The Masterpiece

by Émile Zola

  ‘You’re wanting to work. We’ll leave you to it.’

  Irma, still vaguely smiling, never stopped looking at the painter, surprised that he could be silly enough not to want her and stung now by the whim of getting him in spite of himself. It was no show-place, this studio of his, and you could hardly say he was handsome himself, so why all the virtue? Shrewd, intelligent, with her happy-go-lucky youth for a fortune, she could not resist just one other joke at his expense. So, as she was leaving, making him a final offer over her long, warm, enveloping handshake:

  ‘Any time you like.’

  When they had gone Claude had to go and move the screen, for Christine remained where she was, on the edge of the bed, as if she had not the strength to stand up. She made no comment on his lady visitor, but simply said she had been rather frightened. She wanted to leave at once; she trembled at the idea of anyone else calling and had no desire to betray her distress by even so much as a look.

  From the first she had been disturbed by the violent atmosphere of Claude’s studio, lined as it was with his vigorous paintings. She had never been able to get used to the outspoken studies from the nude and she was repelled, not to say physically pained, by the crude reality of the sketches of Provence. To her, they did not make sense, but then she had been brought up to admire another, and gentler, art: her mother’s water-colours, the dreamlike delicacy of her fan designs, where lilac lovers sauntered in pairs through gardens of misty blue. Even now she often amused herself by doing little schoolgirl landscapes, a lake with a ruin, a water-mill, or a chalet with pine trees in the snow, her three stock subjects. So she was amazed to think how anyone as intelligent as Claude could possibly do such ugly, wrong-headed, false-looking painting. For she thought his pictures not only monstrous and hideous, but also quite beyond the pale of any acceptable truth, the work of a madman, in short.

  One day Claude insisted on her showing him her little sketch book, the little album she had often mentioned she had had in Clermont. For a long time she had refused to bring it, but at last she gave way, partly because she felt flattered, but largely because she was curious to know what he would have to say. Claude went through it and smiled, but said nothing, so she broke the silence.

  ‘You think it’s bad, don’t you?’ she murmured tentatively.

  ‘No. It’s not bad, it’s innocent.’

  The word annoyed her, though his intonation showed it was kindly meant.

  ‘Well, what can you expect? I only had a few lessons from Mamma. … What I like is something nicely done and pleasant to look at.’

  Her last remark made him laugh outright.

  ‘You can admit now,’ he said, ‘that my painting makes you ill. I know it does, by the way you tighten your lips and go pop-eyed, you’re so scared. … Oh, it’s no painting for ladies, and certainly not for young ladies. … But you’ll get used to it; it’s only a matter of training your eye and then you’ll see it’s sound, healthy stuff, really.’

  And in the event Christine gradually did get used to it, but not, be it said, through any artistic conviction. For Claude, with his disdain for female opinion, made no attempt to put ideas into her head, but even avoided talking art with her, as if he wanted to keep that passion in his life completely separate from the new passion that was creeping into it. No, Christine simply slipped into the habit and began to take some interest in Claude’s appalling pictures when she realized the supremely important place they held in his life. That was the first stage, when she began to be moved by his passion for work and by the way he hurled himself into it, body and soul. It was touching, she thought; it was even wonderful. Then, as she realized how he was either elated or depressed after a good or an unsuccessful sitting, she began to feel that she, too, had a share in his work. She sympathized if she found him depressed, she was lively when he greeted her with a smile. And from then it became her one preoccupation, wondering whether he had been working hard and whether he was satisfied with what he had done since their last meeting. At the end of two months her conquest was complete; she could look at the pictures without flinching, and, although she did not always thoroughly approve of the way they were painted, she began to repeat artists’ expressions she had heard Claude use, and say things were ‘vigorous’, or ‘luminous’, or ‘well put together’. She found him so kind, and she was so fond of him, that once she had excused him for producing such terrible daubs she began to look out for their good points, so that she could try to grow fond of them too.

  There was one picture, however, the one for the forthcoming Salon, that she still found difficulty in accepting. She could look at the nudes painted at Boutin’s and the sketches of Plassans now without any feeling of distaste, but the naked woman lying on the grass still irritated her beyond words. It was a personal dislike, the outcome of the shame of having thought for a moment she recognized herself, and the vague embarrassment she still felt when she looked at the picture, though the features seemed to grow less and less like her own. At first she had protested by looking away. Now she would stand for minutes on end gazing at it in silent contemplation, wondering how the resemblance could have disappeared. The more Claude worked over it, for he was never satisfied and came back scores of times to the same points, the less like her it became. And, though she would have been unable to analyse her feelings, still less admit them, even to herself, she was more and more grieved to see less and less of herself in it, in spite of her original revulsion. With each little detail that changed, their friendship seemed to be diminished, she felt less close to him. Did he not like her, she wondered, that he should let her fade out like that? Who was the other woman? Whose was the nebulous, unknown face that was beginning to show through her own?

  Claude, very dejected at having spoilt the head, was wondering how he could bring himself to ask her to pose for an hour or two. Even if she had just sat as she was, he could have noted the essentials, but having seen her in one rage he had no desire to provoke another. He had made up his mind to ask her nicely and pleasantly, but when the moment came words failed him and he was as overcome with shame as if he had been going to say something improper.

  He came to the point, however, one afternoon, in a fit of anger he could not control even for her sake. Nothing had gone well the whole week, and he was talking of scrapping the whole canvas, stalking furiously about the room and kicking the furniture about. Suddenly he gripped her by the shoulders and sat her down on the divan as he said:

  ‘Please do me a kindness, or, if you don’t, by God, I’m finished!’

  Taken by surprise, she did not understand at once.

  ‘Kindness?’ she said. ‘What is it you want?’

  Then, seeing him pick up his brushes, she added, almost before she was aware of it:

  ‘Oh, that! … Why didn’t you ask me before?’

  Of her own accord, she lay back against a cushion and folded her arm beneath her head. But the surprise and confusion at having consented so quickly made her turn suddenly very serious, for she had not known she was going to do this thing, in fact she would have sworn, a few minutes previously, that she was never going to pose for him again.

  Delighted, he cried at once:

  ‘Are you really going to do it? … Now I’ll show them how to paint a woman, by God I will!’

  Then again without thinking, she said:

  ‘Only the head, of course.’

  And he, suddenly afraid that he might have gone too far, stammered apologetically:

  ‘Oh, of course, only the head.’

  Both rather disconcerted, they said no more, and Claude began to paint while she lay still, gazing into space, annoyed with herself for having made that last remark, yet already filled with remorse for being even so obliging. There was something reprehensible, she felt, in allowing her likeness to be painted on that nude body lying there resplendent in the sun.

  In two sittings the head was finished. Claude was delirious with joy. It was the best bit of painting he’d ever done, he c
ried. And he was right. He had never painted anything more alive or more genuinely lighted. Happy to see him happy, Christine cheered up too and even went as far as to say the head was very good; still not a very good likeness, but full of expression. They stood a long time looking at it, half closing their eyes and standing back against the wall.

  ‘Now,’ he said at last, ‘I can polish off the rest with a model. … Thank God I’ve settled her! She was nearly too much for me.’

  And in a fit of childish merriment he seized the girl in his arms and they danced together what he called the ‘victory dance’. Christine enjoyed it as much as he did, and laughed heartily, with all her doubts and scruples and worries flung to the winds.

  At the end of a week, Claude was as gloomy as before. He had got Zoé Piédefer to pose for the body and she was not giving him what he was looking for. The head was too delicate, he said, to fit on to such common shoulders. He refused to give in, however, scraped his canvas and started afresh. About the middle of January, in utter despair, he gave it up and turned the picture to the wall. A fortnight later he set to work again, with another model, big Judith this time, which meant that he had to revise completely his tone values. Things went wrong again, so he fetched Zoé back and then lost his grip once more, quite ill with anguish and uncertainty. The unfortunate thing about it all was that it was only the central figure that proved such a difficulty; the rest of the work, the trees, the two small female figures, and the man in the black velvet jacket were all finished and satisfied him in every way. February was drawing to a close; there were only a few days left if the thing was to go to the Salon. It looked like a disaster.

  One evening, beside himself with fury, he shouted at Christine:

  ‘How in God’s name can you put one woman’s head on another woman’s body? … I ought to cut off my right hand for trying to do it!’

  There was only one thought now at the back of his mind: to get her to consent to pose for the whole figure. It had grown, slowly, out of a simple wish, which he had immediately repressed as absurd, through a long, recurrent argument with himself, into a definite desire stimulated by the spur of necessity. He was haunted now, obsessed by the memory of her bosom as he had glimpsed it that morning, radiant with the freshness of youth, and he knew he had to paint it. If she refused him now, it would be useless to go on with the picture, for he knew no one else could satisfy his need. And he would sit for hours, slumped on a chair, tortured by his own impotence, his inability to decide where to place his next brush-stroke, and all the time trying to make bold resolutions. As soon as she came in he thought he would tell her his troubles, and in such moving terms that she would be sure to give in. But when she did come in, with her frank, friendly laugh and her dress so chaste that it revealed nothing of her figure, his courage failed completely and he looked away from her lest she should notice him trying to trace, beneath her bodice, the supple line of her torso. No, you could not make such demands of a friend like her. He, at least, would never have the courage to do it.

  Then, one evening, as he was getting ready to escort her and she was putting on her hat, they stood for a second looking into each other’s eyes, just as the upward movement of her arms moulded her dress closely to the shape of her breasts. A thrill went through him, and he knew by the sudden serious look and the way the colour left her cheeks that his thoughts had been divined. As they walked along the river the sun was setting in a sky of burnished bronze, but they hardly exchanged a word, as though they sensed there was something between them. Twice he saw from her look that she knew what was haunting his mind. Indeed, his thoughts had affected the train of hers, now fully awake to the most unintentional allusions, and, although at first she had hardly noticed the effect, it was soon brought clearly home to her. But even then she felt there was no call to be on the defensive, for it was just something that had no place in real life, but was one of those things one dreamed and blushed to think of afterwards. The fear that he might make the request of her never even crossed her mind. She knew him so well now that she could have silenced him with a look, in spite of his sudden flashes of temper, even before he could have managed to stammer out the first few words. The whole idea was mad. Nothing could possibly come of it, ever!

  Days went by, and the fixed idea they shared in silence grew. No sooner were they together than they felt bound to think of it. No mention of it ever passed their lips, but their very silences were full of it. Behind every gesture they made and every smile they exchanged they felt the presence of the thing they could never bring themselves to express, though it now filled every corner of their minds. Soon it was the only thing left in their relationship as friends. She felt as if he was undressing her with every look; the most innocent words began to resound with equivocal overtones; every handshake went a little further than the wrist and sent a thrill of emotion through the entire body. And the thing they had so far avoided in their friendship, the disturbing factor, the awakening of the male and female in them, was unleashed at last by this constant preoccupation with virgin nudity. They each became aware, in time, of a secret fever raging in the other; their cheeks would flush and burn if their fingers chanced to meet, and every moment held its potential thrill, while the excruciating torments they could neither speak nor hide, the gradual invasion of their entire being, choked them and racked their bodies with immeasurable sighs.

  When Christine called one day about the middle of March, she found Claude sitting in front of his canvas, overcome with despair. He did not even hear her come in and simply sat quite still, his wild, blank stare fixed on his unfinished painting. He had only three days left to finish it in time for the Salon.

  ‘Well,’ she said gently, dismayed to see him dismayed. ‘What do you think of it?’

  He started and turned towards her.

  ‘What do I think of it?’ he repeated. ‘I think it’s useless. I’m not sending it in this year. … And I’d set such store by this Salon.’

  They both relapsed into their despondency with its deep, disturbing undercurrents. Then, suddenly, thinking aloud, Christine murmured:

  ‘There’s still time.’

  ‘Still time? Of course there isn’t, short of a miracle. Where do you expect I’m going to find a model now? … Listen, I’ve been weighing things up ever since this morning, and I thought for a moment I’d found a way out. I thought I’d call in Irma, the girl who came here once, do you remember? Oh, I know she’s short and a bit on the plump side, and I might have to alter everything. But she’s young. I think she might do. … Anyhow, I’m going to give her a trial. …’

  That was all he said, but his burning eyes as he looked at her said quite plainly: ‘There’s still yourself, and that would be the real miracle; success would be a certainty if only you would make this supreme sacrifice for my sake. I beg you, I beseech you as a friend, a friend I worship, the loveliest, the purest friend I have!’

  And Christine, head held high and pale with emotion, heard every word and was moved by the force of the prayer in his burning look. With slow, deliberate fingers she took off her hat and her pelisse, then, without more ado, continued the same calm gesture, undid and removed her dress and her corsets, slipped off her petticoats, unbuttoned the shoulder-straps, and let her chemise slip down over her hips. She did all this without saying a word, as if she were elsewhere, or in her own room undressing herself without thinking while her mind wandered off in pursuit of a dream. Why should she let a rival give him her body when she herself had already given him her face? She wanted it to be her picture, hers entirely, the token of her affection, and as she realized that, she realized also that she had been jealous all along of that strange, nondescript monster on the canvas. And so, still silent, virgin in her nudity, she lay on the divan and took up the pose, eyes closed, one arm beneath her head.

  Petrified with joy, Claude watched her undress. It all came back to him now, the momentary vision, so often conjured up in his mind, was come to life again, a little childlike a
nd frail, but supple, youthful, and fresh. Again he wondered how she managed to dissemble such a well-formed bosom so that it could hardly be suspected beneath her dress. He did not speak either, but started to paint in the rapt silence that had settled on them both. For three long hours he lost himself in work, and in one virile effort finished a superb sketch of the whole figure. No woman’s form had so enraptured him; his heart pounded in his breast as it might have done in the presence of a naked saint. He made no attempt to approach, but stood amazed at the transfiguration of the face, its heavy, sensual jaw softened and outshone by the soothing calm of the cheeks and brow. Throughout those three hours she never stirred or even appeared to breathe, but made the sacrifice of her modesty without a tremor and without embarrassment. Both were aware that if either of them spoke so much as a word they would be overwhelmed by shame. All she did from time to time was to open her bright eyes and fix for a moment some vague point in space, revealing nothing of her thoughts the while, then closing them again, assuming once more the remoteness of a lovely marble statue but never losing the fixed, mysterious smile that was part of the pose.

  With a gesture Claude indicated he had finished, immediately regained his clumsiness and knocked over a chair in his haste to turn his back while Christine, blushing violently, rose from the divan. Shivering now, and so flustered that she did up the hooks all awry, she hurried on her clothes, pulling down her sleeves and even turning up her collar in her anxiety to leave no portion of her skin uncovered. She was already enveloped in her pelisse before he dared to turn his face from the wall and risk a glance in her direction. When he did turn round he walked over to her, but they could only stand and look at each other in silence, for both were so overcome by emotion that speech was impossible. Was it sorrow they felt, infinite, unconscious, unspoken sorrow? For the tears welled in their eyes as if they had both made a wreck of their lives and plumbed the depths of human misery. Shattered, heartbroken, unable to utter so much as a word of thanks, he planted a kiss on her brow.