Read Online With Violets by Elizabeth Robards - Free Book Online

space—at the makeshift

    balcony—complete with a piece of wrought iron—he has as-sembled near the wall of windows. I suppose that is where he will paint us. There’s a dressing screen in the far right corner. How many women have disrobed behind its f limsy veil?
    Leaned against the walls in stacks five or six deep are more canvases in various stages of completion. More paintings hung haphazardly here and there on the walls above a mélange of rolled cloth, clay pots, books, paint-stained rags, the accoutre-ments for a formal table setting, a copper kettle turned on its side, a silver candelabra.
    Clutter in every nook and cranny—the sum of these parts equals the man who whispered of temptation and forbidden promise; a man I want to know much better.
    I turn away from the place I had been looking, as if the motion will erase my illicit thoughts, to a window covered by a large sheet of muslin tacked to the frame. Midmorning light filters through. The determined rays stream in around the loose edges like the splayed ribs of an open fan. It reminds me of the fitful luminosity of the Tintoretto that had so captivated Édouard the very first day I encountered him.
    I walk over to a worktable shoved into the corner against the far wall. The wooden surface is heaped with rolled canvases, discarded drawings, and dust-covered sketch books and volumes of literature.
    I run my finger over the dusty cover of Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal . A number of years ago, the poetry caused quite a furor, and some of the poems were banned after he stood trial for obscenity. I have never seen a copy of the book.
    I glance over my shoulder and lift the volume from the table, thumbing through, stopping occasionally to read a verse or register a sentiment.
    Why was it judged obscene? Based on the brief passages I read standing there, I do not understand. I glance up every now

    and again to assure myself Fanny Claus, or worse yet, Maman , is not watching me.
    No. Fanny still has her back to me. Maman is still ignoring me. But my heart is thudding at the thought of her discovering my perusal of something so risqué, something judged obscene .
    Why all the fuss?
    Nothing about it upsets my sensibilities. Lightning did not strike me dead for opening it. I did not faint or feel sickened, or otherwise harmed.
    But if it was judged obscene, what does it say about me that I see nothing wrong in it?
    And what, too, does my fascination with Édouard’s work say about my sensibilities? I can see grounds for raised eyebrows: He has painted nude women out of context. It is no wonder someone of weaker constitution would take offense.
    Yet, I think him brave and heroic for being so modern, so willing to challenge the stodgers of the Academy.
    What does that say about me?
    If I cannot discern what’s improper in something that has been judged obscene, might there be something inherently wrong with me?
    I return Les Fleurs du Mal to its place and pick up a sketch book and f lip through roughs of still lifes, the unfinished profile of a delicate-looking woman. But it is the full-length nude stretched out on a bed that gives me pause.
    Olympia.
    My breath catches.
    A preliminary sketch? Even in its crude state its allure is undeniable. I stare in awe at the drawing for a moment and notice something different about it. It takes me a moment, but I realize she is lying in a different position from the finished painting.
    In the final version, her legs are outstretched and her left

    hand covers her sex, but in this rendition, her right knee is shamelessly bent and her left hand rests across her body.
    I turn the book to view the sketch from a different angle, and I recall the other day, Edma and me in our studio. How we dissolved into nonsense after Maman’s severe disapproval of Édouard’s visit. It is Edma’s way to make folly out a grave situation. While I obsess over the unpleasant, she makes light of it. That’s just her way.
    True to form, I was