Page 53 of The Velvet Hours
“Quite a painting,” the other one said as he turned to leave. “Almost makes a grown man like me blush.”
She reached into her purse for the men’s tip. “I’ll tell the artist you said that,” she said, smiling. “He’ll be quite pleased. It means his painting is truly a success.”
26.
Marthe
Paris 1898
That afternoon they sat in the parlor, hand over hand. The din of the city outside had long since faded in their ears. They watched transfixed as the painting seemed to transform in the changing sunlight.
Neither of them was hungry, so they dismissed Giselle when she inquired if they would like a meal brought in on a tray.
The portrait provided them with sustenance. He had waited for months to see the completed painting, and it had not disappointed. It was his beautiful Marthe forever captured in paint, her body emerging from the canvas in all its sensual glory.
But it struck Marthe in a way that she had not been expecting. Her emotions at seeing her own portrait surprised her.
She placed her head on his shoulder.
“I used to think no one beyond these walls would ever know I existed. My name is invented, my past all but erased. I always believedonce I was gone, I would leave little trace of myself in the world. But you’ve given me a gift, Charles...”
She grasped his finger tightly into her own.
“This painting has immortalized me. Part of me will always remain, captured by Boldini’s brush...”
Charles turned to her, and she lifted her head to meet his eyes.
“Anyone who sees your portrait will know that your beauty had the power to warm an entire room.”
He lifted his free hand toward the portrait.
“Whether it’s now or in a hundred years, anyone who looks at that painting will be struck by your splendor.”
He kissed her. “But I am the lucky gentleman to have actually savored it.”
The sun had now almost fully descended and the room and the painting had taken on new shadows.
“Tell Giselle she can leave. Émilienne is not expecting me this evening. The last part of my gift to you is that we can spend the night together.”
***
They had rarely, if ever, spent a whole evening together since Venice. For years she had learned to make the most out of only a few fleeting hours with Charles.
She put herself into motion. She went to the kitchen and told Giselle to go home and not return until ten the following morning.
Once Giselle had departed, Marthe began to search for as many candlesticks and tapers as she could find. Only then did she return to the parlor, where Charles remained quietly, still fixated on the painting.
With the last threads of natural light hitting the room, she heard Charles remark about the color of the sky outside the window.“Entre chien et loup,”he whispered. The expression referred to the colorbetween a dog and a wolf, but the word had a second meaning: when one slipped from the safe harbor of the day into the mysteries of the night.
Marthe looked back at him and smiled. She began to arrange the candles around the perimeter of the room. Then she struck a match, lighting every wick without uttering a word.
She left Charles sitting there watching the portrait flicker amongst the candlelight as she went to her bedroom to change out of her dress and into something they would both always remember.
***
In her bedroom, she unbuttoned her tea gown and stepped out from the silk. Then she began to open the front eyes and hooks of her corset, freeing her body from the tight confines of the whalebone and laces. She let out a deep breath, her rib cage delighted to now have nothing against it. Her breasts felt the frisson of the air. In the standing mirror, she caught sight of herself in profile. She admired the cleft in her back, the roundness of her derriere. Her vanity didn’t shame her; quite the contrary, it gave her immense pleasure.
She opened up her wardrobe and found the silver lace robe de chambre he had bought her in San Marco Square, with the satin pink ribbon, the color of a conch’s shell, that tied at the waist.
