I carry them inside me now, those two figures, holding each other in a fierce embrace. Arm and arm, cheek and cheek, in a swirl of color and brightness. Two figures bending in to each other.
xii.
Today I am well enough to be brought into the parlor, in honor of Isabelle’s and Michi’s visit. May has just finished her oil of them; I hope to see it soon. May says it’s a bathing picture, in a déshabillé. She borrowed one of my white morning dresses, and the Delft washing bowl from my room. “You’ll like this one, Lyddy,” she says.
Michi in the flesh holds a chocolate éclair as he sits, happy as a drunken sailor, on Isabelle’s knee. He’s dressed in a Tartan frock with a white pinafore, and his little brown shoes seem to be conducting a frenzied, happy orchestra. Isabelle has a gentle manner. She listens politely to May and to Mother and Father, as they describe our nieces and nephews in America. I present Michi with a gift of little wool socks, and May gives him a new toy-book by Kate Greenaway.
“You’ll be leaving for Dieppes soon?” Mother asks, in French, offering Isabelle sliced melon.
“Merci bien, madame. Oui, we leave tomorrow morning.”
“Will you be coming back to Paris in the coming year, madame?” Father asks.
Isabelle smiles. “Je l’espère, monsieur. Only, our family may be growing larger this year, and you know, it becomes more difficult to travel.”
Michi grabs a marron confit from Isabelle’s plate, and offers it to Father. Father accepts with good humor. Batty sits on the rug near Isabelle, wagging his tail and looking up at Michi, hopeful that a marron or an éclair might fall to the floor.
Later, after the small company manages to bundle themselves out the door, all of us seem to feel momentarily bereft. Mother sighs and Father picks up Le Temps half-heartedly, throwing himself into his armchair. May walks up and down a few times, glancing into the mirror over the fireplace, and then gazing out the window on the south side of the parlor, her forehead on the glass: from that window, I know, she sees all of Paris. I open my book—Sonnets from the Portuguese, my old copy, dog-eared—and try to read, but all I can think of is Michi’s plumpness and cheerfulness. I wish May had made dozens of pictures of him, so we could imagine him here.
May comes to sit on the ottoman near me.
“She was a good model, wasn’t she?” I ask.
“Oui.”
“And the baby too.”
“The baby too.”
“You’ll have the children to paint this summer,” I remind her.
“Oui. You’re right, Lyd.”
“You’re very good at painting children, you know, May.”
“Do you think so?” May looks younger for a moment. She searches my face.
“I do. I most certainly do. You’re brilliant at it.”
“I was surprised myself, how well the pictures came out.”
I glance at my book.
The face of all the world is changed, I think, / Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul.
“The good thing is, May, you’ll always be able to find wonderful models, in children.”
May’s face is hard to interpret. “Yes, Lyddy, that’s true.”
xiii.
It’s like a gift, the oil painting, when May shows it to me: a calm moment, a mother squeezing a cloth in a blue and white basin, her hand large and strong, her other hand holding a sleepy child, legs akimbo, eyes half-open, gazing at her, her face bent to gaze back, her forehead touched with light, her morning dress a white landscape on which he rests, becalmed, idle, in this moment before bathing, so clear, so still, that it remains cut out of time. Always the hand hovers, poised, in the water of the basin, always the mother bends to her baby, always the baby bends toward her. Outside the room, the world moves on, with its ships and trains, its republics, its foreign colonies, its industry, its injustice, its wars, its terror. The world becomes merely a thought about something other than this quietness, this room, this careful love.
Elsewhere now, the bloody sheets, the baby’s cry, the exhausted face, cherry trees on a hillside, dirt tossed onto a box of wood, agony and then absence.
xiv.
I’m better now, much better. Mother still thinks she and May should take me to one of the spas, perhaps to Pau, although Father blusters about needing them to stay with him in Paris, “and we’ve already sent the money for the house in Marly, May, I doubt we can get that back.” I agree with him, although for different reasons. The thought of having to brush shoulders with hordes of English tourists, taking the water, is enough to make me ill again. And if I were in Pau for two months, I would miss half of Aleck’s visit. I will have better food, and more peace and quiet, in the country with my family than I would at the baths.
XV.
On my second good day, May helps me into the deep pink dress again, and waits as I descend the stairs from our apartment one at a time. Mathieu brings our carriage to the front of the building, and we ride in style along avenue Trudaine to the rue des Martyrs, and up to the boulevard Clichy. The district looks bright this morning, awash with late spring. The air feels softer, and, as I step carefully out of the carriage, holding May’s hand, a wave of satin holds me up, helps me move more lightly.
After the morning’s brightness, May’s studio looks at first a dusky blue, and I shiver. As May opens the curtains, and then the windows, light changes the color of the floors to a shiny wheat, touching the corner of the marble mantelpiece and turning it from dark gray to silvery blue. Even the farthest corners grow lighter, and this other world emerges again: the mahogany tea table, the plump armchairs, the folded throws and cloths, the cups and saucers, the Japanese vases, the Turkish rugs, the mirror over the mantel. The gold hands of the clock say a quarter to ten.
I almost laugh. What a feat! By some miracle, or God’s grace, or astonishing luck, here I am again, in this room, with my sister, on a spring morning in Paris, about to engage in the creation of a concoction, a vision, made of oil paints on canvas.
And here she is still, the woman in the picture, holding her cup and saucer, about to drink her tea, a smile on her face, for all the world as if she is at a party, her dress a rich pink, the lace around her neck a spray of white water.
“Of course the hyacinths have gone,” May says, as I sit in the purple chair. I look around. Of course. The high green table too is gone.
“Could you find more hyacinths, May?”
“I’m not sure. But it’s all right. I like what I have of them.”
She moves my chin, and touches my right hand.
“C’est bien. Hold that.”
And I do. I hold the pose, in joyful relief that I am here to hold it. I welcome even the ache in my arms, the tingling in my fingers, the urge to move.
Illness has this edge of grace. If the illness lifts, even for a few days, and one can enter the world again, all things shine with clarity and value. This cup, so light, becomes a miracle. And how much more a miracle that my sister looks at this cup, and at me, and touches a brush to mounds of oil on her palette, and makes a design that places me at the center of her creation. I am indeed comforted.
The Garden
and then I see May, and she’s small, only two or so, running through the meadow, and I catch her up and hold her. She’s hot. She cries, “Baby.” “There’s no baby here,” I say, running my fingers through her hair, and
Marly-le-Roi, septembre, 1880
i.
The garden hums. A piercing blue sky, and a hot sun, mid-morning. My gloves warm, as I hold my crochet hook and the blue thread.
“Lyddy. Could you hold your hands still for a while? I’m trying to get them.”
I hold my hands still. I gaze at my gloves and the hook until my eyes begin to water. Keeping my head in the pose, slightly bent, I look up and to the side for a moment to see May. The lace of my white bonnet appears like an umbrella, held at a slant over her. Her white blouse looks damp, with a blue oil stain on the front. She frowns as she studies m
y hands. She is standing, dabbing her brush on the palette. I blink a few times, and look at my crochet hook, wishing I could make my next stitch.
“I’m in great danger of making your fingers look like sausages.” May sounds annoyed with herself.
“Maybe they do look like sausages.”
I glance at May’s face again to see her smile, and then I gaze at my gloves, the color of tea with milk. I added the fine red stitching, in three lines, on the back of each one.
Soon my arms begin to hurt, and my fingers do feel bunched up, swollen, but my gloves and the day still shine.
“What are you making, Lyddy?”
“A shawl for Elsie’s doll.”
“Corabella?”
“Yes. Corabella.” I picture Corabella’s surprised blue eyes in her porcelain face, her bird’s nest of flaxen hair, her porcelain legs and arms, with one of the toes chipped. One hand too has been broken, and Elsie insists on a new bandage every few days.
“Poor Corabella leads a difficult life,” May observes.
“She is devoted to Elsie, however.”
“Oui. Elsie is most certainly the sun and moon of Corabella’s world.”
This is an island, composed of May and me, her brush and my gloves, my aching and her gaze. On her canvas, I become a healthy woman in blue and white. Sun and brush heal me, brush and sun, and French birds in a French garden.
Astonishing, how this place—this garden, our rented house, the village—thrives, a short train ride from Paris. The Seine is a ribbon, waving through this countryside, out of the city. If I could, I would walk from Marly to Port Marly, or even to the bridge in Bougival, to see the river, as May has done sometimes with Berthe Morisot, who summers nearby. The air is good here. I’ve suggested to my family that we could live in Marly all year round, or in Louveciennes, but May feels too isolated in the country. She loves the rush of Paris, the closeness to galleries and to her friends. Degas lives only a quick walk from our apartment there. She has become restless, after three months in this village.
I find myself picturing a little house, all my own, full of books, here in Marly, snow on my pillowcase of a lawn, a small garden of flowers I like best, an armchair by a window.
Quick, light steps on the walk. At first I think it’s Elsie, until I remember she’s on the boat to America; Aleck and Lois sailed home with all of the children a week ago.
“Bonjour, mesdemoiselles, où est Batty?” Vivi hops in front of me, in a blue linen dress and a white pinafore. Her older sister must have come to help Mother with the mending.
“Pourquoi? Do you wish to play with him?” May asks in French.
“Oui, mademoiselle.”
“Run into the house and find him, and tell Madame Cassatt that I gave you permission.”
“Merci bien, mademoiselle.” The child curtsies and runs to the house. Soon I hear Batty’s sharp bark, like a small gold hammer—tin, tin, tin!—and the girl’s high voice, as she tells him how they will go to the stream, and possibly see a fish or a frog.
Only a week ago Vivi played with Sister and Elsie near the roses, carting Corabella and Sister’s doll Joanna in the wheelbarrow. Elsie brought me two handfuls of rose petals one day and asked if I could make something out of them for Corabella. “Petals are too delicate for needle and thread,” I said, “and besides, they’ll fade soon, and dry up.” “Could you try anyway?” she asked. “Corabella likes roses, and she needs a new shawl too.” So I shall surprise patient Corabella with this blue, lacy shawl. It will be getting colder in Pennsylvania soon.
I miss the children immensely. I almost say this to May, but I know she knows this. She misses them too, although of course she has her painting, and her friends. My longing for them is a hunger I cannot satisfy. I had not known I could love them this much.
Batty’s bark is more distant. I think of Elsie, chasing Batty. She would squeal when she caught him, and he would wiggle and snap at her. If I were to paint Elsie, this is the picture that would first come to me. I could not comprehend her love of the difficult—of the very thing that spurned her.
“Elsie adores Batty,” I say.
“Oh yes, and poor Batty is terrified of Elsie.”
“Batty is terrified of nothing.”
May laughs. “You know very well he’s terrified of everything. That’s why he barks so much.”
I hesitate. “Like the person who gave him to you?”
May laughs. “C’est vrai, Degas certainly can bark.” In a moment, she adds, “I think it’s possible he can be frightened of his own bark. That is, on his good days. He can be kind, Lyddy, n’est-ce pas?”
“Certainly, he can be kind. He was kind to the children this summer,” I say.
“Remember how he brought them bonbons?”
“Oui, he brought bonbons.” I smile. “Is this our new litany, May? Shall we call it ‘In Praise of Degas’?”
“I know he isn’t a saint.”
“A saint? No. I don’t expect anyone of my acquaintance to be a saint.”
“Well, what about you, Lyd? Surely you’re a saint, if anyone is.”
“Mais non, May.” I look at her. “People always think a woman saintly if she’s simply single, and not entirely self-centered.”
“Et bien, I’m not entirely self-centered,” May says, “and I’m single, and no one thinks of me as a saint.”
I gaze at my gloves again, and the blue thread. “C’est vrai. Saintliness isn’t the first word that comes to mind in describing you, May. Maybe it’s because you have such ambition. I suppose a saint’s only ambition should be to serve God.”
“And your ambition, Lyddy? What do you desire in the world?”
“Me? I don’t suppose my desires are much different from any other woman’s.”
May holds her brush in the air. She looks as if she wishes to say something, but then she looks at her canvas.
“I would have married, for instance, if I could have,” I add. “Although I wouldn’t call that my ambition.”
“Would you have wished to marry, Lyddy?”
“Of course. If I could have married someone I loved.”
I glance at May. She’s looking expectantly at me.
“But, I remember, that year I began studying art in Philadelphia, someone asked you, non?”
“Who?” I look at her, puzzled, thinking of Thomas Houghton (in the garden, at dusk, behind our West Chester house, his face glimmering in the dark. “Lyddy!” I heard someone calling, from inside the house. I looked at him, and the air between us seemed sweet and slow. “Lyddy!”)
Lydia Crocheting in the Garden, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. Gardner Cassatt, 1965. (65.184) Photograph © 1993 The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“The Harvard student, with the curly hair. You must remember, Lyddy, he fawned over you for months.”
“Oh.” I laugh. “You mean Joshua Winthrop.”
“He was studying to be a minister.”
“Yes. Oh, heavens, no, I could never have married him. Poor old Joshua, with the crooked teeth and the earnest smile. His idea of courtship was to offer me wise quotations.”
“And your idea of courtship?”
“Oh, May.”
“You brought up the subject, Lyddy. I was seven years younger, you know, and full of curiosity about you. You were so private. You never let me in on anything.”
“I doubt there was much to let you in on.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Lyd. I would guess the opposite.”
“Stop!”
“And what about that other young man, what was his name? The one from Virginia, who rode so well? He was handsome, I remember.”
“You must be an elephant, May, you don’t forget anything! You mean William, William Dabney.”
“Yes. One of Aleck’s friends. You sat in the parlor with him one night.”
“Oh, yes, with my whole family walking in and out, not to mention old Nora, limping with her hind leg, and putting her nose into his lap!” Quiet
, William was, and shy, although when I looked up from something I was doing—currying a horse, weeding, pulling on my old boots—I’d see him looking at me. “He was much too shy, May. It would have taken him five years to start a real conversation. And anyway, I was thinking of another by then.”
“Was that Thomas?”
I am surprised at the way my throat feels thick, suddenly. I cannot speak. The blue thread wavers in front of my eyes.
“I remember one summer,” May adds. “Everywhere I turned, there you were with him.”
“Yes.” his hand touching my arm, my shoulder, his voice murmuring. “Lyddy.”
“Et?”
“Et?”
“What happened?”
I shrug. “It was so long ago, May. I’m not sure I can even remember what happened.” the air sweet and slow, threads thrown out between us making a fine mesh, pulling us in
“You were engaged, weren’t you?”
“Engaged. Oui.” Slipping into the garden one night, in West Chester, after a day of swimming, we embraced for the first time, fiercely, hungrily, in the humid summer air, the rich, fragrant grass, with the sound of our dog Nora barking from the front lawn, children’s voices calling to us, “Lyddy! Thomas!”
My fingers feel numb, and the back of my neck aches. I sense the first signs of nausea, but I will it to hold off. How can I be no longer the young woman in the garden, wishing to be seen, and touched, my desire meshed with another’s?
On that August day, Degas hovered behind May’s chair as she sketched Elsie. His hand touched the nape of May’s neck. He caressed her neck for a moment, and she leaned into him.
I listen to old Josephe rolling the wheelbarrow. The asters have come into bloom now. He’s been weeding this morning, pulling out the straggling annuals, clipping the long pointed leaves of the irises. I have asked him if I may help plant the bulbs, and he’s agreed.
Lydia Cassat Reading the Morning Paper Page 5
