Read Online White Truffles in Winter by N. M. Kelby - Free Book Online

Delphine, marriage and children, at a time when the most scandalous city in the world was scandalized by the first exhibition of the Société Anonyme Coopérative des Artistes . “Impressions”—Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Edgar Degas—was a show of outsiders, not sanctioned by jury or state nor salon, only themselves. Renegades.
    Everyone had seen it. The critics were inflamed.
    â€œDirty three-quarters of a canvas with black and white, rub the rest with yellow, dot it with red and blue blobs at random, and you will have an impression of spring before which the initiates will swoon in ecstasy.”
    â€œOne wonders whether one is seeing the fruit either of a process of mystification which is highly unsuitable for the public, or the result of mental derangement which one could not but regret.”
    â€œImpression!” the art critic Louis Leroy would later write. “Wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished!” And so he named the group “Impressionists.” Escoffier was intrigued. He had been studying sculpture with the artist Gustave Doré, who suggested that he attend the exhibit. He went without hesitation.
    As a gesture to the working classes, the exhibit was open only in the evenings. Escoffier left the kitchen of Le Petit Moulin Rouge after nine. It had been a long day. The dining room was being renovated and the work was behind schedule. Summer season was just a month away. They had to be ready to open or the fickle fashionable set would find someplace else to behave badly in.
    It was raining and unseasonably cool. The gas streetlamps were dim; some were out. The damp air made the city feel quiet. Mud stuck to the bottoms of his shoes, spattered his trouser cuffs. There was just the occasional clop of horse hooves on the cobblestone streets or the whispers of lovers in the darkness of doorways.
    The exhibition was being held in Nadar’s studio. Escoffier knew the photographer well. When he arrived, there was a great winding line of people—standing, pushing, seeing, being seen. The bourgeoisie,in their borrowed finery, huddled together and narrated the scene to one another in loud whispers. Some provided the names of the divetta and their cuckolded patrons whose faces they recognized from drawings in the newspapers; some just speculated on whose heart was lost and whose was won.
    The second floor of the building where the exhibit was housed was brightly lit; laughter and anger drifted down to the street. Escoffier joined the crowd as they walked up the narrow flight of steep stairs, step by careful step. He was still wearing his platform shoes; slick from the mud, they pitched him forward and made each step tentative, made him feel even smaller. When he reached the landing, people were wildly arguing.
    â€œImbeciles!”
    â€œGenius!”
    A duel was challenged. Someone screamed but many laughed as guns were drawn and the men were escorted out into the night. Two shots. Applause. More laughter. Escoffier did not look.
    There was a table with a tired man selling tickets. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair and beard unkempt. Admission was a single franc, and the catalogue, edited by the man, Renoir’s brother Edmond, fifty centimes. Escoffier could barely afford admission. He studied the catalogue closely, and yet gently, so as not to break the book’s spine.
    â€œWould you consider an exchange?” he asked. “This fine book for a fine meal at LePetit Moulin Rouge?”
    Renoir’s brother shook his head. “Fiftycentimes is a small price for what I have gone through. Degas could not see his way to speak to me until the very last moment before we were to go to press. And Monet sent too many paintings and such horrible titles— Entrance of a Village , Leaving the Village , Morning in a Village —the man has no sense.”
    The brother opened to a page. The painting was Le Havre as seen from a