Read Online Claude & Camille: A Novel of Monet by Stephanie Cowell - Free Book Online
Authors: Stephanie Cowell
Ads: Link
them left a clutter of bread crumbs and empty coffee bowls on the table as they walked out to work on the painting.
Claude spread a picnic rug with dishes and food on the ground beneath the beech tree and set up his easel and the canvas. He called sternly, “Now, Mademoiselle Camille, if you please, over there. Sit on the rug. Yes. Now pick up that plate and hold it out a little. Very good. We’ll work this way for a while and then I’ll have you change places. I’ll paint you as different women. And you, Mademoiselle Annette, sit there if you will.” The women took their places, laughing a little, arranging their full dresses over their crinolines, which were fuller in the back in the new style, tidying their hair. Frédéric stretched his long body on the grass, propping himself up on both elbows.
Paris was full of professional models who knew how to hold a pose; would these girls be still? Yes, it appeared they would be still, though they did talk softly back and forth about the theater, which they both adored.
Sun touched the bright colors on Claude’s palette as he painted the first stroke, then the second. He always began in apprehension. If it worked, there would be a time when the painting took him, when it reached out and he became it, when he smelled of oil and mineral spirits, when he and the air became one.
His hours passed radiantly; with every stroke, he enclosed himself more in the canvas. By the afternoon’s end, he noted that his models had begun to sag this way or that, into the ground or leaning against the air. Claude sighed; he felt his own weariness with intense reluctance, but there it was. He could wring no more of himself from the day or his models. His arm ached and the light was going, going. He wanted to rush forward under the trees and snatch it in his arms.
T HE SISTERS LOOKED somewhat alike and were almost the same height. Both were beautiful. He saw that when he painted and again as they sat down in the inn kitchen for dinner that night. Annette sat quite straight, showing off her long, lovely neck above her high dress collar as if she might be presented to the nobility at any moment if someone from the ancien regime before the Revolution should sweep into this farmhouse kitchen past the blackened stove. Camille was more open; she broke into conversation and then pulled herself back with a shy smile. She picked up her fork and forgot to eat the bit of lamb. She wore her brownish-red hair in a thick bun at the back of her neck, with several shorter strands falling against her cheeks as if they resented being constrained.
They were well-bred young ladies suddenly stolen off for an adventure together. Their parents likely did not know they were here. Claude looked toward the dark window. If they should be followed!
He was still so much in his painting he had no idea how he would make conversation with them. He looked at his friend and at the girls at the table, rearranging them in his mind on the canvas as he had seen them that afternoon.
Frédéric poured the wine gallantly. “So, mesdemoiselles!” he said in his charming bass voice. “Have you both always lived in Paris?”
Annette shook her head. “No, monsieur; we’re from Lyon, where we studied at the convent school. We came four years ago. Our father’s a silk merchant and continues his work here.”
“Yes, everyone comes to Paris for art, for music, for theater! Do you go often to the Louvre?”
Camille leaned forward, both hands on the table. “We go to the Louvre all the time, and to the theater,” she replied, stammering slightly. “I love the theater so! Almost as much as books. I am always coming home with books, aren’t I, Annette? I have read a lot of Balzac, much to my mother’s disapproval, but I prefer the novels of George Sand. They’re more tender. And Victor Hugo makes me cry.”
“Do you read poetry too?”
“Oh, yes.”
They all ate hungrily. Annette glanced now and then at her engagement
Claude spread a picnic rug with dishes and food on the ground beneath the beech tree and set up his easel and the canvas. He called sternly, “Now, Mademoiselle Camille, if you please, over there. Sit on the rug. Yes. Now pick up that plate and hold it out a little. Very good. We’ll work this way for a while and then I’ll have you change places. I’ll paint you as different women. And you, Mademoiselle Annette, sit there if you will.” The women took their places, laughing a little, arranging their full dresses over their crinolines, which were fuller in the back in the new style, tidying their hair. Frédéric stretched his long body on the grass, propping himself up on both elbows.
Paris was full of professional models who knew how to hold a pose; would these girls be still? Yes, it appeared they would be still, though they did talk softly back and forth about the theater, which they both adored.
Sun touched the bright colors on Claude’s palette as he painted the first stroke, then the second. He always began in apprehension. If it worked, there would be a time when the painting took him, when it reached out and he became it, when he smelled of oil and mineral spirits, when he and the air became one.
His hours passed radiantly; with every stroke, he enclosed himself more in the canvas. By the afternoon’s end, he noted that his models had begun to sag this way or that, into the ground or leaning against the air. Claude sighed; he felt his own weariness with intense reluctance, but there it was. He could wring no more of himself from the day or his models. His arm ached and the light was going, going. He wanted to rush forward under the trees and snatch it in his arms.
T HE SISTERS LOOKED somewhat alike and were almost the same height. Both were beautiful. He saw that when he painted and again as they sat down in the inn kitchen for dinner that night. Annette sat quite straight, showing off her long, lovely neck above her high dress collar as if she might be presented to the nobility at any moment if someone from the ancien regime before the Revolution should sweep into this farmhouse kitchen past the blackened stove. Camille was more open; she broke into conversation and then pulled herself back with a shy smile. She picked up her fork and forgot to eat the bit of lamb. She wore her brownish-red hair in a thick bun at the back of her neck, with several shorter strands falling against her cheeks as if they resented being constrained.
They were well-bred young ladies suddenly stolen off for an adventure together. Their parents likely did not know they were here. Claude looked toward the dark window. If they should be followed!
He was still so much in his painting he had no idea how he would make conversation with them. He looked at his friend and at the girls at the table, rearranging them in his mind on the canvas as he had seen them that afternoon.
Frédéric poured the wine gallantly. “So, mesdemoiselles!” he said in his charming bass voice. “Have you both always lived in Paris?”
Annette shook her head. “No, monsieur; we’re from Lyon, where we studied at the convent school. We came four years ago. Our father’s a silk merchant and continues his work here.”
“Yes, everyone comes to Paris for art, for music, for theater! Do you go often to the Louvre?”
Camille leaned forward, both hands on the table. “We go to the Louvre all the time, and to the theater,” she replied, stammering slightly. “I love the theater so! Almost as much as books. I am always coming home with books, aren’t I, Annette? I have read a lot of Balzac, much to my mother’s disapproval, but I prefer the novels of George Sand. They’re more tender. And Victor Hugo makes me cry.”
“Do you read poetry too?”
“Oh, yes.”
They all ate hungrily. Annette glanced now and then at her engagement
Similar Books
