Luncheon of the Boating Party (13 page)

this man, this Joseph-Paul Lagarde, last night, had murmured in the carriage, “Marry me, Jeanne. Marry me tomorrow. No, not tomorrow.

Marry me at Christmas and we’ll have a
fête
that will set Paris abuzz for the season.” And she had said, “Whenever you’d like.”

She had used the formal
vous
to show she knew he didn’t consider the daughter of a music professor from the edge of Montmartre, an actress playing ladies’ maids, equal to the son of the Most Honorable Michel Lagarde,
agent supérieur
of the stock exchange, and
châtelain
of Château Saint-Clair in Compiègne.

And early this morning Joseph-Paul had come to call upon her father, very properly, mustering respect, asking for her hand in marriage, and Papa was pleased, knowing that Joseph-Paul had a sound future, and Maman was happy because her daughter was happy, and Joseph-Paul had made them promise not to tell anyone until he told his parents, and he kissed her mother on the cheek, and now the two of them were promenading back and forth along avenue Frochot, astonished at what they’d just done.

Avenue Frochot, her little oasis of a street, a one-block crescent, calm and leafy. Not a monstrous block of apartments on a busy boulevard, nor the oddly shaped cottages of Montmartre, but an avenue secreted

•
79
•

S u s a n V r e e l a n d

between the two, each
maison particulière
separate the other and with a distinct character, her home since girlhood. She would hate so very much to leave it.

She looped her hand around his arm and told him where the painter Eva Gonzalès lived, and showed him Madame Galantière’s cast-iron bench where her life had taken a turn, Madame who was like an aunt to her and never missed her opening nights. She told him Victor Hugo had once lived at number five, and she described the grand day of her childhood when crowds followed him home when he returned to Paris after the Siege, and how he spoke to them from his balcony above the tier of arches, the great world coming to her little street.

“Let’s go to the Bois now,” Joseph-Paul said.

She was miffed. Was he even listening? She had so much more

to tell.

“To do what?”

“Stroll to the cascade, take a gondola ride, meet my parents at the Kiosque de l’Empereur on the island. Let’s get your parasol and we’ll be off.”

“I don’t need it.” She knew what he liked to hear. “All I need is you.”

“Yes, but I must promenade you in all your splendor. Come now,

Jeanne, let’s go back and get it.” He kissed her on her temple, a quick assurance of affection. “We have a bit of work to do.”

She stopped in the cobbled street. “Work?” She squeaked out the word so he would laugh. “You’ve just described pleasure.”

“Work that will be pleasure. We have to convince my parents. It’s a delicate issue. Father is very old-fashioned.”

He paused. Was she supposed to guess his meaning?

“When I mentioned you to them”—he stroked her hand as if

smoothing the nap on a velvet glove—“Father said, ‘Once upon the boards, no matter how irreproachable their character may be, actresses can never be received by people of character and condition except in their professional capacity.’ ”

A slam. It was like tripping and falling flat on the stage, not knowing how she’d gotten there.

She planted herself on Madame Galantière’s bench. The playwright

•
80
•

L u n c h e o n o f t h e B o a t i n g P a r t y

in the Flemish house was tap-tapping on his writing machine. When he stopped for a few moments, she held her breath for him, willing him to go on, and didn’t look up at Joseph-Paul until the man was tapping regularly again.

“I know it’s terribly conservative of them, but they’ll come around.

Let’s go.”

“No.”

“No?” He stretched out the word into two rising syllables.

“I’m not going with you to the Bois.”

“But you need to meet my parents. They need to see that you are—”

“Refined. Yes, you may show me off, and I shall charm them, I

promise you, but not today.”

“Why not?”

“I have a rendezvous. I did not expect today to be taken up with this.

I’m going to pose.”

“On a Sunday? You can’t be serious. You couldn’t have arranged

that any day but Sunday?”

“No. It has to be Sunday. Sundays. For Auguste Renoir.”

He raised both arms, an overly dramatic gesture, and gave her a stern look. “You said that was over.”

She could not suppress a giggle. “Stern looks don’t play well on men who have just asked one’s father for one’s hand in marriage. It is over, but this is a favor.”

“Posing nude is a favor?”

“It’s not for a nude. I’ve never posed nude, but what if it were?”

“You wouldn’t do it, that’s what. And you’re not doing it today, regardless. I forbid you—”

“Sh.”

He lowered his voice. “Darling.”

Those words,
I forbid you,
sent an icy tingle through her, head to toe.

That a man would command her like that. Heaven and earth! It gave her a shock. She had never been told such a thing by Auguste. He was so blithe, letting her go her own way after an evening together, she to the theater, the shops, a friend’s flat, while he went to some
hôtel particulier
to paint a portrait, or out to his river. Auguste never questioned

•
81
•

S u s a n V r e e l a n d

her. Was it titillating or merely inconvenient to love a man she was a jot afraid of?

“It’s only a favor done out of good will. A pleasant thing to do.” She reached into her drawstring bag and pulled out the note. “See?” A touch of jealousy would do him good.

He read it, and in a broad gesture, tore it in two.

She grabbed for it. “You have no right—”

“Remember the sight of this.” He tore it into smaller pieces, and still smaller, and dropped them in the gutter.

She watched all those bits of male adoration float down like stage snowflakes. She hadn’t known that he was capable of so theatrical a gesture. It would play well at the Opéra, better there than at the Comédie-Française, where it wouldn’t convey genuine sadness.

Such a difference in men. The joy Auguste took in her had been

purely visual, sensual, and spontaneous. It wasn’t founded on possession, which was all right for a lover, but not for a husband. Joseph’s love was based on notions new to her, seriousness and permanence.

“I’ve made a promise,” she said.

“To him?”

“No. I haven’t seen him for half a year. To Madame Charpentier.

She said if this painting gets in the Salon and I’m not in it—”

“You have your new painter to get you into the Salon.”

“She doesn’t have his reputation.”

“Precisely.”

“I
meant
as a painter.”

He loomed above her as though that alone would convince her. Was his manhood at stake? A woman had to be clever in order to cherish a man’s manliness without letting it get the better of her. She’d have to find subtle ways of getting what she needed without him ever suspecting that he’d been manipulated. Then his manhood would remain intact.

Men were happier that way. God knows she wanted a happy man.

“We’re expected at eleven. A matter of honor,” he said, looking at her steadily, taking her elbow, guiding her home to get her parasol.

Hm. A happy woman married to a happy man needed to choose her

battles shrewdly.

•
82
•

C h a p t e r E i g h t

Glorious Insanity

Auguste sat on the upper terrace of Maison Fournaise, his feet on a wooden chair, knees up to his chin, waiting. He surveyed the sky.

A few high wispy clouds. Weaklings unable to keep out the sun. Good.

He hadn’t slept well in his room above the restaurant. Worries had tumbled as he thrashed. It would be overcast. It would rain. He couldn’t work left-handed. The terrace would float in midair. Not enough people would come to convey the right atmosphere. The composition

would be jumbled. Zola would be proven right. He wouldn’t be able to handle a complex painting
based on long and thoughtful preparation.

How long did Zola want? A decade? He’d been working up to this that long. All those portraits, every painting done
en plein air,
they were all exercises. Even the Marie Antoinette plates were exercises leading to this terrace. A village of triers, and he was one of them.

He stood up, sat down, stood up again. On the Rueil bank a hundred meters away, Parisians poured out of trains with picnic baskets. From the station, some took the double-decker horse-drawn omnibus downriver to be ferried across to La Grenouillère to swim and dance at The Frog Pond. Others crossed on the Chatou bridge, and were already promenading on the island they claimed as theirs one day a week. Already Alphonse was renting out yoles and the river was sliced with racing sculls. Already the lower terrace was filled with exuberant people without a worry on their minds.

“Don’t forget to save some
canots
for us,” Auguste called down.

“Plenty. Don’t worry.”

•
83
•

S u s a n V r e e l a n d

Well, that was one thing he
didn’t
have to worry about. He cranked the awning out. Not enough light. He rolled it in again.

Alphonsine came up to the terrace with two white tablecloths and a stack of napkins. “Every time I come up here, you’ve changed the awning,” she said.

“The light keeps changing.”

“And you’re upstairs, downstairs, upstairs. Relax. They’ll come.”

She shook out a tablecloth and smoothed it. “Oh, no! I’m sorry about these folds.”

“But I love to paint folds.”

She snickered.

“It’s true. See how the white changes to pale blue along the ripples?”

“I’m going to play waitress for you today, just for the pleasure of it.

And Maman insists on preparing all the models’ meals so my aunt will cook for the restaurant. How many shall I set the table for?”

“A dozen. Set the tables six and six.”

“Twelve people in one painting?”

“Fourteen. Counting you. You’re the darling of this place.”

He liked watching her try to hide her pleasure.

“Who’s the fourteenth?”

“Your brother.”

“Do you know what the picture will be like? Where everyone

will be?”

“I don’t even know who will come.”

“Who might come?”

“Some friends of mine. Writers. Models. Actresses. Ellen Andrée and maybe Jeanne Samary.”

“Jeanne Samary! I saw her in
School for Husbands.
You
know
her?”

He tried to be expressionless but he knew he wasn’t succeeding. Her eyes opened wider. She pinched her lips together with her index fi nger and thumb, a pretty little action, which claimed she knew a secret.

“Will you do one thing for me?” he asked. “Go put on your straw
canotier
and a boating dress. In this painting, you are a
canotière,
not a hostess.”

•
84
•

L u n c h e o n o f t h e B o a t i n g P a r t y

“Gladly.” She disappeared into the corridor.

In a few minutes he heard Pierre and Paul singing as they came across the bridge.
“Oh-ho! les canotiers, C’est aujourd’hui dimanche.”
Boaters, today is Sunday, the song began. Paul, in a red-and-white-striped boating jersey, waved his
canotier,
apparently recovered from being roughed up when they made the rounds of cabarets, and Pierre waved his bowler.

Auguste hailed them. “Pierre, I haven’t seen you for a couple of months, long enough for you to fall in love. Did you?”

“Twice!”

“You lucky devil.”

Pierre lifted a basket with two bottles of wine. “In case we drink the restaurant dry.”

“Do we have time for a row?” Paul asked.

“Before it rains,” Pierre added.

“These aren’t rain clouds, you worrywart,” Auguste said. “They’re just puffs of decoration. Alphonse is saving a pair of sculls if you want to race.”

Paul turned to Pierre. “Then, to La Grenouillère for a bock.”

“That’s the wrong way,” Alphonse said. “Upstream first, to the boatworks at Bezons, and back with the current when you’re tired.”

“Good,” Pierre said. “That’ll keep Paul from getting into woman trouble at La Grenouillère. It’s my duty.”

“And you’ll be improving the nation’s moral fiber two ways!” Auguste said.

Alphonse joined in with, “Exercise for the sake of the Republic!”

“Revitalizing France,” Paul said, beating his breast with his fi sts.

Laughing at themselves, they settled into the two boats, maneuvered into the current, and Alphonse shouted,
“Allez!”
to start them off.

Louise Fournaise in a blue-gray dress and long white apron came up to the terrace carrying a tray of wine glasses clinking against each other.

“Louise, my sweet,” Auguste said, summoning his most charming

smile, which cracked his scabs. “Do you think you could use your glasses made at Bar-sur-Seine instead of these?”

•
85
•

S u s a n V r e e l a n d

“My, you are a picky one. Whatever for?”

“They’re made by hand, so they’re irregular and have tinges of color.

It’s important to see in a thing the person who made it.”

“I would think you’d want the best we’ve got.”

“Machine-made glasses are sham. The imperfections of handmade

glass give each one a personality, a soul.”

“If my glasses had a soul they’d wash themselves,” she muttered.

“Good taste is disappearing with all this trashy sameness. If there were a Society of Irregularists, I’d drop everything and join it.”

“You’re crazy, you know. Crazy.” She tapped her temple.
“Un fou.”

He knew he was on safe ground now. “And don’t cut the bread. Let them tear it. It makes more interesting shapes. And don’t let anyone bring out that silly little tray and brush to sweep up crumbs. It’s preten-tious. Leave them lie.”