Praise for Portraits of an Artist

“An evocative rendering of the great portraitist, John Singer Sargent, as seen through the eyes of the subjects of his most famous paintings. A tour de force of historical and psychological imagination.”

—Paula Marantz Cohen, What Alice Knew, Jane Austen in Scarsdale

“John Singer Sargent painted some of the most compelling and psychologically revealing portraits of his day, while remaining an enigma to those who knew him. Burns skillfully brings the subjects of his portraits to life, telling their stories in their own voices as the mystery of who Sargent really is, and the culture that both supported and constrained him, is gradually and artfully revealed.”

—Laurel Corona, Finding Emilie, Penelope’s Daughter, The Four Seasons

“Set in the Europe of 1882, the writing is richly subtle and each character exquisitely drawn. One hears murmurs behind doors and the truth just beyond the corner until the hearts of two women—one very young and one very beautiful—are broken forever. In the end of this fascinating novel, however, it is the portrait of the young artist himself, still an enigma, which lingers in the reader’s mind. Wonderful writing!”

—Stephanie Cowell, Claude & Camille, Marrying Mozart,

The Players: A Novel of the Young Shakespeare

“John Singer Sargent was brilliant, glamorous, rich, famous—and very private. Mary F. Burns’ sensuous, fascinating and highly original novel takes us behind the veil of that privacy by offering a provocative guided tour of some of his wealthy, polyglot portrait subjects. Many of them knew each other, and Burns deftly explores their connections with one another and their tangled relationship to the magnetic but enigmatic artist. Glittering surfaces reveal surprising secrets in bedrooms and galleries, and you couldn’t ask for a better docent as you travel from Paris to Venice to Florence to Nice. You’ll likely never look at Sargent’s glorious portraits in the same way again because Burns has given us a new way of appreciating their genius.”

—Lev Raphael, Rosedale in Love: A Gilded Age Novel

Copyright © 2013 by Mary F. Burns

Published by Sand Hill Review Press

www.sandhillreviewpress.com

P.O. Box 1275, San Mateo, CA 94401

(650) 863-0698

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012947802

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Burns, Mary F.

Portraits of an Artist / Mary F. Burns

ISBN: 978-1-937818-12-8

ISBN: 9781937818142

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without prior written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

Text Font: Garamond

Titles Font: Monotype Corsiva

It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance…and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process. Henry James

Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. Oscar Wilde

I do not judge, I only chronicle. I follow the merely visible elements, nothing more. John Singer Sargent

John Singer Sargent

Self-Portrait c. 1886

Prologue

I see them now in mirrors, on darkened windows, in waking dreams—all the faces I have painted. Children, and men, and women. Always the women, with their languid eyes, their tense, anxious lips, their serene brows and haughty noses.

John Singer Sargent, a painter of portraits, that’s who I am. I chose to be a painter of portraits because I was very good at it, because I liked the acclaim, the society, the weekends at country houses outside Paris and London and Florence—and because it paid well, very well. I died a rich man. Childless, unmarried, though not unloved—no, not unloved.

The portraits of my friends are the book of my life—my paintings are the words that I can never find to explain myself, to defend myself, even to know my very self. Two portraits in particular, painted before I reached the age of thirty, haunt me even now, more than all the rest. One became a private grief, softened by time but never truly healed. The other, a public scandal that changed everything. Together they turned me from a young man, a foolish man, into a sad and sorry shadow that only I could see when I looked in a mirror. I wonder if you can guess which ones they are? As the years dragged on, I endured as the entertaining, successful, eccentric old swell who ate too much, smoked too much—and let no one come too close.

As I cannot easily speak for myself, and as I yearn to be known, at least a little, I will allow my portraits to speak for me—their stories will illuminate mine. You may say that I am still keeping myself one step removed, so that you, reader, will not come too close—well, that’s as may be. It is there in those portraits you must seek me, if you would know me.

I am the painter of portraits.

May 1882

Siena

Violet Paget

I remember the day it started, the first hint of trouble, the scent—and I’m not overstating my sense of this—of tragedy, of doom. Larger than life characters inevitably stumble, with consequences far beyond what ordinary mortals encounter. And John was not only larger than life, he was filled above the brim with it, tamped down and still overflowing, as the saying goes.

I sat at my writing desk in the villa’s morning room, contemplating with satisfaction a letter I had received from him the day before. It was but a note in length, a reply to my own of the previous week, and dashed off with his usual humor and barely decipherable handwriting. We frequently addressed each other as “twin”—born the same year, we had become acquainted early in childhood and became fast friends as our families met again and again in various parts of Europe and England—his family the quintessential American expatriates comfortable anywhere but America, mine the slightly down-at-the-heels Anglo-European peripatetics always on the lookout for cheaper lodgings. Our mothers directed the family’s destiny, though affecting not to; our fathers were gentle ciphers, shadows in the background.

Dear twin, so looking forward to seeing you soon—shall have lots to do, the Salon and all that in full swing, much attention being paid to yours truly, I am become a great swell, etc., and have been showered with so many commissions I am able to treat my friends to dinner all the time! All my people likewise eager to see you again. Yrs, JSS

The door to the room opened with a shrill creak, and my mother’s melancholy tone, languid and fretful, met my ears, setting my teeth slightly on edge.

“Ah, Violet, here you are.”

I did not turn to greet her, but was perfectly able to envision her morning déshabillé: the thinning, fair hair blowsy and only partly brushed, and the inevitable glass of café she carried about like a talisman all day long. “Yes, Mama,” I said, stifling a sigh, “as you see, here I indubitably am.”

I felt scrutinized, as always, and wondered in what manner Matilda—in the safety of my irreverent interior monologues I always called my mother by her Christian name—would chastise my looks today. My somber dress with its high Gladstone collar and no jewelry? My long oval face with its sharp, chiseled nose—as if I could do anything about that! I felt warmth rising to my cheeks, and yet, I rebuked myself, she had barely spoken.

“Thou hast a nervous look about thyself this morning, Violet,” she said as she drew near. “Dost thou plan to leave us again so soon?” I rolled my eyes. I had long abandoned commenting on her occasional Quakerish pronouns, an affected relic of some four years’ residence in Philadelphia.

I put down my pen and turned to face her.

“Nothing escapes you, does it, dear Mama?”

“I know my own child, if that is what you mean.” Matilda stood at my elbow, her pale blue eyes lighted with a gleam mixed of mischief and pique. “I hope you will deign to leave your books later today to receive the guests I have invited for dinner.” She sipped at her café, which I could see was silvered over with a light scum of milk, the once hot beverage now insipidly lukewarm. Then, as I did not answer, she prodded further, “I do think thou art still too young to go travelling about as thou dost, Bags.”

There it was again, that awful nickname! I pushed back my chair abruptly, nearly knocking her over as I rose and walked to the window. Matilda stepped back in dismay as her coffee sloshed over the brim of the glass.

“Mama, I am nearly twenty-six years old!” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “And please don’t use that old nickname. I … oh, never mind, this is too old a tale!”

A knock at the door brought us to a sudden halt.

“The morning post, signora,” came a timid voice in the hall.

“Then come thou in and deliver it,” Matilda snapped, and plumped herself down on the silk-covered sofa near the fireplace, where the ashy remains of the morning fire sent forth a reminiscence of warmth.

The servant, a girl of about fifteen, curtsied to the space midway between me and Matilda, and choosing not to ruffle either one of us, as I assumed, by delivering the mail to the other, she placed it hastily on a table and nearly ran out the door.

A little about the dreary tale that is my mother’s history: she had married quite young to escape the tyranny of her disputatious, moralistic Welsh father, and had subsequently produced her first child, my brother Eugene, by her husband Captain Lee-Hamilton, who died when the boy was ten. I recall, when asked on one occasion about Matilda’s first husband, I mordantly replied, “That deplorable marriage ended almost at the church door,” and said nothing more about it, though in truth it had lasted some sixteen years. Four years later, Matilda married Henry Ferguson Paget, my father, a poor but charming cosmopolite of French origins and vague, aristocratic pretensions. He had been engaged as Eugene’s tutor, and was a tireless inventor of much imagination and few results. By the time I was born, my grandfather had conveniently passed on, leaving Matilda with an inheritance sufficient to afford us some of the best second-rate lodgings in the lesser capitals of Europe.

Calmly settled now on the sofa, Matilda spoke again. “And where do you think of going this time?” She watched greedily as I sorted through the mail, hoping that the larger stack of envelopes was inscribed to her—Matilda cherished her correspondence, and wrote nearly as many letters as I did myself.

“You know very well, Mama, that I have planned to go to London again this summer, to look after Eugene’s publishing interests.” And my own, I thought to myself, knowing Matilda was much less interested in her daughter’s writing than in her son’s.

“Ah, dear Eugene,” she said. “Your brother’s poetry so completely reflects his sensitive nature.” I could tell she was watching me closely, but she seemed satisfied as I nodded agreement; I wasn’t dissembling. “It is such a tragedy his poor health keeps him from travelling to London with thee, but we have the most complete trust in thy ability to represent him to the publishers.”

“Indeed, Mama,” I said, “I have every hope of finding a publisher without much trouble, given the appreciative reception to his poems in London two years ago.” I gazed out the glass doors open to the marble terrace—the lilting sounds of birds filtered through the trees, and the slanting sun poured itself upon the green Italian hills. If only this enticing scene could tempt him to rise from his sick bed—but it had been several years now, and my brother seemed no nearer health than when he first fell ill, after a harrowing flight from the Prussian attack on Paris where he had been a promising junior diplomat. Everything in our little household revolved around Eugene—where we lived, how long we stayed in any one place, what we ate for dinner—the invalid’s delicate temperament ruled us all.

I stifled a sigh.

Having sorted the letters, I carried over a respectable mound of mail to Matilda, who received it with a satisfied smack of her lips.

“And before thou goest to London?”

“I shall travel through Paris, that I might see John and Emily, and dear Mrs. Sargent.”

“What, are not the whole family there? What of little Violet, and dear Mr. Sargent?

“I believe they are all in Paris, but I speak of the ones I wish to see most.”

“My dear Violet,” my mother said, less attentive now as she became absorbed in her letters, “my dear Violet, you are much too … particular … oh, my, here’s a letter from that interesting Mr. Whistler, the artist we met in Venice last season! How I enjoyed his conversation!”

With Matilda deep in a rapture of news and gossip, I was free to turn to my own letters. The first to catch my eye was from my friend Mary Robinson, with whom I was planning to stay—I devoutly hoped—for many weeks over the summer. We had frequently met to write in each other’s company, often in a little cottage by the sea or in the Lake Country, and to share our visions and plans for a future life together. Her letter was dated the 15^th of May, written from Epsom Cottage.

My cherished friend, I so long for you! And look forward ever to your coming in June. The spring is more than lovely this year, and I know we shall have the best weather when you arrive. I’ve arranged for lodgings in Pulborough, in Sussex, a sweet little place with a rose garden in the back going all the way down to the river. When we have thoroughly tasted the delights of London, and you have procured as many publishing contracts as even you may be satisfied with, we will pack up our duds and retreat to our precious nest, there to create and write and favor each other with the brightest intelligence and sweetest delights. I have only time for this brief note, as Mabel is about to descend upon me and take me off to gather flowers for an evening party Mama has been planning most diligently. All my love and affectionate kisses, yours ever, Mary

I kissed the letter and held it close, then put it in my pocket.

Some hours later, as the sun was well past its zenith, I rose from my writing desk and stretched. It had been a good day’s work, and I felt in a fair way of being mistress of the convoluted German script that closely covered the manuscript pages. I hoped to translate the children’s stories in the manuscript into a satire on royalist manners—it would be my second major publication. I had published a number of essays and most recently, a study of 18^th century Italian culture, under the pen name Vernon Lee—the stigma of being a “lady writer” being tolerated only for torrid romances and Gothic horror tales—which I forthrightly admit I read voraciously, with equal feelings of contempt and envy.

A sudden knock on the door brought me whirling round to receive whatever presumptuous stranger was interrupting me. But a familiar voice and, the next moment, a smiling face changed my annoyance to buoyant cheerfulness in an instant.

“Ralph Curtis, buon giorno, amico mio!” I pounced on my old friend, and we exchanged kisses happily. A sudden thought struck me.

“And are you, pray, one of the guests Mama has invited for dinner?”

“Verily and so forth, dear Violet,” replied Ralph, removing his soft hat and tossing it somewhere into the interior of the room while keeping an arm wrapped about my shoulders. He shook his head like a dog emerging from a lake, his hair a tumble of shining blond curls. “And not only I,” he continued, walking me over to the open salon doorway, and gesturing to the grounds below. “Mater is here as well, and some of those people she always has about her, Bohemians and so forth.” He thrust his head and shoulders out the door and proceeded to give an ear-splitting whistle.

I looked out upon a small party of people just alighted from their carriage. Ralph’s mother, fashionably dressed, looked up upon hearing her son’s whistle. She affected to chastise him with a shake of her finger and a smiling frown, then waved enthusiastically to me. I returned the greeting with equal delight. There were two young men, raffishly elegant in slouch hats and capes, one holding a small furry creature, probably a dog, I thought, with one of those particularly piercing, yappy little barks.

“I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you, Ralph,” I said, smiling at him as we turned back into the room.

“You must tell me all that you’ve accomplished in the months since we last met,” he said, then catching sight of the papers strewn across my desk, he exclaimed, “What’s all this then? Ancient manuscripts, crabbed handwriting in some indecipherable language?” He picked up a page and peered at it closely. “Egyptian, methinks, or is it Chinese? Have you added archaeological linguist to your many accomplishments, dear Violet?”

“You know very well that it is German, Ralph, and in point of fact, it’s only some thirty years old, not so ancient, you see. And what about you—have you painted anything new?”

He picked up another piece of paper, one written in my hand, and read it aloud, ignoring my question. “The Prince of the Hundred Soups! What a delightful-sounding title! It makes one want to dive right in, especially if the soup is good, ha ha. I say, Vi, you are uncommonly clever, have I ever said that before?”

“Oh, Ralph, you do me such good, just hearing your nonsense,” I said, and grasping his hand, gave it a little kiss.

He dropped the paper back on the desk and wandered over to the shelves of books, where he idly ran his fingers over the titles. He paused, extracted a cigarette from a gold case in his jacket, and lit it with a match from an ebony box on a nearby table.

“I’d love to have one of those, Ralph, may I?” I reached out my hand to the gold case he held toward me. “Why, I’ve never seen cigarettes so perfectly rolled!” I leaned forward as he struck a match.

“Yes, indeed,” he said, “new invention this, one of our chaps back in America, lad from Virginia and so forth.” We puffed in silence for a moment. “Was some kind of contest, some manufacturer of the darned things offered seventy-five thousand dollars cold cash if someone could invent a machine to do it faster, and by golly, this chappie did.”

“Seventy-five thousand dollars!” I gasped. “You Americans all seem to have so much money!” I knew Ralph’s family was wealthy; perhaps such sums meant little to him, but I couldn’t conceive of such an amount all at once. “No wonder Papa is so keen on his inventions, if that’s what they can be worth!”

We smoked in contented silence.

“Violet,” Ralph said after a few moments. “Have you heard lately from Scamps?”

“Why, yes, just yesterday,” I said. “I wrote to him that I shall be in Paris in about a week’s time, on my way to London. He has two new paintings at the Salon this year, as you must know, and already the journals are expiring with delight over monsieur Sargent’s creations. He says he’s become quite in demand, a great swell about town, it would seem.” I gazed narrowly at my friend. “Why, pray, do you ask?”

I knew that Ralph and John were related—their fathers were cousins—and had become fast friends when they both enrolled as students at the atelier of the artist Carolus-Duran several years earlier in Paris. It seemed odd that he was asking me for news of his relation.

“Oh, well, if you’re going there in person, you can see for yourself,” he said, abruptly putting out his cigarette. Ralph had only two ways of moving: languidly or abruptly, and one never knew which was coming next.

“See what for myself?”

“Why, whether he’s going to marry notre chère Louise, dear girl.” He paused, arching an eyebrow. “You know he painted a truly charming portrait of her for the Salon this year.”

“Louise Burckhardt? I can’t imagine that he would marry her.”

“Well, they’re awfully close chums,” Ralph said mildly, looking around the room and patting his pockets as if he’d misplaced some thing, “which is a good start, in my humble opinion. And he’s got to marry someone, don’t you think?”

“I absolutely do not think that,” I said with some vehemence. “Why do people always think that being married is the only thing one must do?”

“Well, if you don’t think he would marry Louise, do you think it’s because of her, or because—” Ralph paused ever so slightly. “Because he is not interested in women?”

I held myself in silence for the space of several breaths.

“It has always been my perception,” I said slowly, “that John takes great delight in both men and women, and that he does not treat one sex over the other with any particularity.” I paused to think. “And I would say further, de toute façon, he is not interested in marriage at all.” I paused again. “He is equally interested in every person he meets, but he doesn’t seem to care whether people are interested in him or not, or perhaps, one might say, he finds no one necessary to him, to his happiness. That is his great strength, and will, I think, be his downfall.”

Ralph looked at me curiously, and seemed on the point of asking me about my dire prediction, then changed his mind.

“And you, Violet Paget, in what, or in whom, are you interested?” Ralph asked, a teasing look on his boyish, honest face. “Shall you ever marry?”

I burst out passionately.

“Whether man or woman, heavens above!—we need to be left alone to follow our Muse and not be tied down to some everlastingly tedious family, quarreling endlessly about their own selfish wants and preferences!”

I stopped suddenly as I realized the import of what I had said, but it was no more than Ralph knew anyway. He smiled.

“Been spending a bit too much time with Matilda and Eugene, eh?” he queried with a knowing look.

“Forgive me, I shouldn’t rant like that,” I said, “but then, you know how it is, don’t you, Ralph?”

“Indeed I do,” he said, with a slight shrug. We heard footsteps along the hall announcing the approach of our mothers and Mrs. Curtis’ entourage, and he gave another smile and a wistful shake of his head. “Indeed I do.”

That night, lying in bed wakeful from an excess of wine and company, I thought again about John and Louise Burckhardt—I knew her slightly, another jejune American who wandered through Europe with an ever-watchful mother at her elbow—and wondered at the uneasy feeling it gave me. Would he marry her? Should he? Although I held the matrimonial state in scant regard—and certainly it was not an option for one such as I—I knew that for a man in John’s position—a rising artist, a figure in society—that a well-bred, lovely wife with money was more than an asset, possibly a necessity. But did he love her? Could he love anyone, woman or man? If the latter, would he take that risk? I knew it was becoming quite the thing amongst a certain crowd, particularly in London, but still…. Questions buzzed around my brain like summer flies over rotting fruit, which is what my brain seemed to be at this late hour. I dismissed them all for future contemplation, first-hand, when I would see John in Paris in a week’s time.

Enough, then. Good Night.

Ralph Curtis

Women see this sort of thing very differently from men, don’t you think? I mean to say, Violet is probably the most intelligent woman I know, and smarter than most men I know, and yet I could tell she was running all sideways about John and what I’d said about him and Louise.

Not sure why I mentioned it, really. Just that there’d been a great deal of jawing among our crowd about the two of them—they seem so right for each other, they make such a handsome couple, that sort of thing. And then, lately, more serious whispers about why they weren’t getting married, and even whether the lady was being compromised in some way—which is utter nonsense to talk in such a way in these modern times, in my opinion.

I had seen Louise, talked with her, earlier in the spring. We were walking in the Luxembourg Gardens, and though it was April, it was a very hot day. She and I are old chums, don’t you know, Boston families, doomed to wander the Continent—well, I shouldn’t say ‘doomed’—I rather like this life, and my painting, if I would get myself to do more, blast it. If only I could get a little further from Mater. Anyway, as I say, Louise and I were walking rather aimlessly that day, and we started talking about John.

“I dined with him last evening,” I said. “At Au Petit Fer a Cheval, in the Marais.” I was puffing away at a cigarette as we strolled in the still air of the park.

“The Marais?” Louise echoed. She shuddered slightly. “I have heard that is a very dangerous part of the city, the Fourth, isn’t it so?”

“It is indeed,” I conceded. “Certainly for ladies, and occasionally for gentlemen.” I smiled. “But you know Scamps, he has this irresisti ble halo of goodness around him, like armor, and he enchants all who fall within his ken, so les animaux du Marais were all so many fawning beasts at his feet.”

Louise paused, stared at me for a long moment, and then walked on silently.

“And were there so many of them, les animaux as you say, at his feet?” she said.

Blast! I felt my face getting red as I recalled the evening in greater detail; I shouldn’t have even brought the subject up.

“Oh, as to that, one doesn’t keep count, don’t you know,” I said, trying to laugh it away. But vividly before my eyes were the two young men at the table next to ours, one who evidently knew who John was, and who, introducing himself and his companion with exquisite politeness, invited us to join them at their table for an after-dinner drink. There followed a great deal of often serious but very pleasant conversation, discussions of art, music, love and philosophy, much laughing and continued drinking, until the four of us were the best of friends and swore we would never part. Even through the haze of wine and absinthe, though in general I know I am no great observer, I saw glances exchanged between John and one of the young men, Michel—glances meant to be hidden, I thought, and, well, rather intense. After a while I had to insist on leaving and return to my hotel, I was that done in. I was surprised when John put me in a cab by myself and stayed behind, but there was no chance to say anything other than good night.

I became aware that Louise was watching me closely again, and I shook myself out of my reverie. Not the time to be musing about all that.

“And, verily, I say to you, dear lady,” I said, patting her arm which I held in my own, “when young men are in pursuit of high adventure, even so small and mean a place as the sodden streets of the Marais can afford a bit of a thrill.” I dashed my cigarette onto the ground, and paused to light up another.

“How you can smoke in all this heat,” Louise said.

We continued to walk in silence for a while. I spoke again.

“I’ve seen your beautiful portrait, you know, at John’s studio. It’s going to be a smash at the Salon, I just know it.”

Louise smiled, yet looked more sorrowful than if she hadn’t smiled at all. I felt the greatest sort of kindness and care toward her, don’t you know, like a brother.

“Do you mind, very much?” I said.

“Do I mind what, exactly?” she said, her eyes wary as she glanced at me.

“Why, all this—” I waved my hand. “This fuss with Scamps and you, don’t you know.”

“What an extraordinary question, Ralph,” she said. She looked away to the dull splash of a small fountain, tucked in a quiet corner where no children ran or jumped. I felt I had not angered her but I saw that she seemed suddenly weary. I led her over to one of the wrought iron benches near the fountain, where we sat down. I leaned back into the bench, studying the upright form of my friend—the straight back, the poised head under a large, white, flimsy hat, her hands crossed one upon the other on top of her equally flimsy white parasol, its point securely grounded in the fine gravel of the garden path. Yes, I should like to paint her, too, I remember thinking.

“The whole fuss, as you call it,” she said at last, “has been rather, well, bewildering.” She lifted her head to watch a pigeon fly from the ground to alight upon a branch of a lemon tree. “And I had thought that, perhaps—” She paused one moment more, then said in a low voice, “I really have only myself to blame.”

She turned her gaze to me and said, as if she were offering a kind of proof, “He was such fun last summer!”

“Yes,” I said, still lounging back. “Beckwith told me something about it.”

Louise’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“Beckwith,” she said, and turned again to watch the fountain.

I couldn’t help myself. “Are you in love with him?”

“Another extraordinary question,” Louise said. “Really, Ralph, you do press one so!” She rose gracefully from the bench, and looked down upon me. “Are you, pray, in love with him?”

I gazed up at this suddenly formidable, suddenly penetrating woman, and eventually located an answer.

“We are all, all of us, in love with John,” I said. I continued looking up at her, finding the words to describe what I had seen and thought. “He makes us love him, he pulls us to him like some great iron magnet, and we are stuck, unable to pull ourselves away.”

“And when,” Louise took up the simile after a moment’s thought, “also like some great, iron magnet, the pull is reversed and we fall away, slipping off the cold, hard surface, he does not notice the filings he has shed.” She paused again. “He lives in his work—his life is his painting, like a lover that demands all. I don’t think there’s room for anyone else.” She turned away and opened her parasol, then spoke once more. “My sister saw it straight off, and saw it wouldn’t do, and saved herself.”

I pulled myself forward and rose slowly to stand beside her. I held out my arm for her.

“Is it as bad as all that?” I said, and waited. All around us, the air shimmered with heat, and the birds were silent in the shade of the trees. I did so want to protect her, to help her, but what was I to say?

“Yes,” she said finally. “It’s as bad as all that.”

Now you see, my idea of the thing was that Louise should just do a full-on rush at John, leave him no room but to make a declaration—he’d be overcome in a moment, and he’d do the right thing. I was sure of it, but I could see she was in a bad way, and so I just tried to be sympathetic and cheer her up when I could. Don’t understand women much, never did. Beginning to think I don’t understand men much either.

June 1882

Paris

Edward Darley Boit

For my part, I can trace the beginning of all that happened to that day early in June at our house in Paris, Florence’s fourteenth birthday; John was there to help us celebrate, but he and I had crept off to my library for a chat before luncheon. We were discussing his meteoric rise to recognition at the Salon, about which he and I disagreed.

“This will never do,” John was saying, “if you count them all up, so far I’ve got an actor and his wife, their monstrous children, the alluring Dr. Pozzi, and the wives of three petits civil servants!”

My friend threw up his hands in frustration, and strode over to the cart to pour himself a whiskey. He downed it in one gulp, and turned to me, sitting patiently through his furious lament. “She keeps me out! Paris looks down her nose at me, because I am a foreigner, un Américainr!

“Come, come, John,” I said. “This is the fourth year—in a row, mind you—that the Salon has accepted one or more of your paintings for the exhibition—and you are barely twenty-six years old.” I leaned back in my leather chair, lightly caressing the cigar which, unlit, tempted me to reach for a match and set it alight. I resisted with an inward sigh, hearing my physician’s admonishing voice. No more than one a day. I picked up my glass of sherry instead, and brought it to my lips.

“Oh yes, of course,” John said, pouring himself another whiskey. “The Salon recognizes my talent, I know it well—but those paintings come with no money attached to them. With the exception of Pail leron, great actor and playwright that he is, I paint no one but petites bourgeoisies and such friends of my own who oblige me by sitting in my cold studio and drinking up my wine!”

I looked at my young friend—he was indeed very young, to me, old and tired and worn as I felt these days. “Are you in such straits, John, that you cannot afford refreshment for your sitters? If you need something—” I broke off at the look on his face.

“How kind you are,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m horrified that I’ve shown you what an ungrateful brute I can be.” He held out his hand to me, and I took it and clasped it in my own. “I have no need of a loan, my friend,” he went on. “I’ve just collected my fee from Madame Subercaseaux, the wife of the Chilean consul here, you know, and also Isabel Valle, that is, Mrs. George Austen now, she just married that chap in the foreign affairs office.” He released my hand and sat down heavily on the leather chair next to me. As I watched his face, I could almost see the calculations as he mentally reviewed the state of his finances. I knew that most of his income went to supporting his parents and two sisters—but I thought he had been doing well enough the last two years to make that an easier burden than previously. How else could he have afforded his own studio and separate apartments in the city?

“No,” he repeated, reaching for a match to light the cigarette he took from a gold case. “No, it’s not money I lack at the present moment.” He drew deeply of the fragrant tobacco, and looked sharply at me. “I have a reputation to build, Ned. My art, my talent shall—must—command not only the highest prices but also the honor due to great art.” He grinned and rapped his knuckles on the wooden table near his chair. “I say this in all modesty, of course!”

He picked up his sherry glass from the table and drained the contents. “And all the beautiful Parisiennes,” he went on, “all those ladies of ancient lineage and pedigree and delicate sensibilities—they will swoon when they see me coming, and beg me to immortalize them in oils, eh?” He laughed softly, inhaled, and leaned his head against the back of the chair, releasing a stream of smoke into the air.

I smiled at him, and shook my head. “You have every right to dream so ambitiously, my handsome friend,” I said, “especially as regards the ‘swooning ladies’.” I leaned forward, took up the match box, and lit the cigar. I drew at it gratefully and sank back in the chair.

“My Isa informs me,” I continued, “that all the ladies are gossiping about you and our inimitable Louise, the Lady with the Rose.” I contemplated his now troubled face. “You and she were together a great deal last summer, so I understand.”

“My dear Ned,” he began, then stopped. His face was clouded, his eyebrows drawn into a deep, scowling V. He smoked furiously for a moment, then glared. “Well, I may as well come right out and say it, her mother’s the one I fear. She’s forever arranging afternoons and picnics and theatre suppers til I’m ready to run at the sight of those blasted feather headdresses of hers down the boulevard. I’m very much afraid that painting Louise’s portrait was a huge mistake.”

“Poor Louise,” was all my reply.

“Ah,” John paused to smoke, and resumed, “yes, poor Louise, to have such a mother, so bent upon ruining her life by making her marry me.” Then, upon catching my raised eyebrow, he said, “Yet, in truth, I don’t think she’s got any expectations of me, truly I don’t.” He kept his voice even but with some effort, as he said this, although I could tell he hoped I would not notice.

“It would not be strange if she did,” I said gently. “And I doubt she’s the only one with such hopes.”

“Oh, I’m not such a catch as all that, you know.” John dashed another segment of ash into the tray. “For all that Louise Burckhardt is lovely and intelligent and amusing, for all that—we’re like old chums, don’t you know, we’re very jolly together, and that’s all there

is.”

“Not such a bad basis for marriage, that,” I murmured.

We were silent a few moments, smoking, thoughtful. I watched the pale rays of the sun struggle through the low clouds of a rainy spring day, seeking the hope of reflection from the pewter ashtrays, the delicate crystal glasses half-filled with golden liqueur, and the decanter itself, the line of pure liquid much lower than it was an hour before. Outside, the street life of the city of Paris murmured three stories below my library in the elegant house at 32, Avenue de Friedland, where my family and I resided when our travels brought us to the City of Light.

“If I ever were to fall in love,” John said, looking up at the painted ceiling, “I believe it would have to be so overwhelming a feeling as to send me almost into despair—because even so, I shall not marry. In deed, I think I may not even fall in love, when it comes down to it.” He looked over at me; I was shaking my head again. “It would never do, you know,” he insisted, “as I must paint, and work, and prosper—all of which requires diligence and single-mindedness—and a wide-ranging freedom!” He crushed his cigarette into the pewter tray with emphasis. “No room for a wife in my studio.”

“I understand you, I think,” I said after a moment. I thought of my little family, and how long it had been since I had been free to paint, but I did not sigh over it. “I cannot feel the same, but I shall no longer dispute with you—nor tease you—on this matter.” I looked up quickly, smiling, to show this was not said in anger. “But you are young, John,” I said, “and, it seems to me, have not yet been in love.” I raised a hand at his start of protest. “Indeed, when the arrow strikes, you’ll feel very differently, I’m sure.” I paused. “Family, you know, and children—”

I felt him watching me, lips pursed, and he shook his head a fraction. I was sure he had been informed, through mutual friends, that Isa and I had been blessed with two sons, in the early years of our marriage, but they had died, the last before he was a year old. Our other children—four girls—were guarded like precious objects, and so far luck or the gods seemed to be favoring them. The eldest, Florence, was fourteen today—the fact that she had lived past the age of ten was frequently dwelt upon by my wife en famille, which even I, though understanding her fully, found a touch morbid. I saw John shake his head again and I spoke.

“You have an extraordinary talent, John, and nothing must stand in its way. Nonetheless,” I added, smiling, “you must submit to being one of the most eligible young bachelors in Paris.”

The low tone of the luncheon bell sounded just then, muffled and sonorous, and we prepared to join the rest of the family in the dining room. John quickly stood up and brushed a bit of ash from his coat. I rose more slowly. Anyone looking at us might think we were brothers: both tall and well-formed, with dark hair, short-trimmed beards and mustaches, although the deeper lines about my eyes and the increasing grey at my temples clearly showed who was the elder.

I took a last, lingering pull at my cigar, and reluctantly laid it on the tray to die out in its own time.

Isa Boit

I thought the two of them had spent quite enough time off on their own in the library, smoking and drinking—without me—and leaving me with all the looking after for the birthday luncheon. Yes, I know this sounds like complaining, and after all, of what use are men when it comes to birthday arrangements? Yet I longed to be in their company, to hear and see and speak of all the luscious and exciting sensuality of the world of art in Paris. I could never get enough of it.

“I thought you’d become lost in the attic,” I said when they entered the room. I tried to sound light and cheerful, but from the look on Ned’s face, I didn’t fool him.

“My dear, how marvelous you look,” my husband murmured as he kissed my cheek. “As entrancing as the day we met.” My heart was pierced immediately, and I could have wept to see his dear face looking at me with such care and love. I turned to our guest with a smile I hoped was not too tremulous.

“John, how very good it is to see you! Please, do sit right there, across from Florence.” But instead of sitting down, he caught my hand, kissed it and started to sing a jolly little tune that seemed familiar to me. I looked up at him, puzzled.

“Don’t tell me you don’t remember that song!” he cried. “We sang it several times not two months ago, in the Pailleron’s grand salon—ah, yes, I see you remember it now.” We sang a few lines more, and laughed happily.

I could see that John looked with interest throughout the luncheon at our four girls, noting their dress, their expressions and mannerisms.

“How delightful to have your children at meals with you,” he said. “It was always the case when I was growing up, but so many families banish their children to the nursery until they’re so grown up they’re ready to marry and leave the house altogether—and where’s the fun in that?”

“I agree with you completely!” I said. “How else are they to learn proper manners, and social conversation, without the example of their parents before them?”

“I dare say your brothers’ children are not deprived of social skills, though they dine in the nursery,” my husband said, giving me, I thought, a mischievous look.

I snapped my fingers in the air to show my contempt. “My brothers, who imagine themselves so democratic in their culture and customs, would do well to see how truly democratic and egalitarian we expatriates, as they choose to call us, really are in our daily lives.” I settled my napkin across my lap, and tried for a cooler tone; the younger girls looked a bit alarmed at my vehemence. “It is here, among the most cultivated people in the world, that liberté, égalité, fraternité are both truly believed and truly lived.”

“I believe you are perfectly right, my dear Isa,” John said. “My family have always found an atmosphere far more simpatico to our expressions of personality, our—how shall I say it—our need for a larger play of individuality, a greater freedom of mind and spirit—here in the capitals and ports of Europe and England, than in the prim, dry drawings rooms of Boston and Philadelphia.”

I smiled at our charming young friend, and gave the servant the sign to begin serving the luncheon.

“I understand you were born in Florence, is it not so?” I said. “But surely you have been to America many times?”

“Yes to the first, and alas, no, as to the second,” John said. “It must be six years now since I travelled there with my mother and my sister Emily for the very first time—but I remember it all quite distinctly, and with great fondness! The people there are all so … enthusiastic!”

“Yes,” I said, “and they have so much to be enthusiastic about.” I adopted a very nasal tone, mocking my fellow Americans. “We have the tallest buildings in the world, and the largest parks, and the most…this, that and everything!” If a lady could snort, the sound I made would have fit that description. “Such tiresome boasting and such pathetic pride about mere magnitude.” I waved my hand as if to dismiss everything west of London.

“But surely, my dear,” interposed my husband, “don’t you remember what a delightful time we had visiting Niagara when we were first married, and all the lovely summers we spent at your family home, those long, twilight evenings walking about on the lawn?”

“Dear Ned,” I said, “how could I not enjoy whatever climate or company I might find myself in, as long as you were there with me?”

The servants arrived with the soup. I was glad to see that the new girl, Marie, whom I had recently engaged, was quick and adept at serving, and spilled not a single drop.

“I must say that I was impressed beyond my expectations by the ordinary man in the street, aye, and the woman in the street as well,” John said. I saw him glance at Marie as she served his soup, and he seemed about to say something, then waited until she left the room.

“I particularly noticed quite a difference in the servants there, you see,” he proceeded to say, in a slightly lower voice. “Here, they all glide in and out unobtrusively, so silent, so seemingly content with their place. But over there, in America—I believe they call them ‘the help’, don’t they?—they have a decided air of being only temporarily in that position, and would, the next week or month, be opening a shop of some sort in the business district!”

“Yes, I believe I see what you mean,” I said. “Frankly, I find that ‘business’ is pretty much on everyone’s mind back there, even the wives and mothers in the great houses—very little thought given to art, or literature, or philosophy.” I lifted a spoonful of soup. “Not at all like here.”

“Oh, but Isa, that’s all to the good, you see, at least for me,” John exclaimed. “I have taken great care to submit my paintings over the last several years to all the important New York and Boston exhibitions—those very ‘wives and mothers’ of whom you speak are eager, hungry even, for the anointing oil of European art, music and culture. They see me both as one of them, and one of, well, us—we who are of Europe.”

“So you do not consider yourself as first an American, monsieur John?” The question came from Florence. I smiled at her approvingly; her French was perfect, spoken with a pure, delicate accent. “Are you then Italian, as you were born in Florence?”

Her question made him laugh aloud.

“Not at all, my dear mademoiselle Florence,” he said, grinning. “I suspect I’m rather a sort of strange beast, part English beef, part American moonshine, part French escargot, and part Italian Parma!”

“And a beast who can speak all of those languages, plus German, like a native of each country,” Ned said, smiling.

I saw that Florence was looking at our guest with her usual calm, grave expression, and was thinking very hard. The next course came in, and the conversation changed.

Throughout the rest of the meal, I watched as John gave more and more of his attention to Florence. I tried to look at her as if seeing her for the first time, or perhaps, seeing her as a gentleman might look at her. It struck me I would have to begin paying attention to all that in a year or two. Her face was not pretty in the common way, but distinctive, even arresting—strong and a bit angular. Her hair was thick, and hung in curls about her face and onto her shoulders, often falling across her cheeks and eyes, a curtain of dark brown. Perhaps we might start arranging it differently, now she was getting to be a young lady. And her eyes! I watched as she looked straight at John once as he was speaking to her. Her eyes had the pure dark gleam of unsullied brown in the irises, lashes dark and thick both above and below her eyes, a voluptuous oval frame. But there was no accompanying modest blush of a young lady scrutinized by the opposite sex, however gentlemanly—just a firm, steady gaze that held his own with equanimity. Her cheekbones were high, her nose a little too narrow, perhaps, and her lips, though not plump, a perfect pointed bow.

Her eyes moved away from his face, and I could tell that he, like myself, felt abruptly, oddly, released. Florence and I caught each other’s gaze, and something in her face sent a chill through to my heart.

Ned was speaking, and I caught the flow of his words somewhere in the middle.

“… this afternoon, my dear Florence? What would suit you, or delight you most on this, your day of days?”

“Papa, I should so much like to go to the Salon,” she replied without a moment’s hesitation, “and see m’sieur John’s paintings, especially the beautiful Spanish dancer that everyone is talking about!”

“Oh, yes, Papa, yes, do let’s go!” Jane, next in age to Florence, jumped up and ran over to throw her arms around her father. “We do so much want to see them, all the paintings!”

“What a painting the two of you would make right now,” John said, and I saw what he saw, through his painter’s eyes—the girl and her father, the one pale with round blue eyes, her hair a fall of dark blonde curls every which way, her blue satin dress shimmering with light from the high windows; and the other, dark-bearded and dark-eyed, wearing a deep charcoal-grey woolen suit thrown into further darkness by the brilliance of his white shirt and collar. What a portrait that would be!

My two youngest daughters—Mary Louisa and Julia—were begging to be taken as well, but a look from me silenced their pleas. They were too young to be out in such a crowd as filled the Salon during the six weeks of exhibition, I said, and that was that.

“Well, then, my dear, you shall do exactly that!” Ned beamed at Florence, and turned to our friend. “John, is it possible you might be able to accompany us?”