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Manet remains focused on Cornélie. “Well, Madame, your efforts have been realized. I was so awed by Mademoiselle Berthe’s The Seine Below the Pont d’Iena that I’ve decided to take up the same position on the riverbank and try to capture the wondrous light, as in her sky, the magic of its reflection off the plants at the river’s edge.

I’ve always painted in my studio, never plein air, and I believed I never would.

But now, I find myself intrigued by the process and would like to try it.

” He finally turns to Berthe. “I hope this is acceptable to you.”

Berthe studies him for signs of disingenuousness, but there don’t appear to be any. She’s stunned, tongue-tied. “Why, why, Monsieur, this is a high compliment, very high indeed.” Could édouard Manet actually try a new style of painting because of the influence of one of her works? Impossible.

“Then may I be so presumptuous as to invite both you and Edma, and, of course, Madame Morisot, to paint alongside me Tuesday afternoon, if the weather is agreeable? I would appreciate any help you can give me in my virgin attempt.”

This is an even more dumbfounding proposition.

He’s seeking her instruction? Both girls turn to their mother, and Berthe worries she won’t allow such an adventure.

But Cornélie says she’d be thrilled to accompany her daughters, and that it will be a special delight to watch him work.

Not only is édouard a master painter, but he’s a master charmer as well.

THE WEATHER ON Tuesday is lovely, with a soft breeze pushing the buoyant clouds. Rémy helps the three women alight at the top of a grassy rise overlooking the Seine. He sets up their painting materials and a chair for Cornélie, then returns to the carriage until he’s needed for the trip home.

Manet is already there, staring fiercely out over the river, his canvas untouched and no sketchbook in sight. He greets them, smiling widely. Cornélie is captivated, Edma is wary, and Berthe isn’t sure how to describe the current of emotions coursing through her.

She’s immensely excited at the prospect of painting with, and maybe even being helpful to, Manet, but there’s more to it than just this.

Being near him fills her with a tingling.

It’s not unpleasant, but not particularly pleasant either.

Maybe more of a stinging than a tingling.

She busies herself with her easel and her paints.

Cornélie ensures that Edma’s easel is next to Manet’s, with Berthe on Edma’s other side.

As usual, her mother’s interference is an annoyance, but there is little Berthe can do to stop this.

Manet watches in silence and then, without a word, picks up his easel and settles it down next to Berthe.

“I need to watch your brushstrokes. So much looser than mine,” he says.

“How you capture the light in a real setting. And I’d like you to watch me and tell me what I’m doing wrong. ”

Berthe can’t help but smile at how he has delivered her mother this small defeat. “Have you made any sketches?” she asks.

“I thought I would just go at the canvas.”

Edma and Berthe glance at each other. Neither of them would ever attempt a painting without preliminary sketches and many revisions. “You’re a brave man,” Edma says.

“Or a fool too willing to waste time and paint.” His self-deprecating laugh is full and rich, inviting them to join in.

Even Cornélie titters, although Berthe can tell she’s out of sorts due to Manet’s easel maneuver. She’s not a woman used to being bested, and Berthe assumes her mother will find a way to retaliate.

Manet does just as he promised he would.

He mixes an unlikely number of colors on his palette, throws Berthe a boyish look of glee, and then practically attacks the canvas with a wide brush spitting green.

He grabs a thinner one, immerses it in blue, and bends toward his canvas.

Now his strokes are structured and deliberate, but no less confident. Berthe and Edma watch in amazement.

“I’m thinking that plein air painting demands abandon,” he declares. “What’s in front of me transferred onto the canvas with as little as possible in between!”

Berthe wonders why he asked for her advice when he plans to do whatever he wants. He couldn’t be trying to pursue her, given his married state and the company of her sister and her mother, but if not that, why did he invite her to paint with him?

She has many pencil and pastel drawings of this particular spot and flips through her sketchbook to find them.

In The Seine Below the Pont d’Iena , she chose a full riverscape, only nature, but now a boy is fishing on the other bank.

She’ll include him in this next painting, off-center and tiny, his figure drawing the viewer into the painting.

While Manet continues his exuberant brushstrokes, she reaches for a muted pastel stick and lightly roughs in her initial attempt at the composition in the book.

Then she walks back and forth behind the easels, steps closer to the river, and walks some more, her eyes tethered to the expanse she wants to re-create.

Edma is used to her sister’s pacing and pays her no mind, but Manet stops and watches her, the brush in his hand raised.

Berthe feels his eyes on her, but she’s more focused on what she’s going to paint.

When she stops moving and glances over at him, she realizes that he’s looking at her the same way she was looking at the fisherman.

It’s not that he wants her advice or to pay court to her.

It’s that he wants to paint her. This would be highly inappropriate given her social status, but she finds herself wishing it were not so.