Read Online The Restoration Artist by Lewis DeSoto - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Lewis DeSoto
Tags: Fiction, Literary, General, Literature & Fiction, Contemporary, Contemporary Fiction, Literary Fiction
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food.
“Voilà!”
said the priest. “Now to the pleasure of food and wine and good company.”
C HAPTER 10
A T EIGHT O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING, AFTER A breakfast of goat’s milk yogourt, and fresh crusty bread, along with the usual cup of strong café au lait, I was walking along the path from the hotel with an oversized brass key in my pocket, on my way to the village of LeBec. I intended to take a look at the cottage that Père Caron had offered me.
He had described it as having two large rooms, suitable for a studio, and although I didn’t plan on doing any painting, just the thought of having a place of my own, a new place without memories, appealed to me. I wanted routines, habits, a job to go to—like cleaning the painting in the chapel—and a place to which I could come home at the end of the day. Inspecting the cottage was really just a formality. I already knew I would take it, whatever its condition.
I hadn’t walked for very long before I came upon a lane marked L E C HEMIN DES S IRÈNES . Earlier, before leaving the hotel, I’d made a quick copy of the island map, and I consulted it now, then followed the lane. This took me through awooded area that soon opened onto a view of a small house. The windows on the upper floors were closed with blue wooden shutters but the lower shutters had been fastened back. A blue clematis grew up the facade and hydrangeas thick with pink flowers clustered beneath the windows. A low stone wall with an iron gate enclosed the front garden. On the gate was a sign, L A M AISON DU P ARADIS . It was a pretty place, and romantic, situated with the sea behind it and the sunlight on its walls.
A figure moved through the interior of the house; it was only a glimpse, a shape, but something about that shape made me think of the woman I had seen in the chapel. I hadn’t mentioned her to anyone, nor did I know if she was still on the island. Did she live here alone? And what about that bruised eye? I was curious. More than curious, but I didn’t want to be seen snooping, so I cut back inland.
I climbed a low hill on the slopes of which brown cows grazed, their flanks glowing in the yellow morning light. On the other side of the hill the sea was visible across the fields, pale cerulean blue under a sky thick with puffy banks of cumulus clouds. Once I had descended the hill and crossed a narrow stone bridge below which sheep paused in their cropping of the grass to watch me pass, I arrived at the dunes. I clambered up the shifting sands and slid down to the beach on the other side.
The sun had been up for a couple of hours already but it still sat low in the sky, and my shadow stretched down to the pale morning blue of the sea where the waves were lapping on the sand. The village was not yet in sight, but far down the beach I could make out a stationary white shape, perhaps a small boat beached on the shore. The usual flocks of seabirds were not around today and I was quite alone.
As I walked, my attention was caught by the oyster shells littering the sand, bright and bleached white in the raking morning light, their shapes like abstract sculptures. When I was an art student I’d been fascinated for a period by the challenges of painting all-white objects and I’d done countless still-lifes of jugs and cups and white flowers, even snow, learning to see colour where others saw only its absence. Looking at the shells now I could make out violets and greens in the shaded sides and pinks and yellows in the illuminated parts. For a painter, the task was always to convince the viewers it was a white object, even though the only touches of pure white pigment were the highlights.
When we used to go to Montmartin in the summers, Piero always collected shells, often deciding to look for only one type at a time, generally something hard to find like razor clams or the very small pink ones that resemble a baby’s fingernails. He’d surprised me once, back in Paris, by using some white
“Voilà!”
said the priest. “Now to the pleasure of food and wine and good company.”
C HAPTER 10
A T EIGHT O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING, AFTER A breakfast of goat’s milk yogourt, and fresh crusty bread, along with the usual cup of strong café au lait, I was walking along the path from the hotel with an oversized brass key in my pocket, on my way to the village of LeBec. I intended to take a look at the cottage that Père Caron had offered me.
He had described it as having two large rooms, suitable for a studio, and although I didn’t plan on doing any painting, just the thought of having a place of my own, a new place without memories, appealed to me. I wanted routines, habits, a job to go to—like cleaning the painting in the chapel—and a place to which I could come home at the end of the day. Inspecting the cottage was really just a formality. I already knew I would take it, whatever its condition.
I hadn’t walked for very long before I came upon a lane marked L E C HEMIN DES S IRÈNES . Earlier, before leaving the hotel, I’d made a quick copy of the island map, and I consulted it now, then followed the lane. This took me through awooded area that soon opened onto a view of a small house. The windows on the upper floors were closed with blue wooden shutters but the lower shutters had been fastened back. A blue clematis grew up the facade and hydrangeas thick with pink flowers clustered beneath the windows. A low stone wall with an iron gate enclosed the front garden. On the gate was a sign, L A M AISON DU P ARADIS . It was a pretty place, and romantic, situated with the sea behind it and the sunlight on its walls.
A figure moved through the interior of the house; it was only a glimpse, a shape, but something about that shape made me think of the woman I had seen in the chapel. I hadn’t mentioned her to anyone, nor did I know if she was still on the island. Did she live here alone? And what about that bruised eye? I was curious. More than curious, but I didn’t want to be seen snooping, so I cut back inland.
I climbed a low hill on the slopes of which brown cows grazed, their flanks glowing in the yellow morning light. On the other side of the hill the sea was visible across the fields, pale cerulean blue under a sky thick with puffy banks of cumulus clouds. Once I had descended the hill and crossed a narrow stone bridge below which sheep paused in their cropping of the grass to watch me pass, I arrived at the dunes. I clambered up the shifting sands and slid down to the beach on the other side.
The sun had been up for a couple of hours already but it still sat low in the sky, and my shadow stretched down to the pale morning blue of the sea where the waves were lapping on the sand. The village was not yet in sight, but far down the beach I could make out a stationary white shape, perhaps a small boat beached on the shore. The usual flocks of seabirds were not around today and I was quite alone.
As I walked, my attention was caught by the oyster shells littering the sand, bright and bleached white in the raking morning light, their shapes like abstract sculptures. When I was an art student I’d been fascinated for a period by the challenges of painting all-white objects and I’d done countless still-lifes of jugs and cups and white flowers, even snow, learning to see colour where others saw only its absence. Looking at the shells now I could make out violets and greens in the shaded sides and pinks and yellows in the illuminated parts. For a painter, the task was always to convince the viewers it was a white object, even though the only touches of pure white pigment were the highlights.
When we used to go to Montmartin in the summers, Piero always collected shells, often deciding to look for only one type at a time, generally something hard to find like razor clams or the very small pink ones that resemble a baby’s fingernails. He’d surprised me once, back in Paris, by using some white
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