The Unruly Passions of Eugenie R. Read Online Free PDF Page B

across walls; vests and jackets drawn in silhouette paraded along like the vestments of ghosts. One window displayed linens and bed coverings; another, crinolines. The Impasse de la Bouteille itself was a tiny alleyway in a seedy central district, a gate at its mouth . . . NO. 53, HAT MAKER . I touched my own head apparel, the element of my dress that marked me out from the crowd and conferred its whiff of the gentlewoman’s armoire, the veil a shred of the social net that I was about to fall through, probably before the fashions changed.
    â€œ
Fill this from the pump, while you’re down there!” The voice came from above, and down came a long cord with a key and a pail tied to the end of it. “Four
hundred
omnibuses have passed since I saw you last,” said the painter when I arrived, dizzy and breathless, face to face with him at the threshold of the studio, with half a bucket of water. His arm in a bar towel splashed with color.
    â€œYou counted them?”
    He laughed, and heat rose in my cheeks.
    â€œI’m sorry, monsieur. But I walk where I’m going.”
    Behind him, the dull gray morning had turned pearly and glistening. A bird flew by, astonishingly, at eye level: the studio was made entirely of glass, a room built from windows, high above the city, looking like a great eye onto the heavens and rooftops; chimney pots exhaled smudges of smoke, and the thinnest branches of treetops made a filigree pattern against the sky. The February gloom filtered whitely through clouds; and something within me startled and awoke.
    I stood dazzled by the light, numb and dizzy with hunger. To one side of the studio, a clothes rack sagged with silk bombazines, velvet-trimmed satin, dark suit coats; hats with plumes, crinolines, shawls striped and paisley; plain, short trousers and miniature petticoats. Despite its light, the studio was cold and my fingers and toes were numb. I blew on my fingertips. Chasseloup gestured to the screen.
    â€œWhat do you want me to put on?”
    â€œNothing. Perhaps a drape.”
    â€œBut—”
    â€œThis is a photographer’s studio. The faithful citizens of Paris come to rent someone else’s Sunday best and have their portraits taken. I, however,
paint,
” Chasseloup said. “If you please, mademoiselle? It is this morning’s light I am after.”
    Behind the screen was a teetering clutch of objects—horn and violin, silk flowers, a plaster Venus, apothecary bottles, columns of Greek design. A few sketches, nude figures without heads, were crumpled in a corner. Gooseflesh stood out on my arms; their soft fluff prickled and stood up. I bit my lip and undid my skirt with stiff fingers. A film of grit covered the floor, dusting the soles of my feet; tears threatened. Just because I had undressed for one man did not mean I might do so for any comer, but perhaps, given the circumstances, given the fact that I had to earn something to wait for my protector where we had agreed—
    A faint impatient rustling from across the studio. “I am an
artist,
mademoiselle, not a rapist. Are you coming?”
    â€œOne minute.” I grappled with a piece of drapery, hugging it around me.
    â€œThe cloth, please?”
    â€œI—I have modeled only for my mother, and . . . sorry, I’m—”
    â€œAh, so you have modeled. Keep the drapery then, for now.”
    He slung a chair on top of a wooden crate, took it down again, stared at the box from one corner of the room and then the other, rearranged panels against the windows, changing the angle of light. When I climbed onto the crate and stood as he indicated, the slats felt unsteady, like they might splinter and crack. After a few minutes my arms went numb and I began to count back from a hundred: ninety-nine . . . ninety-eight . . . ninety-seven . . . clenching my lip; fingers and toes going blue; blood stopped in the veins. All around was sky.