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Authors: Barbara Pope
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had introduced him to the cafés of the Latin Quarter and to the grisettes , the working-class girls who vied to become their eating and drinking companions. Martin fell in love with one right after another, but had been too shy to do anything about it. Until Honorine. For almost a year, until he had to leave Paris, this pretty dressmaker’s assistant had been “his” grisette. What an exotic creature she seemed, wearing bracelets that jangled on her plump little arms, showing her sharp teeth when she laughed, flirtatiously twisting her black curls around her fingers, and leaning over the table to show off her little round breasts. All this directed at him. She had been generous. So generous. An ever-willing listener and an unimaginably eager teacher. Martin closed his eyes and sipped the wine, remembering.
Before Honorine, his only experience with women had been a stilted courtship with his distant cousin Marthe DuPont. When Martin’s mother had finally realized the calamitous state of the family finances, she had thrown herself on the mercy of the DuPonts, who sponsored Martin as a day student at the Jesuit high school and helped to finance his law school expenses. M. DuPont had even gotten Martin his first post as a prosecutor’s assistant in Lille.
Early on, M. DuPont and Martin’s mother had also decided that he would make a suitable match for the rich industrialist’s eldest daughter. Marthe was a product of the fashionable Sacre Coeur boarding school, the perfect training ground for the perfect bourgeois wife. When he was younger, Martin’s mother had forced him to go with her to tea on Wednesday afternoons, when the nuns opened the school to visitors. In the last few years, he had been thrown together with Marthe in the DuPonts’ grandiose salon and dining room.
Raised in this environment, Marthe would never dream of revealing the flesh of her arms, wearing curls, or laughing at his feeble jokes. Indeed there had been little humor in their solemn, hushed conversations. And pleasure, never.
Martin stabbed at a piece of beef in the dark, thick stew. The only ornamentation that Marthe wore was a large, heavy medal announcing that she was, truly and officially, a Child of Mary. The medal was not hidden like Solange Vernet’s, but on full display, a shield against a godless world and a challenge to any man who dared to think that a willing body lay beneath all that proper female armature. Marthe would be a good mother and a faithful wife and, God knows, as the daughter of Lille’s richest textile manufacturer, she’d be a great match for a penniless magistrate. But would there be any pleasure, any true happiness, between them? Would Martin ever be able to talk with her about what was in his heart?
Martin took the last bite of the boeuf bourguignon . Westerbury and Solange had loved each other. That is what the Englishman had insisted. They loved and understood each other. They were making a new life together. They were capable of that, a new life. Of talking about science and religion. Of discussing all the great issues of the day. If everything the Englishman had said were true, he had been a very lucky man.
But what if Solange Vernet had changed her allegiance and had set her heart on Cézanne, the local banker’s son? Or what if she had rebuffed the artist’s advances? The key might be—Martin chewed slowly—the key might be finding out which man Solange Vernet really loved, and why.
Thursday, August 20
The Murder , 1868-70, and The Woman Strangled , 1870-2, are bewildering in their expression of fury, their excess of emotion. . . . Even if the sources of their imagery were to be found, we would still have to account for Cézanne’s interest in them. What we seek is the source of his own violence.
—Sidney Geist, Interpreting Cézanne 3
5
C ÉZANNE WOKE HER FROM A DEEP SLEEP. Even before she completely roused herself, Hortense Fiquet could hear the agitation in his movements—the search for
Before Honorine, his only experience with women had been a stilted courtship with his distant cousin Marthe DuPont. When Martin’s mother had finally realized the calamitous state of the family finances, she had thrown herself on the mercy of the DuPonts, who sponsored Martin as a day student at the Jesuit high school and helped to finance his law school expenses. M. DuPont had even gotten Martin his first post as a prosecutor’s assistant in Lille.
Early on, M. DuPont and Martin’s mother had also decided that he would make a suitable match for the rich industrialist’s eldest daughter. Marthe was a product of the fashionable Sacre Coeur boarding school, the perfect training ground for the perfect bourgeois wife. When he was younger, Martin’s mother had forced him to go with her to tea on Wednesday afternoons, when the nuns opened the school to visitors. In the last few years, he had been thrown together with Marthe in the DuPonts’ grandiose salon and dining room.
Raised in this environment, Marthe would never dream of revealing the flesh of her arms, wearing curls, or laughing at his feeble jokes. Indeed there had been little humor in their solemn, hushed conversations. And pleasure, never.
Martin stabbed at a piece of beef in the dark, thick stew. The only ornamentation that Marthe wore was a large, heavy medal announcing that she was, truly and officially, a Child of Mary. The medal was not hidden like Solange Vernet’s, but on full display, a shield against a godless world and a challenge to any man who dared to think that a willing body lay beneath all that proper female armature. Marthe would be a good mother and a faithful wife and, God knows, as the daughter of Lille’s richest textile manufacturer, she’d be a great match for a penniless magistrate. But would there be any pleasure, any true happiness, between them? Would Martin ever be able to talk with her about what was in his heart?
Martin took the last bite of the boeuf bourguignon . Westerbury and Solange had loved each other. That is what the Englishman had insisted. They loved and understood each other. They were making a new life together. They were capable of that, a new life. Of talking about science and religion. Of discussing all the great issues of the day. If everything the Englishman had said were true, he had been a very lucky man.
But what if Solange Vernet had changed her allegiance and had set her heart on Cézanne, the local banker’s son? Or what if she had rebuffed the artist’s advances? The key might be—Martin chewed slowly—the key might be finding out which man Solange Vernet really loved, and why.
Thursday, August 20
The Murder , 1868-70, and The Woman Strangled , 1870-2, are bewildering in their expression of fury, their excess of emotion. . . . Even if the sources of their imagery were to be found, we would still have to account for Cézanne’s interest in them. What we seek is the source of his own violence.
—Sidney Geist, Interpreting Cézanne 3
5
C ÉZANNE WOKE HER FROM A DEEP SLEEP. Even before she completely roused herself, Hortense Fiquet could hear the agitation in his movements—the search for
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