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FIVE

A s Berthe feared, Edma surrenders to their mother’s entreaties and weds Adolphe Pontillon in a small ceremony at which both the bride and Berthe struggle to hold back tears.

At thirty, Edma has come to the age when a woman must face the decision to either acquiesce to tradition or live in pitiable spinsterhood.

Berthe has always known Edma’s tendency to yield would make this moment inevitable, yet this does nothing to relieve her sorrow.

Nor does it diminish her dread that now she, at twenty-eight, will become the sole focus of Cornélie’s zeal to find suitable husbands for her daughters.

Yves, the oldest of the three sisters, is already married and settled.

A week later, Edma leaves Paris to live in Lorient with her new husband.

After years of being together almost continuously, sharing a studio, a bedroom, and the most intimate of confidences, the sisters are separated for the first time.

Spring is arriving, which usually turns Berthe’s temperament toward the sunny, but this year there’s no brightening her mood.

As the only Morisot sibling left in the house with a meddlesome mother and a busy father, she spends her days sitting at her desk crying and writing letters to Edma.

Then crying even more when she receives one in return.

“It is time to take yourself in hand,” Cornélie orders one evening as Berthe wordlessly pushes food around her plate.

“These attacks of melancholy are tiresome.” She looks over to her husband for support, but as usual he’s not listening, consumed with his many responsibilities as prefect of the department of Cher, so she turns back to her daughter.

“And if you don’t start eating you will waste away into nothing, and no man will find you fit to marry. ”

Berthe is unmoved by her mother’s scolding, impassive to everything but her missing sister.

She can’t paint, she can’t eat, and she barely sleeps, sliding between fits of irritability and bedridden silence.

It is as if the blood is slowly draining from her body, leaving her without the will to do anything beyond wandering aimlessly through the house, fatigue her sole companion.

She’s experienced these bouts of despair since early childhood, along with frequent episodes of ill health, diagnosed by Dr. Aguillard as neurasthenia.

But this is the deepest well she’s ever fallen into, so profound and dark that light barely penetrates.

The good doctor comes almost daily, counseling iron salts, stinging nettles, and raw liver, all of which she refuses.

Although her state is disagreeable, it’s impossible to contemplate leaving it. There’s nowhere else to go.

Cornélie tries a different tack. “Dear Bijou, your poor little face is so sad, and this breaks my heart. Please come back to me. Please come back to you.”

“This is my life now,” Berthe tells her.

Desperate with concern, Cornélie contacts Degas, who suggests she and Berthe come with him to Manet’s new studio.

“Monet, Renoir, and I often work there with Manet, other artist friends of Berthe’s too,” Degas says.

“It’s possible the camaraderie, conversation, and the smell of paint will pull her from this lethargy. ”

Berthe claims she can’t do anything of the sort, so Cornélie asks Degas to come to the house for a visit, but Berthe turns him away. Edma sends letters daily, worried about Berthe’s failing health, urging her sister to return to the living.

My dearest Berthe,

The days here are dreadfully dull and lonely. If only you could visit me, or I you. But I am to immerse myself in my happy life as a married woman, responsible to a husband, not to a sister or mother.

It will do my heart good to know you are once again painting and talking with M.

Degas, laughing and philosophizing with M.

Manet, and standing before your easel as you create your next masterpiece.

I so wish for you to partake in the enviable life open to you, both for your sake and mine, vicarious as the latter may be.

Although Berthe detects Maman’s prodding between Edma’s lines, she’s moved, and the plaintiveness of her sister’s words cuts through her self-absorption.

Edma is far more alone than she, with a husband she barely knows, no family or friends or other artists to meet with, and a mother-in-law who is barely tolerable.

Berthe begins to dress in the morning and walk in the garden, sometimes stopping by her studio, although she’s not ready to paint. As spring turns to summer, she begins to eat again.

MANET’S STUDIO IS located in Batignolles, a bohemian area of the city.

When Berthe steps inside, accompanied by Cornélie, she’s taken by the high ceilings and the spacious rooms filled with light.

Numerous large fireplaces are scattered throughout, and there’s even a curtained-off area, private and empty except for a rocking chair and a long humpbacked sofa where a weary artist might rest.

The place is a messy hive of color and frenzied activity, finished and unfinished canvases strewn everywhere, at least a dozen easels, some holding paintings, others standing at the ready.

Drop cloths crawl the room like fungus, unnecessary, as the floors are more splattered with paint than the sheets meant to protect them.

She breathes in the thick aroma of turpentine, paint, and canvas, which fills her with both nostalgia and hope.

Degas and Renoir are there, along with Manet, and the three immediately put down their brushes.

“My dear Berthe,” Degas says, rushing forward to take her hands in his. “You look so much better than I feared from your mother’s description. I daresay the paleness of your skin becomes you. Ethereal. More beautiful than ever.” He bows to Cornélie.

“And very paintable,” Manet adds as he comes to Berthe’s side, a little too familiarly for Cornélie, who steps between them with a steely gaze at her daughter.

“Thank you so much for your kind invitation, Monsieur Manet,” Cornélie says with a sharpness that belies her words.

“It is an honor for both me and my daughter.” She turns to Renoir.

“And it is lovely to see you once again, Monsieur Renoir. I have much enjoyed our conversations at Madame Manet’s gatherings. ”

Renoir, who Berthe doubts has had many conversations with her mother, bows. “Yes, Madame, I agree.”

Berthe smiles at each of her friends and takes a full breath of the delicious air. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to be here,” she says, “but please, go back to your paints. My mother and I are here to observe, not interfere.”

“You would never be considered an interference, Mademoiselle Morisot.” Manet’s eyes lock on to hers, the limpid blue reaching out to her.

Cornélie grabs Berthe’s arm, turns her quickly away from Manet, and leads her to a set of chairs. “Sit,” she says. “You are just recovering, and there is no need to exhaust yourself.” Then she takes a seat in the other.

Once again outmaneuvered by her mother, Berthe says, “I heard talking before we came in. Please go on with both your painting and your discussion.”

“It’s the Salon, of course,” Degas explains to her. “What else would it be? The rejections we keep getting. Their rigid criteria of what is ‘good’ and what is ‘bad’ art.”

“Historical images. Grand landscapes. Portraits of the wealthy and powerful!” Renoir turns to her and throws his hands up in disgust. “Stray from these and there’s no recognition, no sales, possibly the end of a career.”

“I refuse to be stuck in the Renaissance!” Degas cries.

Berthe already knows everything they’re telling her, and although they’re aware of this also, men always feel the need to educate women, even if this edification is unnecessary.

She patiently waits out their explanations, and then responds with what she knows they already know, although she’s aware this irony will be lost on them.

“And when they do accept a painting that’s unusual,” she says, “they position it poorly and no one notices it’s there.

” At the Salon, artwork is displayed fifteen or twenty or more pieces to a wall, stretching from floor to ceiling, rendering those at the top and the bottom virtually invisible to the thousands of people pouring through the rooms.

“So you agree with us that this must change?” Degas asks.

“I do,” she says. “But the Salon jury is made up of men who don’t want anything to change.”

“We can organize our own exhibition,” Degas declares. “Like the Salon des Refusés.”

“We’re not emperors,” Manet reminds him, a harsh cut to his voice.

It was Napoleon III who established the alternative exhibition.

“And that show was also neither critically nor financially successful.” As his Luncheon on the Grass was exhibited at the Salon des Refusés to prodigious derision, he is still indignant.

“So we have to keep our mouths shut and accept their censorship, édouard?” Degas demands. “We are the future of French art, and if we allow them to crush us, there will only be the past. Moribund art.”

“Why only one or the other?” Berthe asks. “Why not pursue our new notions while also submitting to the Salon? Maybe we’ll find cracks in their rigidity, push our ideas forward that way. If this fails, then we can consider our own show.”

“Not enough!” Degas cries. “We must race forward, not take baby steps. Otherwise, we’ll all be dead before any changes are made.”

Manet nods to Berthe in appreciation. “The Salon has power over our exposure and success, not to mention sales, and we can’t pretend it doesn’t. As Berthe says, at some future date we’ll be able to hold our own exhibition, but that time is not now.”

“This will not—”