painter, you must paint. If you long to give into the temptation to flirt, you should choose a more appropriate man.
You have renewed your focus on painting. Sadly, as it stands, you will not have work ready in time to enter the Salon. Perhaps next time you will not behave so stupidly, squandering my time.
“Berthe . . .” He steps closer, holding his hat. “You f led in such haste yesterday. I wish you had stayed. I came right back after Suzanne left.”
My hands shake as I paint. “Stay? Do you know how close we came to being discovered? How could I have behaved so foolishly?”
When I finally f led, I was so unnerved I did not even button my gown. I simply wrapped my cloak around me and f led, as fast as I could. When I got home, I went straight up to my room, removed the dress, and put on my nightclothes, telling Maman and Edma I was not well.
The terrible part is that despite near disaster, the feel of his kiss is still fresh on my lips. Yesterday as I ran away and today as I cannot. They tingle with desire even as he stands here, and I tell him, “It will never happen again.”
I lay down my brush, but do not look at him. If I do and see longing in his eyes, I will crumble and that would be catastrophic. Hiding and running; fearing discovery. His studio is an open door. Anyone can walk in. If there were not something inherently wrong with me, that he is married should have been enough to have stopped me. We should never have arrived at the problem of being forced to hide our passion and hope against all hope that we would not be discovered.
“It was not right for me to stay with you alone in your studio. I should have left when I discovered Mademoiselle Claus was not coming back.” I press my hands to my face and see Edma trying to act like she is not watching us. She looks away when she sees me. “Your wife must have known.”
“She does not know. And will never know what happened between us.”
I remember his hands on my body, his lips on my neck, and I shudder. “It should have never happened, and I would thank you to take your leave, Monsieur.”
My voice, a hissing whisper, trembles, and I pick up my brush again.
He glances at Maman, still sleeping, and I know he is concerned about waking her. I’m concerned, too. It’s bad enough my sister is seeing this exchange.
Merci Dieu
no one else is close enough to hear.
“Berthe, please. I must see you again.” “To finish what you started?”
“It is not like that.”
“Then how is it, Monsieur Manet?”
Footsteps sound from the gallery entrance behind us. I glance back to see Degas approaching.
We fall silent.
Wonderful. Just wonderful. The last person I want to see right now.
“Manet? It is you. I am not surprised. Every time I see you now, you and Mademoiselle Morisot are together.
Hmmmmmph.
Is this your work, Mademoiselle?”
“Yes it is.” The words were a warning, daring him to give me an opinion. I am in no mood to abide his biting sarcasm.
Degas steps closer to the canvas, bends down to look. For the first time since making his acquaintance, a new expression passes over his jaded face. I cannot label the look exactly, but his features soften as he gazes at my painting.
“
Bon. Très bon.
This is excellent. Better than most men.
Manet mentioned you have talent, but I had no idea.” “See?” says Édouard. “Didn’t I tell you?”
I scowl, feeling as if I have been set up. Manet would have Degas come along and f latter me to soften my continence in case I was in a bad mood after yesterday. I feel quite sickened at the possibility that he has told Monsieur Degas about yesterday’s rendezvous and near mishap.
“Did Monsieur Manet ask you to meet him here today?” I ask. Degas’ sardonic glare eclipses his former look of near respect. “I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle?”
I glance at Édouard, who is stroking his beard. “Did he ask you to . . .?”
Degas is no longer looking at me, but at my canvas.
“If you are asking if I told him of your remarkable ability to paint, the answer is yes,” says Édouard. “But no, Mademoiselle, I did not, as you imply, bribe him to come here today to remark as such. He is simply calling talent as he sees it and admiring it, as he should.”
Maman lets out a snore that echoes in the gallery. She stirs, but does not awaken.
“Do you show in the Salon?” Degas asks.
“I have in the past. This year I will not have time to get anything ready.” I purposely do not look at Édouard, because
the statement makes me think of all the time I have recently spent in his studio. And how it ended with me standing before him with my dress down, my defenses low, and his hands holding my body against his.
“Well, it is too bad for them, but it is not a tragedy for you. The Academy rules the establishment with too lofty a hand. The art world needs something more than the Salon. We need an outlet that does not bind us to play by their rules.”
“What else is there besides the Salon?” Manet asks.
Degas rubs his chin contemplatively. “That is what some used to say about studying outside of l’École. But you, Manet, can attest to the fact that some very fine artists have come from outside the hallowed halls of l’École des Beaux-Arts.”
Manet nods.
“The same will soon be said about the Salon.”
Manet chuckles. “What? Do you think you can change the face of art in Paris?”
Degas looks as if he will spit. “Not the face of art, just the manner in which it is viewed. Mademoiselle, Manet, would you be interested in discussing this at greater length?”
Manet shakes his head. “I get into enough trouble with the Academy without organizing against the system.”
“You, Manet, are a coward. Mademoiselle, are you interested?”
“I would love to hear more.”
If Degas knew how to smile, I suppose he would do so now. Instead, he lifts those umbrella brows and nods.
“I shall organize a luncheon at my home and send word.
Until then,
bonjour.
”
He walks away, leaving us alone.
“Will you go?” Édouard asks. “If you do, I, too, shall attend.” “Monsieur Manet,
s’il vous plaît
.” I stand up. “You do not
understand. We cannot do this. I cannot—”
“
Non,
Berthe,
s’il vous plaît.
It is you who do not understand. What happened between us yesterday was not something I smirk at. Nor do I think less of you because of it. I think you are an incredibly talented artist who also happens to be an incredibly beautiful woman. Even if we cannot enjoy a relationship of pleasure, I certainly hope we can share a friendship of equals. That is, if you are able to do so. If not, if you think less of me after what happened yesterday, then I beg you to consider how you would label me if the tables were turned. It is only fair. You are welcome at my home and my studio anytime.
Bonjour, mademoiselle.
”