Page 33 of The Velvet Hours
The Callot Soeurs had charged a small fortune for the gown, but now the cost would be well worth it. Already she could imagine herself walking into Boldini’s studio, his eyes capturing her even before his brush touched his palette. She knew he would react to the first sight of her in the dress, that his imagination would immediately be stirred. He would bring her to life on the canvas. He would show her as she saw her collection of porcelains. A woman comprised of a thousand different glazes. A woman of both fire and softness, one filled with her own shadow and light.
15.
Marthe
Paris 1898
Now that she had chosen the perfect ensemble, Marthe was determined to perfect the rest of the finishing touches. So after Giselle had fastened the dress and wrapped the jeweled sash around her waist, Marthe sat down at her vanity and applied a little rouge to her cheeks and a deep shade of pink to her lips. She piled her long sheets of auburn hair high above her head, pinning it so her slender neck was revealed, and then reached for her priceless strand of pearls.
***
The coachman helped her down from the carriage when they arrived at the Boulevard Berthier. It was a rather unremarkable street with little splendor or luxurious facades unlike the Rue Fortuny, where Charles lived with Émilienne.
She pulled up the hem of her dress and walked toward the door.Outside she heard a newspaper boy screaming the most recent headlines about the Dreyfus trial.J’accuse!the newspaper blared. Earlier that morning on her way out, she could have sworn she heard an older boy scream, “Death to the Jews! Death to the traitor!”
Marthe cringed at the outbursts. Like most other political events, she had not concerned herself with the details of this latest scandal and, not knowing many Jewish people herself, she had little feelings toward them one way or the other. But the ugly words offended her sensibility. She loathed brutish behavior. She hurried toward the entrance and pressed the doorbell, anxious to enter the artist’s oasis, away from all the unsavory noise outside.
“Madame de Florian,” he said as he ushered her in. He was wearing a smock over his suit, and two paintbrushes emerged from one of its side pockets. “I’m so delighted you’ve come.”
“The pleasure is mine,” she said as she extended her hand. She watched as his lips hovered slightly over the skin of her glove, the kiss barely perceptible.
“May I take your cape?” She had selected an oyster gray silk velvet capelet with pink satin ribbons to wear over her upper body. As he slipped it from her shoulders, she smiled and fluffed up her sleeves. “Perhaps your hat, too?”
She reached above her head and unpinned the small marabou feather hat she had put on just before she left her apartment.
“You look pretty enough to paint, Madame de Florian.”
“Why, thank you.” Her voice revealed how much delight she took in his attention.
He placed the cape over his arm and made a sweeping gesture with her feathered hat. “Now please... if you’ll come this way.”
***
As she entered the large room with canvases set against the walls, the smell of oil paint and varnish struck her immediately. The strongvapors made her feel light-headed, but at the same time a renewed sense of vitality flowed through her.
“You’ve painted all these?” She gestured to the works around the room.
“Yes, they’re in different stages of completion... I move between paintings. So often when I return to one, I see it with fresh eyes.”
“It would be nice if we could do that with people... ,” she mused. “The distance might do us all some good.”
He paused for a moment as if studying her, gauging whether he should answer with a polite “indeed,” or to answer her more fully as though she were his artistic peer. He chose the latter. “Perspective is a tool used far too infrequently. If people had the courage to alternate their lens every now and then, the world would be a far more beautiful place.”
Marthe eyes met Boldini’s. “You’re quite right. We have magnifying glasses to read our letters, and opera spectacles for when we attend the theater... but we rarely look at our lives from another point of view.”
He remained quiet before answering her, but his momentary silence only served to increase Marthe’s adrenaline. She hadn’t realized how much she missed the tête-à-têtes she used to have with Charles before he became ill. Her life inside the apartment had been insular even before Charles’s sickness, but in recent weeks she had felt her mental energy might tire him, so she tried not to share every thought that raced through her mind. But now that she was in the company of Boldini, the chance to speak about art and the painter’s creative process made her feel more alive than she had in months.
“I think beneath that beautiful gown, the pearl collier, and the tumble of strawberry hair, you’re really an artist, Madame de Florian...” His green eyes narrowed behind the glass of his spectacles. “What you’ve just said to me now is something one of my painter friends would have expressed.”
She smiled. “Monsieur Boldini, you flatter me too much.” Marthe’s hand lightly touched her pearls. She could feel the clasp, which she had tucked beneath her hair, slide slightly around her neck.
“If I wanted to flatter you... I need only remark on your beauty. I wouldn’t have to bring art into the equation.”
Marthe flushed at his words.
“Now the challenge for me is to somehow convey all of this with my oil paints and brush. I cannot simply create a portrait that merely shows your likeness. I must also reveal your fire, your intelligence... your exuberance for life,” Boldini said, breaking the silence. “And that, Madame, will be a formidable challenge.”
This short man with the balding head, wire glasses, and narrow eyes had just taken her breath away.
