Luncheon of the Boating Party

by Susan Vreeland

  The butler ushered him in to the sound of many voices and the clink of crystal stoppers in decanters. He passed through the Japonaise room quickly where teethy stone lions were ready to gorge themselves on his thin, available arm.

  Upstairs in the silk-paneled drawing room under a window frame carved in a mishmash of cupids and leaves, he spotted his favorite chair, a simple Louis Quatorze armchair with plain blue upholstery. No one ever sat in it because no one thought it would show a person to advantage. He wanted to hug the thing, but instead, he just sat down in it, crossed his legs one way, then the other, and listened to that academic painter in his outrageous plaid trousers, Carolus-Duran, plucking his guitar. Not only had he painted Jeanne in an off-the-shoulder drape, a portrait that got into the Salon and was purchased by the Comédie-Française, but the lucky devil had won the Prix de Rome! Oh, what he, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, could do with that prize, and the trip that went with it, the chance to study the Italian masters. The craving surged in him so strongly that he could taste it, like a full-bodied Chianti on the tongue. With it he could write his own ticket, paint on his own terms, whatever and however he wanted.

  At the opposite end of the long room, Jules Laforgue was reading his poetry aloud. It was hard to catch the gist of it, and he doubted if others did, but they applauded when he finished, and Auguste along with them. He had to respect the man for following his own style. He wanted Jules in the painting.

  A servant offered him a choice of canapés from a silver tray. He felt like packing all of them into his pockets for later. He took one and surveyed the room for people on his list. Ellen Andrée, the star mime at the Folies-Bergère, a pretty brunette who had posed for him in an elegant café. Good. Not the cachet of Jeanne Samary, a celebrated actress, but still an experienced model. Degas would rage that he stole Ellen from him. Let him stew. The cabaret singer, Yvette Guilbert? Plenty of cachet, but homely enough to sour milk. Leave her to Degas. Léon Gambetta? No. He didn’t want a national leader, especially one with an eye patch.

  “Pierre-Auguste! Look at you!”

  He sprang up from the chair. A pain shot through his hip. Madame Charpentier swooped down on him, rustling her mauve day gown, preceded by her enormous, matronly, mesmerizing bosoms that kept coming closer and closer until they were under his nose. She scrutinized him from head to toe.

  “I see that you half remembered to put on a frock coat this time.” She offered her ruby-weighted index finger for him to kiss. “What happened?”

  “I took a job as a house painter because I didn’t have a sou in my pocket, but I fell off the ladder.” He raised his bent right arm.

  “Nonsense. Your cycling cap belies you. Don’t you own a bowler?”

  “Yes, but I prefer my cap.” He grabbed it off his head and tried to flatten his hair over his receding hairline. What a bumpkin he was.

  “I have new guests whom I’d like you to meet.”

  “Potential collectors?”

  “Don’t gawk. One is looking at you. Not a collector. A potential paramour.”

  “You know I can’t afford one.”

  Over Madame’s shoulder he saw her, a porcelain figurine of a woman expostulating coquettishly to Jules, with delicate hands fluttering back and forth at the wrists.

  “I told her she would be fascinated by how you can shift between bohemian Montmartre and the society of Saint-Germain and the boulevards. That intrigued her, so don’t disappoint me.”

  Heat emanated from the young woman’s eyes. She smoothed her skirt so that it suggested the shape of her thigh. Such a dress. Pale yellow cupped her voluptuous breasts from below. As joyous to paint as to touch, he was sure, but a taffeta evening dress in the afternoon? The top of her sleeves increased in fullness and projected upward above her shoulder, which gave her the appearance of being permanently startled. There was something about her he couldn’t detect that made him wary. Maybe it was the overlarge mouth.

  “And the others?” he asked.

  “As soon as they arrive I’ll introduce you. Monsieur and Madame Beloir. They may be ready to commission you—portraits and something else. If they do, it will be a juicy offer. They were speaking of a series.”

  “Ah. I’m much obliged,” he said before she slipped away to greet others.

  Just when he needed money, bless her heart. He caught himself. Was he still a portrait painter, or his own man, painting what he chose? It might be possible to do both—the portraits during the week, and the painting at Maison Fournaise on Sundays. One would fund the other.

  He surveyed the room. How was he to ask some of the guests to model, but not all? He tried to follow several conversations—she of the articulated wrists recounting her spring in Italy, a heavily bearded flâneur trying out his cool observations on the behavior of dancers in the Opéra loges before publishing them in a journal of Parisian life, a portly man saying under his breath, “Now is the time to buy. Even his large paintings are going cheap. I happen to know that a year from now, he’ll be fetching high prices.”

  Puh! As if paintings were stocks or racehorses.

  His portrait of Madame Charpentier and her children was hanging between two porcelain plates perched on the ornate black marble mantel. The plates interested him. Had Madame been taken in, or were they authentic Sèvres ware? His china-painting days at Monsieur Lévy’s workshop beginning when he was thirteen had taught him the difference. He walked over to them, swaggering a bit remembering that he could turn out eight Marie Antoinette plates in the time other workers took to do one, and he’d gotten forty centimes apiece.

  “Examining your work?” Gambetta asked.

  He jerked back from a figurine. How did Gambetta know of his humble origins?

  “No—that is, I was just taking a look at Madame’s china.”

  “I meant the portrait. The glow of her flesh is positively radiant.”

  “I hate the word flesh. It sounds like she’s a piece of Prussian meat.”

  “Quite right. We can’t say that. Nothing Prussian,” Gambetta said. “Inventive of you to have that child sitting on that Newfoundland.”

  “Remind me never to do another painting with a dog. They make horrible models. This one snored with such unmelodic abandon that I had to time my brushstrokes between them. Whenever one snuck up on me, I ruined something.”

  “Nevertheless, it’s your greatest masterpiece.”

  “Then put it in the Louvre. You’re the Ministre de l’Intérieur. Put it in the interior of the Louvre. Greatest! You think I’ll never surpass it?”

  “Not at all. I’m sure there are more to come.”

  “If you really think so, there is something you could do for me.” Auguste straightened himself to his full height.

  “I will if I can.”

  “If you could use your influence to get me a post as curator of some provincial museum, one that would pay a few hundred francs a month and not require much of my time—”

  Gambetta laughed uproariously. “My dear Renoir, you talk as if you’d just been born yesterday.”

  Auguste fumbled with his cap.

  “Ask me for a job as professor of Chinese or inspector of cemeteries—something at least that has nothing to do with your profession—then I can help you. But if I suggested a painter as a curator of a museum, I’d be laughed out of office.”

  He broke into a chuckle for politeness’ sake. Zut! Such a fool he was.

  Madame Charpentier strode toward him, her derrière wagging behind her, with the newly arrived couple in tow.

  “Auguste, I present Monsieur and Madame Beloir.”

  Late middle age, genuine smiles, impeccably dressed, the wife overjeweled, the husband’s eyes asymmetric, interesting. Typical pleasantries—have wanted to meet you, followed your work in the Salon, liked what we’ve seen, believe in you—compliments de rigueur before warming up to the question.

  “We were quite taken with the portrait of Marguerite and her children showing the room, and we’d like to have you
paint ours, showing our salon similarly, one of the two of us, and another of our daughter and her fiancé.”

  “As a wedding gift to them,” the wife said.

  “Very nice.” Auguste sensed a plum.

  “The wedding party will be at our estate, so we would like four murals as well,” Monsieur said.

  “Depicting four views of our villa.” The wife’s face was full of dewy-eyed hope.

  “That’s quite a request. When is the wedding?”

  “October first,” Monsieur said. “We realize there isn’t much time. You’ll be our guest as soon as you are free to come. That is, as soon as your arm is healed. This is not the place to discuss a fee, but be assured you will be paid handsomely.”

  Tempting. A solution to his money problems for the moment. But the painting he’d just persuaded himself to undertake hung in the balance. His conviction that now was the time wavered. Only seven or eight Sundays of good northern light. His obligation to support the group. The critics waiting like open-jawed lions for him to fall back to safe commissions. Pouncing on him for small ambitions. Betraying his talent. Stalling his growth with well-hammered shackles. But Madame Charpentier’s solicitude for him endangered if he declined. Her continuing sponsorship threatened. All that against the pressure to make this the masterpiece that would declare to the world that he didn’t need to do commissioned portraits, didn’t need Madame Charpentier’s good will. Was he ready for that?

  “Where is the villa?” he asked.

  “On a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean. Near Cézanne in Aix.”

  His hope crushed. Impossible to do both. He saw the painting of his heart shrivel.

  “I’m sure it’s beautiful. It would be a delight to paint in the South of France. I’ll let you know before I leave today.”

  Madame Charpentier was at his elbow. “Pardon me for intruding, but I want you to meet Mademoiselle Cécile-Louise Valtesse de la Bigne.”

  “Excuse us,” he said to Monsieur and Madame of the South.

  Madame Charpentier drew him aside. “I had to interrupt when I saw you hesitate,” she whispered. “If you decline such a prize, you’ll be labeled as persnickety. Who will make you an offer then?”

  That could mean she wouldn’t recommend him to others. Declining was a rebuff to her.

  Madame curled her index finger at the young lady in yellow. He watched her pop up off the sofa, fluff up the frothy cascade of white tulle at her neckline, and sashay toward him. An egg soufflé topped with meringue.

  “Cécile, this is Pierre-Auguste Renoir, my court painter,” she quipped. “Auguste, may I present Cécile-Louise Valtesse de la Bigne?”

  “Enchanté, mademoiselle. You have quite a formidable name. A bit weighty for such delicate shoulders to bear.”

  The name smacked of invention, or purchase. Or, worse, it could have been pirated from the last son of a noble family who lost more than the name under the swift separation of the guillotine. He imagined her grandfather to be the cordoneur who pulled the cord that released the blade, and picked up the name as it fell.

  “Most people call me Circe.”

  “Ah, the enchantress who turned Ulysses’ men into swine. I shall have to struggle against such vulgar tendencies in this refined company.”

  “Auguste has the gift of being all things to all people without surrendering his own individuality,” Madame Charpentier said.

  “Don’t lionize me, madame, or I might be forced to compete with those stone lions that are ready to devour me every time I come here.”

  Cécile-Louise looked at his cap. “It was generous of you to leave off working for this occasion.”

  He put it behind his back. “Only to see you, a buttercup of beauty.”

  “Madame tells me your paintings have been in the Salon. How lovely to be in the Salon. Wasn’t it lovely, Marguerite, when monsieur’s painting of you was hanging in the place of honor? The only way for me to be in the place of honor is if you’d paint me, monsieur. You’re getting to be quite well known.”

  She turned from side to side, showing off her figure. “I hope you don’t like profiles.” She lifted her chin and turned her head. “I detest them. They’re so skimpy. Why have half a face when you can have the whole picture?” She framed her face with her hands. “Don’t you agree?”

  Now he knew to trust his first impression. The mouth was the problem.

  “Renoir!” Someone slapped him on the right shoulder. He winced.

  “My God, Raoul. I thought you were mayoring Saigon for the Republic.”

  “I was, winning them over with champagne. I ordered the best. Shiploads of it. Paid for it myself. The prestige of France hung in the balance. Voilà! Les enfants de la Patrie sont victorieux,” he sang under his breath to the tune of “La Marseillaise.” “Nothing more to do, so I came home.”

  “Are you free? That is, have you any commitments?”

  “Commitments to pleasure, my good man. My boats, my horse racing, and, I beg your pardon, mademoiselle”—his eyebrows sprang up—“my ladies.”

  “In that order?”

  “On most days, at least for now. The regatta’s coming up.”

  “Don’t you have to work?”

  “I’m on a pension for injuries under the Empire.”

  Auguste cuffed him on the chest. “Good for you!”

  The moment of decision.

  What if Monsieur and Madame Beloir turned out to be disagreeable? He’d kick himself for making the safe decision and wasting the good summer light on the Seine by doing portraits. But if the Chatou painting turned out to be a disaster, his reputation would plummet, his confidence would crumple, and he’d kick himself for declining the offer. Southern light was magical, according to Cézanne. He could paint with him there. He’d never been to the South of France. Painting new motifs might satisfy his restlessness. But the motif of the terrace he was building in his mind would be hugely satisfying.

  The man of genius has not yet arisen. It was more than just proving Zola wrong. It was a matter of self-respect. Of respect for his own development. If he abandoned the Maison Fournaise painting, how would he think of himself?

  As a coward!

  “I have a little project, Raoul. Excuse us,” he said to Cécile-Louise, who pulled her shoulders back at the affront.

  He drew Raoul away, toward Ellen Andrée, and noticed that Raoul’s lurching gait was more pronounced now. “Ellen, a delight to see you. May I present the Baron Raoul Barbier, cavalry officer, war hero, statesman, bon vivant?”

  “We’ve just met.”

  “Good. I was quite taken with your pantomime of the ferryman’s daughter in the Folies-Bergère,” Auguste said.

  “It was only a divertissement.”

  “Ah, but how you played it! Charming. Gambetta should make the government subsidize the Folies instead of the Comédie-Française.”

  “I disagree. A national theater for the classics is far more deserving than the popularist entertainments at the Folies.”

  Her small lips came together primly, definitively, a perfect fit. He patted her cheek. “I wasn’t serious.”

  He beckoned to Jules Laforgue and spoke to the three of them, Jules, Raoul, and Ellen, in a low voice. “I have a project that might happily involve the three of you, if you consent. A painting for which I need about a dozen people to model. At Chatou, the Maison Fournaise. Do you know it?”

  He could hardly believe what he was saying. Twenty-four hours ago he would have shouted across the room to Monsieur and Madame Beloir, Yes, yes! The South of France. I’ll do it. Give me an hour to pack.

  “I know La Maison Fournaise,” Cécile-Louise said, gliding up to them.

  Sacrebleu! Ears to match her mouth.

  “It’s a pretty setting by the river,” Cécile-Louise said. “I insist on being there too. Marguerite, don’t you agree that I should be?”

  Madame Charpentier drew in her double chin. “It would be nice if you consented, Auguste.”

 
He felt the room spinning. Or was it his brain? “This isn’t a group portrait. It’s a scene, a moment in modern life.”

  “All the better. I am, I must say, a modern woman.”

  Ellen rolled her eyes. “I’ll be happy to help you,” she said, “just so you don’t paint me as an absinthe-sotted waif like Edgar Degas did.”

  “No, Ellen. I’m not a flâneur making harsh observations on society. It will just be a joyful moment in a beautiful day.”

  “My mother saw Degas’ painting and hasn’t trusted me since. I said I was acting. ‘All the worse,’ she said, ‘elevating make-believe depravity to art.’”

  “This one she will love, I promise you.”

  “When would you like us?”

  “Sunday, at noon, for luncheon on the terrace. Several Sundays.”

  “Oh.” Ellen’s face clouded. “I’ll have to leave by five or six. I have performances on Sunday nights.”

  “We’ll have you off in good time. If you’d like to go boating before lunch, I’ll make sure there are rowing yoles saved for you.”

  “I’ll sail there from Argenteuil,” the baron said, “and take you out for a boating party. My new sloop, Le Capitaine, flies faster than wind.”

  Auguste felt a sinking in his chest at this threat to Gustave at the helm of his Iris. “A thoroughbred of the river, I’m sure.”

  “Or maybe I’ll use Nana and keep you in suspense about Le

  Capitaine.”

  “It will be a privilege to be in on a painting of yours from the start,” Jules said.

  Auguste gave his thanks and Madame Charpentier drew him aside behind an enormous dahlia plant in a Chinese jardiniere and whispered, “You’ve made your decision, then.”