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TWENTY-EIGHT

She continues to mourn the loss of Parisian Summer , along with the opportunity to expand her artistic horizons.

She always knew these restrictions held sway, but she’d looked forward to a future when this might not be so.

Now even that limited optimism is gone. She never imagined her placid husband would have the power to snuff out her hopes, to change the course of her work.

Watching Parisian Summer shrivel into nothingness was painful beyond measure, the image of which still stings her eyes, as the odor of burning canvas and oil paint still stings her nose.

Even worse, Gène’s unexpected fury and his certitude of her folly has further delineated her boundaries.

As much as she had hungered to break through these barriers, she’s now forced to face the reality that if she steps beyond the rigidity of the social order, she will dishonor her family.

However unjustifiable that dishonor may be.

Although she recognizes it would be the Christian thing to forgive Gène, Berthe finds she cannot.

While he’s apologized for upsetting her and explained his reasoning many times, he remains insistent that his actions were both correct and necessary.

Neither true. She could have kept Parisian Summer in her studio, under a drop cloth.

Or if he feared she would complete it behind his back, the half-finished painting could have been stored in his bedroom or at his mother’s house, waiting for the moment when she would be allowed to paint it.

This last thought suggests she still clings to a shred of hope that one day things might change. A very small shred.

She tries to be magnanimous, allowing that it was her husband’s conventional nature that drove his decision.

édouard’s unwavering commitment to the time-honored Salon, to the powers that be, is indicative of the same inclination.

But édouard would never have done what Gène did.

He would never destroy another artist’s work.

Then she remembers he did exactly that to Degas’s painting of Suzanne.

Yet another display of the Manet family’s embrace of the reigning orthodoxy.

She stands in her studio, watching sunlight stream over her finished and unfinished canvases, inhaling the scent of paint and turpentine, an artist’s scent, her scent.

This is her world, her life, circumscribed as it may be, and she cannot stop painting any more than she can stop breathing.

Her only choice is to strive to bring the domain of women to life, a corner of the world her male counterparts cannot depict.

Rising . Dressing . Little Girl in a Blue Dress . This, too, stings.

BERTHE AND DEGAS survey the exhibition the day before the opening, just as they did prior to their first show.

There are many new painters, although their bande of six remains the organizing committee, and this time the rooms are arranged by artist. The front spaces are reserved for those deemed least likely to attract criticism, like Berthe, and the more daring, like Degas, are toward the back.

Monet’s stunning Japanese Girl is nearest the entrance, while Caillebotte’s The Floor Sweepers , a powerful painting of men in ragged clothing sweating as they arduously clean the floorboards, is hidden even farther away from the entrance than Degas’s work.

“This will go better than the last,” he says, then contradicts himself by adding, “Unless it doesn’t.”

Berthe laughs. “A definitive statement if I ever heard one.”

“And apropos.”

The early reviews turn out to be tentatively promising.

The New Painting : “The artists have discovered a novel way of painting light and of depicting everyday human life. In their work, ordinary man is being celebrated in all his quirkiness and individuality.” The critic Emile Belmont: “With the innovative quality of rendering by simple, sweeping stokes, the Impressionists arouse the impression of their vision of reality.”

Degas is rapturous when they gather after Durand-Ruel closes the doors on the second night. “This is proof that we are beginning to convert them to our way of thinking!” he crows to the others.

“Don’t be too hasty,” Sisley warns. “More reviews will be coming tomorrow.”

“Oh, Alfred,” Berthe says. “The first nice words we’ve received and you remain in despair? I agree with Edgar. We should be happy with both the heartening notices and the headway we’re making.”

“I’m not despairing. I’m being cautious. Many of these comments are not particularly glowing. ‘A more interesting exhibition than in 1874.’ ‘The little canvases by Mademoiselle Morisot.’ Faint praise, I’d say.”

“Caution is wise,” Pissarro agrees. “The more we expect, the more we will be disappointed.”

“What a sad way to live your life!” Degas throws his arms wide in consternation. “If something bad is coming, that’s all the more reason to take hold of the pleasure while we can.”

“When did you turn into such an optimist, Edgar?” Renoir grumbles. “It doesn’t become you.”

Berthe stands, done with the men’s back-and-forth. “I believe you are all correct, gentlemen. We should be pleased with what has been said and wary about what might be to come. But I’ve had a long day, and my carriage is waiting.” Then she leaves them to carry on with their useless disagreements.

The next day’s reviews are more mixed, but it is their old nemesis, Albert Wolff of Le Figaro , who is the most malicious: “Here are six lunatics, one of which is a woman, a group of unfortunates deranged by ambition. These Impressionists take some canvas, paint and brushes, throw a few colors at random, and then sign the lot. Like inmates of a madhouse who pluck up stones in the road and believe they have found diamonds.”

If this were not enough, two days after his first review is published, Wolff offers another, spewing forth hot fury like a volcano that must continue to erupt until all of its molten rock is jettisoned: “Try telling M. Pissarro that trees are not purple nor the sky the color of butter, that these cannot actually be seen in nature. Try telling M. Degas about drawing, color, execution and purpose. Try to explain to M. Renoir that a woman’s torso is not violet toned with green spots, indicating a corpse in the final stages of decay. ”

As Berthe reads his column, she’s sickened by the man’s vile words, by the depths of his disdain for artworks she knows to be breathtakingly bold.

She reminds herself that this is what critics do, that it’s their job to be provocative.

But his harshness is so brazen it’s difficult not to take it to heart.

On the other hand, at least he appears to have spared her personally.

But he has not. As she reaches the bottom of the page, she reads: “There is also, as in all famous gangs, a woman. Her name is Berthe Morisot, and she is a curiosity. With her, feminine grace manages to preserve itself in the midst of the ravings of a frenzied mind and outbursts of delirium.” This is not going to sit well with either Gène or édouard.

And it’s not the reference to her mind or her delirium that will upset them.

Another trait the brothers share is a belief in the sanctity of the Manet name and the need to defend it at all costs.

As Berthe feared, they both interpret Wolff’s comment about her being a member of a gang as accusing her of being a mobster’s gun moll, a woman of low repute.

She doesn’t believe this was Wolff’s intent, just a part of his sensationalism.

When she explains this to Gène, he will have none of it.

“I will not allow anyone to speak of you in this manner,” he declares.

“You are Madame Eugène Manet, a woman of unquestionable moral decency and position. This unconscionable behavior will not go unaddressed! Tomorrow, I will send Wolff a cartel challenging him to a duel.”

“Gène, please. If you make more of this than it is, it will only serve to remind people of what he wrote. Best to let it be forgotten. A duel is pure folly, dangerous, and will prove nothing.”

He moves from his chair to sit on the sofa next to her. “I cannot permit this disgraceful man to impugn your virtue. I know you to be an upright and respectable woman in all ways, and it is my obligation to defend you as such.”

She turns from him, ashamed. Upright and respectable are far from what she is.

Nor is she of unquestionable moral decency.

Questionable moral decency is more apt. She is the harlot that man at the auction accused her of being, virtuous only in Gène’s mind, a cuckold’s fantasy.

Tears fill her eyes and slide down her cheeks.

If she were to confess her sin, it would surely stop the duel, but this truth would cause Gène even greater pain.

His own brother. How can she be doing this? Why is she unable to stop?

“Don’t cry, my Berthe.” Gène puts his arm around her. “As a husband and as a Manet, I will make this wastrel suffer for both his words and his aspersions. I will let no man disparage your honor.”

She allows him to kiss her and goes with him to her room, where she’s fortunately able to talk him out of the duel.

A YEAR LATER, the Impressionists hold another exhibition that is relatively well-received.

Although there are the usual detractors, it’s as if the reviewers and the public have tired of the repeated and cutting critiques, and are now less interested in reiterating them.

The crowd is much larger than it was for the previous shows, and people seem to be growing more accustomed to and are more accepting of the new style, which the unexpected number of sales confirms.

Degas claims this is proof that his push to make Impressionism commonplace is a success, and Berthe agrees with him. The rest of the bande is more grudging, not wishing to feed what they perceive as his delusions of grandiosity.