Moonlight Over Paris(66)
“I like this idea of yours,” said Mathilde. “I like it very much.”
“But I paint so slowly. It would take me forever to finish. And we’ve only a month and a half until the Salon des Indépendants.”
“Then paint faster,” étienne ordered. “You must begin now, before the muse abandons you. Don’t bother with sketches—start with charcoal, on the canvas itself. Look at your drawing once more, and then shut it away. Your memories are all you need.”
“I don’t have anything large enough. My largest canvas is half that size.”
“I have one that might do,” he said, and he went to the corner of the studio where a half-dozen oversized canvases were leaning against the wall. Rummaging through them, he pulled the largest from the stack. “Here,” he said. “Use this one.”
“But you stretched those canvases yourself. You spent hours on them,” Helena protested.
“And I am honored to know one will be used in a masterpiece by Helena Parr.”
Adjusting her easel so the canvas was balanced securely, he picked up a stalk of vine charcoal and handed it to her. “Begin,” he said, and then he and Mathilde silently returned to their easels.
Helena cleared her mind of everything but the memory of that moment in Paris, at the Gare de Lyon, still so clear in her mind’s eye that it might have been yesterday. She drew and drew, and only when étienne approached and gently touched her arm did she realize that night had fallen and hours had passed.
“That’s all for today,” he insisted. “We’ll go to dinner now, and then I’ll walk you home.”
Standing back from the easel, she assessed the outlines she’d sketched on the canvas. Even at this early stage, she could tell that she was creating something original and new, something that was truly her own creation and not a pastiche of someone else’s ideas and techniques. If she’d had the strength, she’d have continued to work through the night, but étienne was right: food and rest now, and back to her easel as soon as the sun was up.
FOR EVERY MOMENT of soaring delight, however, there was a lowering counterpoint. It came the following week, near the end of her life painting class with Ma?tre Czerny. The model had been a young woman, her skin rosy and clear, her face as wise and serene as an Old Master Madonna. Helena had been inspired to draw her face and hands alone, a pair of studies rather than a conventional portrait, and had done so using only charcoal and chalk.
The ma?tre had spent the class prowling from easel to easel, but she had failed to attract his notice for most of the session. Only at the very end did he realize what she had done, and then his ire burst forth.
“Are you deaf, Mademoiselle Parr? Or are you a dullard? I asked for a compositional study. Compositional. You were meant to depict the model’s entire form—but perhaps you thought you knew better than I. Is that it? Are you the master here?”
“I beg your pardon. I misheard you. I didn’t intend to cause any offense.”
“But you do offend me. Your tedious work offends me, as does your timid approach. You are tentative when you ought to be bold. You are—”
“Oh, do leave off!” she snapped, her anger overruling her sense. “I made a simple mistake, that is all. I misheard your instructions, and for that I apologize. But your behavior is indefensible, utterly so, and I am sick to death of it.”
No one moved, no one breathed, and as she stood by her easel, shocked beyond words by her outburst, the only sound she could discern was the thunderous beat of her pounding heart. She swallowed, felt a tide of sickness rise in her throat, but managed, somehow, to force it back.
Before Ma?tre Czerny could respond, before he could begin to shout at her, she frantically began to gather her things, certain he would demand that she leave. What had she been thinking? It was nearly the end of the course; to fail now, to fall when the end was in—
“What are you doing? Did I tell you to leave?”
“No, but . . .”
“You aren’t crawling away now, are you? Not after you have finally showed me you have a spine. Or would the Americans among you call it ‘guts’?”
“So you aren’t . . . ?”
“No. Put down your bag, Mademoiselle Parr, and try to pay attention from now on.”
“Yes, Ma?tre Czerny.”
“Let this be a lesson to all of you,” he announced to the class. “I roar, I growl, I hiss—but I do not bite. Learn how to stand your ground; otherwise the critics will make a meal of you. Understood? Yes? Then that is all for today.”
Helena, étienne, and Mathilde went straight to the studio after class, not even stopping to buy bread and cheese for lunch. Helena’s hands were shaking so badly that she wasn’t sure she’d be able to hold a brush, so étienne unearthed a bottle of brandy he’d tucked away for emergency purposes and persuaded her to swallow several fiery mouthfuls. It did make her feel a little steadier, and she was thinking that she might be able to work on her Train Bleu canvas after all, when Daisy burst through the door.
“Where have you been?” Helena asked. “We haven’t seen you for days.”
It was evident from the expression on Daisy’s face that something dreadful had happened. Mathilde led her to the settee and they gathered around her protectively. “What is the matter? Why are you so pale? étienne—fetch her a brandy.”