"You flatter yourself, mademoiselle," Edouard laughed. But if I agree to model for you, I insist Monsieur Degas be present as chaperone." "I pay my models well."Ī flicker of interest lit her eyes. "Come to the studio, judge my work, then decide." He watched her face closely. "I'd wager you've never seen paintings like mine." Edouard scribbled an address on the back of his calling card. It was ostensibly open to all artists, but everyone knew that the conservative jury was notable for rejecting work deemed too iconoclastic. The yearly Salon competition sponsored by the prestigious Academie francaise held the entire city of Paris enthralled. "I've never heard of you, Monsieur Manet. So he understood where her priorities lay. What's wrong with artists? They can't afford to buy you a carriage and pair?" She kept her smile, murmured it was a pleasure, then turned to walk away.
This is Edouard Manet! He's an artist, Victorine. There was a moment of confusion before Degas realized the mistaken identity. "So! This is the gentleman from Marseille you told me so much about." She smiled sweetly, extending her hand.
The shine of a silk top hat, the sparkle of a gold watch chain, and the polish of leather boots spoke to her of affluence. Then she glanced up at the stranger, held his gaze a moment longer than was proper.
Degas introduced her, and Victorine lowered her face in the charming way she had practiced a thousand times in her cheval glass. She tugged the decollete of her crimson taffeta frock just a touch lower, took a deep breath, and threw open the double doors, slicing the room with a shaft of light.Īs she approached, Victorine's gaze riveted to the other gentleman. When Degas caught sight of her, he nudged his companion and nodded his chin toward her. Another gentleman stood with him off to the side, observing the girls in the flickering gaslight. Was she too late for their appointment? No, there he was in his sketching corner, but not alone. In the bright vestibule, Victorine cupped her hands against the glass-paned French doors and scanned the room for Edgar Degas.
The girls' middle-aged mothers nested on folding chairs, gossiping and clutching tattered shawls against the evening chill. The violinist yawned as he scratched out a listless Chopin nocturne. Inside the cavernous rehearsal hall, Victorine Laurent's fellow students practiced plies under the critical eye of their pudgy dance master, Monsieur Jules. Outside the tall bow windows of the Paris Opera ballet school, dusk embraced the city in a grayish pink veil, settling around spires of cathedrals and draping across bridges of the Seine. Francois Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel, 1532-1564 We always seek out forbidden things and long for whatever is denied us.
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