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TEN

B erthe stretches luxuriously across her bed and presses her right palm over her heart, her left to the spot below her navel.

She can’t sleep, doesn’t want to sleep. She only wants to relive the kiss.

Again and again. The give of édouard’s lips, of her own.

Drowning in the taste of him, the smell of him, the rightness of the moment, their moment.

Her willing surrender into pure sensation.

This must be the love the poets write about, the unimaginable perfect thing she never quite believed existed.

But now that it has happened to her, she has no more doubts.

And the gallant way édouard stopped her from falling farther.

His concern for what is best for her, for both her feelings and her position in society.

He may be a well-known flirt and philanderer, but his consideration for her was that of a gentleman keenly aware that she is not an off-the-street model he seeks to take as a mistress, but a woman to be treated with respect.

My dearest one. My impossible love. Whether by fate or destiny or God’s hand, they are meant to be together. He doesn’t love Suzanne, never touches her, barely even acknowledges her presence. How could he have said those things to her, Berthe, if he did? How could he have kissed her like that?

As Degas is always pointing out, Suzanne has no flare, is submissive and ungainly, no match for édouard’s charm and good looks, his slim waist and broad shoulders.

There have always been questions about his unlikely choice of Suzanne, who was the Manet brothers’ piano teacher, including édouard’s, hired by their parents to instill some musical culture in their sons, and seven years édouard’s senior.

Decidedly odd. In addition, they have no children, further suggesting a loveless marriage.

Berthe finally drifts off, but when she wakes, the rapture of yesterday has turned on itself.

She’s filled with doubts, her mood as cloudy as the sky beyond her bedroom window.

Zola once described édouard to her as an elegant cavalier, a promiscuous adventurer, always with an eye toward his own self-interest. Could she have misinterpreted his chivalry entirely?

Had édouard ended the kiss as the first phase of a planned seduction rather than as an act of deference?

Had he assumed an inexperienced woman such as herself needed a slower touch?

Was this a strategic act, one he’d performed before? Perhaps many times?

But no. She saw the concern in his eyes, felt the reluctance with which he pulled away from her.

Certainly, the wonder and desire on his face had been real.

He experienced exactly what she experienced, felt exactly what she felt.

He wanted to be with her as much as she wanted to be with him.

He will divorce Suzanne, and then they will marry.

To be a wife is a circumstance Berthe has always viewed skeptically, fearing a husband would disapprove of her desire to be a professional artist, perhaps even forbid it.

But her marriage to édouard would be nothing like that.

Not just their love for one another, but their shared passion for art, their respect for each other’s work and ambitions.

He would never do what Adolphe Pontillon has done to Edma.

They will paint side by side in the same studio, helping each other grow, applauding successes and ministering sympathy when difficulties inevitably arise.

She brightens at this image, but as she unscrolls her fantasy marriage, she’s confronted by the myriad difficulties standing in the way.

Divorce is infrequent and highly frowned upon in their circle, and both the Morisots and Manets are Catholic, although neither family is particularly religious.

There is no doubt this would create a huge scandal, the talk of every soiree and dinner party, in the seats of every theater and opera house for months, probably longer.

All made worse by the false rumors the gossips would take such delight in creating and spreading.

Could the shame cause their families to disown them, to turn them out?

This doesn’t seem likely, given Maman and Antoinette’s love for their children, but both women are overly concerned with their social status, so it is not outside the realm of possibility.

But even if their families stood by them, would she and édouard be rejected by society? Perhaps even by their fellow artists?

Not Degas and their bande, but there are many others who might not be as loyal.

As a parade of disapproving artists fills her mind, she has an even more distressing thought: The Salon.

Those old men, with their pomposity and unwavering defense of tradition, would not respond well when she and édouard submitted their next paintings.

Berthe stares at the shifting light reflecting on the ceiling.

It would be devastating for édouard to be spurned by the Salon a second time.

This would be discouraging for her also, but she’s not as enamored of it as he, going as far as recently discussing with Degas and Renoir the possibility of putting on their own show.

An idea édouard ridiculed as infantile and career-ending.

He might decide a divorce isn’t worth the price of losing his chances at the Salon.

Above all else, édouard yearns to be awarded the Legion of Honor medal, France’s highest commendation, a distinction bestowed by the emperor for a lifetime of contributions to French society, a prize his father received.

Without the Salon’s backing, this will never come to be.

Does he want the medal more than he wants her? He is nothing if not ambitious.

She must go to him, discover his true feelings, his intentions.

But that would be presumptuous, unladylike.

Berthe smiles to herself. As if her behavior yesterday was ladylike.

Perhaps he will send her a note today, and if so, she will be able to respond and suggest a time to meet, with Cornélie unfortunately in attendance.

If there is no word, she will find another avenue to him.

No letter arrives, but Berthe swallows her disappointment and decides to use this interval to move forward with her new painting, which will make the time pass quickly and provide an acceptable path back to édouard’s studio.

The painting is of Edma and Yves, Two Sisters on a Couch , she’s calling it, and she’s found that working on it sometimes makes her less lonely for them.

But just as often, as she fleshes out her sisters on the canvas, grows them into themselves, she misses them even more.

She’s depicted them as younger than they are now, and she wishes they all still were.

She completed the preliminary drawings at édouard’s, and the other artists were quite complimentary, but she knows it needs to be so much more. She’ll spend a few days finishing the watercolor rendition and then layer on the oils. When this is complete, she’ll bring it to the bande. And to édouard.

She puts on her paint-splattered smock, walks past the dining room where her parents are having breakfast, and steps into the garden.

“Berthe, your breakfast!” Cornélie calls.

She pops her head back through the door. “I have an idea, Maman. I’ll be back for lunch.”

“You need sustenance, my child. Come join us.”

“Lunch.” Berthe waves merrily, crosses the garden, and goes into her studio. She’s far from a child, her mother’s or anyone else’s, as she’s blossomed into a full woman overnight. And doesn’t it feel wonderful.

Berthe has taken advantage of the many sketches she did of her sisters in the days before Edma and Yves married and moved away, when the three of them painted and prowled the house and garden together, amusing themselves with gibes at Maman’s overbearing ways and climbing trees they were not allowed to climb.

If only she could talk to Edma now, confide what transpired with édouard, share her rioting emotions and deep quandaries.

But she dare not put this on paper. It is quite possible Adolphe reads Edma’s letters.

In the painting, Yves and Edma are sitting together, Edma looking out, Yves glancing off to the side.

But they are only inches apart, and there’s a hint they’re holding hands behind Yves’s fan.

Their dresses are elegant and fashionable, as is the hair piled atop their heads.

Pretty sisters enjoying each other’s company.

Berthe applies her brushstrokes loosely but carefully, striving for the pastel colors of the afternoon sun to illuminate the tenderness between them.

She falls short of breathing life into them, and they sit flat and uninteresting on the canvas.

She puts down her brush and palette, paces the room in frustration.

How to fix this? She stands before the painting, wrestling it with her eyes, searching for the missing key.

Then she grabs the brush she dropped to the table and studies it even more deeply.

Real painters only understand with a brush in their hands.

It needs more atmosphere, more nuance, subtle allusions to what the girls are feeling beyond what their gestures and facial expressions portray.

A lighter touch, softer edges blending their dresses into the couch, the couch into the wallpaper. She begins again.

A LITTLE OVER a week later, Rémy follows Berthe, Cornélie, and Antoinette into édouard’s studio, carrying Two Sisters along with Berthe’s painting materials. Degas, Renoir, and édouard are there. Berthe greets the men without making eye contact with any of them, particularly édouard.