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THREE

B erthe sits next to Edma in the Galerie Médicis in the Louvre.

Her sister is completely engrossed in copying Rubens’s The Exchange of the Two Princesses , but Berthe is distracted.

The gallery is suffocatingly hot, the stiff crinolines under her dress gouge at her legs, and the stays dig into her ribs.

As part of their artistic training, she and Edma have been enrolled as copyists at the museum for the past five years.

And although Berthe has learned much, she’s losing interest in transferring some other artist’s work onto her canvas.

She prefers to create her own paintings outside, plein air, where she can invent rather than imitate. Where she can breathe.

She returns to duplicating the shimmering detail of the taller princess’s dress, which Rubens rendered as if it were molten silver.

Even though she’s exploring the techniques of one of the great masters of luminosity, this isn’t the type of luminosity that interests her.

Rubens’s light showcases the representational aspects of his painting, while Berthe’s fascination lies in how light reflects and bounces off objects, emphasizing a single branch or the edge of a leaf while leaving the rest in shadow, details blurred, as they are in life.

Berthe wants someone to look at her painting and feel as if they are standing in front of the real tree, experiencing it.

No one looking at The Exchange of the Two Princesses feels as if they are actually on a barge between France and Spain, a part of the strategic trade of one young woman for another.

“Is something wrong, dear?” Edma asks, as always attuned to her sister’s changeable tempers.

She’s only two years older than Berthe, but she often acts as if the distance between them is larger.

And in some ways, particularly levelheadedness and equanimity, it is.

Yet they adore each other, inseparable since they were small children.

“No, I was just thinking about what Monsieur Corot taught us about light,” Berthe replies. “How it jumps, rather than shines in a straight line.”

“That may be, but the jury at the Salon prefers its light to shine evenly.”

Berthe is keenly aware of the truth of this.

She just wishes it could be otherwise. Change is anathema to the Salon de Paris, the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, the irrefutable arbiter of the finest of French painting, heralded, at least by the French, as the greatest in the world.

Held each year during the first two weeks of May, it’s the social event of the season.

But for most artists, the selection process is grueling and often humiliating, and the show itself even more so.

The Salon accepted two of Berthe’s landscapes for each of its shows in 1864, 1865, and 1866, but not last year.

And she hasn’t yet heard about the three she submitted for 1868.

She doubts the Salon judges will consent to exhibit her meager offerings and often wonders why they included her paintings in their earlier shows.

Despite a few somewhat-positive comments from critics, and even a sale, she knows her work isn’t what it should be, what it can be. Hopefully, what it will be.

She wishes she hadn’t submitted those paintings, had never allowed them to be seen, as she’s unsatisfied with their quality.

But recognition by the Salon de Paris is the only way to be considered a legitimate artist, the only avenue to sales, and, especially for a woman, the only way to be taken seriously. And she’s impatient.

Still, she says, “Degas was telling me about his discussion with Pissarro, who thinks classic compositions are finished.”

“Why do you continue to do this to yourself?”

Berthe doesn’t know how to respond in a way that Edma will understand.

It’s not that her sister isn’t smart or a talented painter, it’s just that she’s serene by nature.

She doesn’t experience Berthe’s rumblings of frustration and anger, the desire for what seems to be beyond reach.

Edma is at ease with the world and her place within it.

“Because I don’t know how to be happy?” she asks with a smile to soften her words, to imply that she’s joking.

Edma isn’t fooled. “And that, my dearest sister, might be the saddest thing of all.”

There are footfalls behind them, and while Edma returns her attention to her painting, Berthe turns to see who it might be.

It’s their friend and painter Henri Fantin-Latour, who she’s aware is interested in more than a friendship with her, although she’s quite content with the relationship they have.

With Fantin-Latour is the artist édouard Manet.

Berthe and Edma have never been properly introduced to Monsieur Manet, but they know of him, as seemingly everyone in Paris does.

Whether for his wit, charm, and good looks, or for his infamous painting Luncheon on the Grass , the man is admired and reviled in equal measure, the talk of the city. Berthe is intrigued.

The two men bow, but Manet bows more deeply, his top hat pressed to his chest. He’s dressed at the height of fashion, from his narrow pants to the intricately carved cane he holds with such nonchalance, more than a bit of a dandy.

When he raises his head, he looks straight into Berthe’s eyes.

This is highly improper, and the correct response would be for her to lower hers. She does not.

“Please introduce me to these two beautiful ladies,” he says to Fantin-Latour, but his eyes cling to Berthe. “The talented Morisot sisters, I presume.”

Highly, highly improper. Berthe is relieved that her mother’s sour stomach kept her from chaperoning her daughters’ museum visit today, as she usually does.

Berthe ignores him, adds a dab of a watery silver to her painting, scrutinizes it, nods, and then slowly puts her brush down on the ledge of the easel.

When she glances over, Manet’s expression is mischievous, the slight smile curling his lips indicating he has seen through her feigned indifference.

Fantin-Latour does as Manet asks, but Berthe surprises herself and, clearly, her sister, when instead of remaining demurely seated, she stands and holds out her hand.

Not to be kissed, but to be shaken. An uncommon gesture for a woman, but Manet is a married man, so her boldness isn’t as unbecoming as it would be if he didn’t have a wife.

Again, she’s glad her mother has remained at home.

Manet shakes her hand and then shakes his head in amusement, his long reddish curls swinging behind him, as if they, too, are tickled.

“It is my deepest pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, Mademoiselle,” he says with another bow, slighter this time.

“I was very much impressed with the paintings you displayed at the Salon two years ago. Particularly the riverscape, so full of translucent mist and light.”

Berthe tries to hide her pleasure at his compliments. “Not as much as I was by your Luncheon on the Grass .”

He rocks on his heels, taken aback, and she can tell that for all his swagger, he’s as unsure of his work as she is of hers. “In a good or bad way?” he asks stiffly, as if bracing himself for an unfavorable reply.

Luncheon depicts two men and two women enjoying a picnic in the woods, a classical subject traditionally composed, inspired by Titian and Raphael. It was rejected by the Salon de Paris, so Manet exhibited it at the Salon des Refusés, along with the work of other artists whom the Salon snubbed.

It did indeed create the uproar the Salon feared, as the two women are naked and the two men are impeccably clothed in decidedly fashionable outfits.

It’s more two-dimensional than three, and the lighting is harsh.

Immoral and shocking was the verdict of most of the critics and the public, but not of the many artists who expressed appreciation of his daring and style. The latter group includes Berthe.

She sits down and folds her hands loosely in her lap. “It’s a bold and unique statement on the establishment’s narrow-mindedness. It is also a remarkable painting.”

Joy lights up Manet’s face, and his eyes crease with pleasure. “Thank you, Mademoiselle Morisot. It’s indeed an honor to hear such a response from an artist of your skill and intuition. I only hope that we may have many future opportunities to share and discuss each other’s work.”

Berthe smiles politely and picks up her brush. She will ensure these future opportunities come to fruition.

Fantin-Latour and Edma both watch this exchange with discomfort, if for different reasons.

AS THE CHURCH bells chime five times, Rémy, their coachman, arrives to bring Berthe and Edma home.

A cheerful man who has had a sweet spot for Berthe since she was a little girl, he carries their canvases and supplies to their father’s horse-drawn carriage, then puts down the stepstool and helps them up.

Edma is careful her ankles don’t show as she climbs, but Berthe is fond of the curve of the heels of her soulier pompadours, and she lifts her skirt a little higher than necessary to avoid the mud and refuse running along the cobblestones. Small rebellions. Small pleasures.

The barouche has a folding hood, which Rémy raises to protect them from the curious eyes of those on the streets, as befits women of their class and unmarried status. Edma, as always, is unaware these are restrictions, completely unperturbed by, and accepting of, the rules Berthe chafes under.

The horses quickly take them from the dirty streets and shanties that surround the Louvre to the airy expanse of the Boulevard des Italiens.

As they pass Café de Bade, Berthe cranes her neck to catch a glimpse of the restaurant.

Manet reserves two tables at five o’clock most afternoons, and there he and many of the other artists struggling with the limitations of the Salon gather.

Her fellow artists and friends, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley, are surely ensconced at his table at this moment.

Berthe has painted with them many times, always under her mother’s watchful eye, which is unnecessary, as Berthe isn’t taken with any of them in that way.

They have all told her of their café conversations, critiques of Delacroix, heated debates about the power of the Salon, as well as discussions of their work and possible new directions for French painting.

But she cannot join them, as much as she and they would welcome her inclusion.

For entering a café unchaperoned to take a seat at a table of men to whom she is not related would bring down the wrath of all those who purport to know what correct behavior is.

And she cannot turn her back to these close-minded people any more than she can pay no heed to the power of the Salon.

Edma puts a hand on her arm. “You know he’s a married man.” Her voice contains more concern than consternation.

Berthe is startled by her sister’s misreading of her thoughts, which is rare. She covers Edma’s hand with her own. “It’s not him I’m longing for. It’s the chance to be like him.” But as she says this, she wonders if Edma might not be right.