Claude & Camille

by Stephanie Cowell

  He placed the canvases on the long sofa opposite them. The dull light from the window did nothing for the paintings and he thought to ask his hostess to open the curtains more. Still, both women stood and looked carefully at them, and then at him. Had he been too light in his tone? He suddenly felt they would have had more than the paintings from him if he had been willing. In such a house a few years before, the husband had been away and Claude had gone upstairs. The nipples of the woman had been dark against the white scalloped sheets; he could not remember her name.

  Ridiculous to recall! He brought his thoughts back to the room.

  “Oh, I do want at least one, perhaps a whole set,” Madame Mathieu exclaimed. “Unfortunately, I can’t purchase them now. Can you come again in the spring? That won’t be inconvenient?”

  He knocked on a few more doors that morning, doors of men who had bought his work in the past, but their servants declared that monsieur was not home and Claude should call again. He stopped at a café for coffee, looking through the window at the people walking by, now and then writing his options on a bit of news-journal column torn away, crossing off the names of the patrons and writing “spring” next to one. With some reluctance he left for the damp street again.

  He turned to the shop of the frame maker Isaac Clément on the rue Bonaparte.

  The shop was small, paintings for sale in racks wherever he looked and examples of every sort of frame hung from the ceiling. A sleepy gray cat rubbed against his trousers and he knelt to scratch it behind the ears. Clément had framed all of Claude’s work over the past few years.

  “So, Monet,” Clément said, without looking up from painting a frame with a small brush dipped in gold paint. “What brings you here?”

  “I was hoping you’d buy a few of my paintings.”

  Claude placed his six small canvases of the city parks and gardens on the racks in front of the others. Clément stroked his gray mustache, silent for a few moments. “You paint like a bird sings,” he said. “You know how a bird sings, Monet? Even if no other bird can hear him, he hopes to be heard, or he doesn’t care. But these look half finished. You don’t want to work more on them?”

  “They are finished,” Claude said stiffly.

  “That’s not what people say of your work, or that of your friends! They say they’re sketches. They don’t want to hang sketches on their walls.”

  Claude repacked his paintings and left, walking down the boulevard Saint-Germain toward the church. He had not sold a painting in some time. If Camille had to send to her family for help, he felt he could not bear it.

  A cart rode by, splashing him.

  Dusk was falling as he arranged the paintings against the church wall, their bright green trees and the soft pale dresses of the women strolling beneath them giving a faint glow to the dull street. Many people passed; some looked, and some did not bother. Just as he was about to pack everything away, an older English couple stopped and bought two. When they left he had to lean against the church wall for a time before he was able to pack away his things and go home.

  BUT FOR THE birth of the child, which seemed to bring them all together, the painters had not met as much since the previous spring, when their work had once again been refused for the state Salon, even Claude’s magical painting Four Women in the Garden. That had stunned him, and he had been slow to tell Camille about it.

  Now they had called a meeting at the studio on the rue de Furstenberg. Claude came up the stairs late, pausing to listen to their voices. Seven or eight of his friends were sitting on chairs or on the floor, all wearing their coats. The room was almost as damp as the street; likely wood was in short supply. Frédéric was between checks from home and had been reprimanded for the money he was spending on this foolish pursuit of art.

  Claude rubbed his hands by the glow of the small stove fire. “Sorry I’m late,” he said over his shoulder. “The baby cried half the night again. Is this your fault, Frédéric? You’re godfather.”

  Pissarro shook his head. “They stop within the first ten years,” he said, his kind face now morose. “Or so I hear. Julie’s pregnant again. I love them, but how … You get used to one and then there’s another.”

  Auguste indicated the one empty chair. “Don’t feel bad you’re late,” he said. “You missed a gloomy talk. What’s happening to us? We haven’t been to the café in months. Claude, here’s the bad news. We have to admit it. None of us has the money to front for a private exhibition this winter.”

  Claude nodded grimly. “I thought so.”

  “We’ll do it next year for certain. Things will look up by then. Maybe you’ll be famous.” He made a wry face. “Meanwhile we’ve been sitting here trying to figure out how we’ll even pay our rent this winter. I may have a portrait commission. Pissarro’s painting blinds now. What will you do?”

  Claude sat down, touching the coffeepot on the table; it was cold. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know. I can’t get a good art dealer to look at my work. They say they can’t sell it. I sell something and then I’m scrounging again. I have enough for a short while thanks to a street sale, but Paris has lost its charm for me. I’d like to just escape to Le Havre for the winter and paint.”

  He pulled a letter from his pocket. “My old mentor Boudin is traveling this winter with his wife and has offered me the use of his second cottage on the sea. He wrote that there’s a maritime exhibition in Le Havre; he feels I could walk off with a prize and then sell those seascapes for a lot. I could borrow them back for our exhibition next year. But I can’t ask Camille to come because her rehearsals start soon.”

  Still, when he left his friends, he was so much back by the sea in his mind that he hardly noticed the old newspapers blowing down the street. Snowflakes landed on the journals in front of the kiosk and he turned toward home, thinking only of the sea. He was running as he reached his house and took the stairs two steps at a time.

  Camille was sewing by the lamp, singing softly, one foot rocking the cradle in which his son slept blissfully. Since Jean’s birth she had kept the room beautifully; pillows were brightly covered in scraps, the floor was swept, food was neatly put away. He gazed at her, thinking, She is truly a portrait of mother and child.

  He pulled up a chair near her, kissed her, took away her sewing, and held her hands. “Here’s the situation,” he blurted and told her his thoughts. “I feel it’s the best opportunity for my work, but we said we’d stay together, and you have your rehearsals. I couldn’t ask you for such a sacrifice. And we’d need to give back the key here. I couldn’t afford both.”

  She took a few more stitches in the soft linen baby dress. “I would have come anyway; you know that,” she said. “I don’t want you to miss any chances and I know how hard you work for us. But there’s no sacrifice. I wrote a letter to the manager at the Comédie-Française this morning. I’ve decided not to accept the engagement.”

  “But why, Minou?” he cried. He looked around the house quickly. He had been working so hard he had not noticed that the scripts and crown of papier-mâché were nowhere in sight. “Why, after all your hard work?”

  “I simply can’t do that to my family. My audition was very successful but my mother begged me not do to it; it would so hurt my father. He’s been patient with our living together and I can at least not disgrace our family name on a theater poster. And anyway, now I can go with you.”

  Claude bent to kiss her hair. “You can meet my father!” he exclaimed. “I know he’s coming around. My aunt is longing to meet you.”

  “Oh, I’d like to meet your family! I’ve longed to see where you lived! From your paintings, it’s so real to me!”

  He stroked her hair tenderly, winding a loose strand around his finger. “That was hard for you to decide about the theater,” he said. “You’re so gifted! My poor love!”

  “Yes, it was. Very hard. I’ll envy Lise.”

  “You can decide differently in the future.”

  “Perhaps I will.
I shouldn’t let them influence me so much.”

  1868–1869

  He can only see things from one point of view, but have there ever been geniuses who could see things any other way?

  —HENRI BANG ON CLAUDE MONET

  BOUDIN’S SMALL STONE FISHERMAN’S COTTAGE SAT BACK a short distance from the seacoast; it lay a few miles north of Le Havre and not far from the huge natural stone arch within the sea called Étretat, which Claude had always wanted to paint. The cottage consisted of a few rooms and a low attic, which still smelled of the old apples that had been stored there. It was not Boudin’s main house in Honfleur, where the artist lived with his wife, but a place where he retreated to paint; several unfinished paintings were stacked against the china cabinet and many hung on the wall. Every drawer and door stuck and groaned when opened, and you could not get away from the sound of the sea; you felt you were in it.

  Claude had sometimes cooked fish here with Boudin.

  It was a plain, masculine place that long before had belonged to a retired fisherman; it was not a place, he thought, for Paris dresses. It was far away from the huge new department stores, the opera, and the boulevards. Would Camille like it?

  But she exclaimed, “It’s enchanting.” He saw in her bright eyes the girl who wanted adventures. She stayed by the window, arms clasped over her breasts, mouth opened breathlessly as she watched the waves crash and retreat again. Victoire climbed on a chair at her side, quite hysterical at the sight of the fierce white swooping gulls.

  Boudin had arranged for the wife of a local fisherman, a plump woman over fifty with worn, thick hands, to help them. She had a fish soup waiting. “I brought a cradle from the attic and wiped it down well,” she said. “It’s not been used these fifty years. Give me the little one. There’s fresh linens there and on your bed, madame.”

  They ate the fish soup and the woman rocked the child. “Take madame out, monsieur,” the woman urged fondly. “Your babe’s asleep already and madame is longing to walk down to the sea. If you look very hard, madame, you imagine England there across the water.”

  They left the cottage hand in hand. The dry high grass blew in the wind, and gulls shrieked above.

  Light wind tugged at the scarf Camille had used to cover her hair as they approached a pile of black rocks that led out into the sea. Claude climbed up on one and held out his hand. “Come out with me and walk a little!” he called. “It’s slippery; hold on to me.”

  Holding hands, they slowly made their way from one rock to another out into the sea, the water lapping about them. “Oh, what an adventure being here!” she cried. “I was so envious when you were here without me! It will be lovely just to be alone with you, without our friends and my family.”

  They stood kissing on the rocks with the sea spraying playfully on the bottoms of his trousers and her hem. Yes, just us, he thought, dazed. And the way she pushes against me! It mystified and thrilled him how she would change from the demure girl to such a sexual woman. She moved her hand down to his crotch and cupped him.

  He drew in his breath sharply; all he was seemed to be rushing down to where her hand enclosed him. He whispered, “Can you see all the mussels on the rock? They are somewhat like barnacles, which even cling to the flesh of the great whales out in the sea when they dive so deep! And—I know this for sure—there are creatures who can only be pacified by munching on a beautiful young woman. They eat her up very slowly.” He dropped his voice. “Beginning at her toes, then her pretty legs and thighs.”

  “Unless she eats them first, you see. Can we go back and send the woman home very quickly?”

  “There’s a more secret place,” he whispered as best he could.

  They climbed down to the wet sand, where he pulled her steadily toward a rough little windowless shack and opened the door. Within it was almost dark but for the light coming through a few loose boards. It smelled of old nets, seaweed, and wood. She felt for him; they laughed, stumbling. He threw some tarps onto the floor, and she dropped down before him, pulling him on top of her.

  They turned over and over, tussling with each other, her hem wet against him, her leg over him. She pulled hard, and one of his trouser buttons popped. He felt the cold on his bare back where his shirt pulled up—intense, biting cold. And she bit as well, his ears and shoulder, not gently but hard. They rolled and laughed and a box fell. She smelled like salt.

  “I’m stronger, madame!” he said. Outside, he heard the sounds of the sea and the wind, as if it were trying to get inside. Now he held her down, looking into her bright shining eyes. How beautiful she was! “I’ll have my way with you, and then I’m at your mercy. This is a lesson in maritime life. Now, concerning those creatures that come from the sea to devour women, I’ll show you how they begin at the toes and slowly mount to the thighs with fast little tongues …”

  There was never anything warmer than her body as he tasted it. He led her to near explosion and then pulled away again. She slapped his shoulder in protest. After a time, when he could bear no more, he moved into her and whispered in her ear, “Now I will go very slowly, as the sea moves; very slowly, until you can’t bear it.”

  She reached for her passion, pulling him down.

  “Now you know my secret! I am the sea.” He felt then that he would die of loving her. He lay back and she bent above him, her hair loose, falling over his belly. He felt he could not and then he did.

  They could hardly stand for the cold and their feelings, and they stumbled back to the cottage holding on to each other, hearing the great pull of the ocean behind them.

  “Goodnight, madame and monsieur,” said the woman. “Baby’s asleep and bread is rising for the morning.”

  HE RODE THE public coach the few miles to Le Havre the next day and submitted his four best seascapes to the annual maritime exhibition that Boudin had spoken of in his letter.

  In the next few weeks he painted the sea passionately and took long walks with Camille, yet under it all he was always aware of his work in the old town hall where it was hanging and wondered what would happen with it. In a way he wished to hide himself in the cottage with his small family and the dog, only painting, away from people’s opinions. They had enough money left for a month more and he had canvases to last that long; a sale would come. There were few other cottages about, and they were alone with each other and the baby. They read to each other; they were always together.

  A few times a week, they wrapped Jean warmly, took Victoire on a leash, and walked the road bounded by high wild grass to the small shop where they bought provisions and received letters. Friends wrote, but the one letter he waited for did not come. At last, in mid-December, the old proprietress handed them a small package from Le Havre wrapped in brown paper.

  They put the package in their basket with the cream and the tobacco, and headed home quickly. He hardly dared unwrap it. She took it from him and prayed over it before they opened it. In a small box lay a silver medal engraved with a ship.

  “I’ve won second prize!” he shouted. He picked her up and swung her around the room.

  “I knew you could!” They sat on the floor by the fire with Jean on her lap and the dog sniffing them, examining the medal. He draped his arm around her, wanting her close.

  He said, “Now people will read about it and hurry to buy the paintings. I’ll have commissions. I’ll paint and paint. We’ll go to Le Havre and see friends. Now I can face my father! I’ll come back to Paris triumphant with more commissions in my pocket! And we’ll move to better rooms and invite your family to dinner. It’s all happening, Minou. This, the exhibition with all of us in the autumn!”

  They ran out the next morning to catch the first coach to town, where he burst into his brother’s shop. On the table was a newspaper opened to the page announcing the winning paintings. He introduced Camille and shook his brother’s hand. He asked, “Does our father know about my prize? The shop was closed when I went by.”

  “He’s gone away for a few months wit
h auntie. It’s for her health; he’s taken her to the south. So, Oscar, do you expect to make a sale soon?”

  “A sale!” he exclaimed. “I’ll make many sales.”

  His brother dropped his voice and looked over at Camille in her gray wool dress as she held her child in one arm and with the other hand browsed through engravings of old Le Havre in a rack. “You have found yourself a real lady, Oscar,” he said. “I wish you the best of everything.”

  THROUGH ALL THIS he painted: outside when the sun was warm and the wind not too fierce, inside through the window when it was too cold. One day as he painted he noticed her carefully placing a small candle in another window. “For the Fête des lumières,” she told him, pinning back the curtain. “If the Sainte Vierge with her child comes down our road, she knows she will be welcome.”

  “Well, ask her in for coffee if you see her.”

  “Silly!” Camille said, setting out the bowls for dinner. “Don’t you know Christmas is coming? You’re a perfect heathen! Can we go to your brother’s Christmas Day? And to Mass Christmas Eve? You will come!” Passing him, she pulled his thick hair affectionately and began to sing. “Painting, you’re always painting!” she teased.

  He put down his brushes and kissed her hand. “I have something for you for Christmas,” he whispered in her ear. “You must wait until after Mass! Yes, I will go, heathen that I am, and all to please you.”

  On Christmas Eve, they set out on the road away from the sea, carrying Jean. The night was full of stars. Inside the small stone church dedicated to the protection of sailors, he looked around curiously at the crèche and the candles in front of it. The consecration bell rang hard in the cold air. He watched her kneeling and thought about her rare bursts of spiritual fervor. Now he felt ashamed that he had something so insignificant to give her.

  Still, when they came home again he fetched it, at her insistence. It was under his socks in the drawer, wrapped in fragile paper. She unwrapped it carefully. It was a ring of dried grass he had made one day. “Minou,” he asked, “it’s not the real one yet, but will you marry me and be mine always?” She nodded and kissed him. “There will be a real one someday,” he assured her again.