The single, yearning line of the cello wove itself into the strands of falling water. Listening, Ryn paused on the cusp of the semicircular porch steps.
Bach had written six of these suites for unaccompanied cello. Leslie was starting the short, slow sarabande of the third suite over again; there was the rolled chord, that moment when Bach dives for richness to support the purity of the single line, and suddenly Ryn was extraordinarily happy, as though a ladle had dipped into her heart and found a liquid reservoir of shimmering gold. The mingle, the beauty, the power, the truth of the music! And she was there to hear it at just this moment, like no other.
Like dye, the sound of the cello saturated the fabric of everything. Midafternoon and the fountain, standing on a porch above the quiet street, the brilliance of the trees. Everything partook of Bach’s sarabande, a slow dance derived from the Spanish and Italian zarabanda. Of course it was an autumnal sound; it had its own consoling glory, its own poignancy, its own heritage, the unexpected cocking of a wanton’s hip.
Stain me, Ryn prayed to the stately sound, saturate my soul.
VII
THE ART OF LIVING
PORTRAIT
AS SOON AS WE ARE MARRIED, M. Le Brun asks that we keep the marriage a secret, for he is engaged to the daughter of a Dutch dealer in fine paintings with whom he is conducting a business arrangement involving a good deal of money. He asks that I agree to silence about our marriage until the business can be completed. I choose to comply.
While the marriage is a secret and yet the possibility of it is in the air, several friends come to visit me while I am with my mother in her apartment. They speak urgently in front of her, and indeed Auber, who is the crown jeweler, is my mother’s friend as well. To me, he says, “It would be better if you tied a millstone around your neck and jumped into the river than to marry M. Le Brun.” My mother blurts, “Why?” and the jeweler tells us my already-husband is a gambler and loses large sums of money. My mother gasps, and I fear that she will lose her composure.
Before I am two weeks wed (and the fact is still a secret), we are called upon by three women of high society, each of them young and beautiful and full of knowledge about eligible young men. One is the Duchesse d’Aremburg and another the Portuguese ambassadress, for I have met them at supper parties involving the Princesse de Rohan-Rochefort, the Princesse de Lorraine, the Duc de Choiseul, the Duc de Lauzun—all those salons and members of society who have welcomed me simply because of my talent and achievement. The Duchesse d’Aremburg, without giving her reasons, states simply, “You must not marry Le Brun, for he will make you unhappy.” Again, my mother covers her mouth with her hand and struggles not to burst into tears.
As soon as they leave, I take her in my arms and say, “There is no need to worry. I have my painting. As long as I can paint, I will always be happy.” I am sure it is true. All the more reason to throw myself into my painting. My happiest hours have always been those when I stood or sat in my chair before my easel.
But when I am alone, I realize that the need for secrecy and the unfortunate information and attitudes revealed have cast a shadow over my marriage. I remember that my mother was able to create a happy home, as many women bravely do, even when the situation is less than perfect. To compromise is itself an art: first one must cheerfully lower one’s expectations in any area where change is unlikely.
I work every day till nightfall, when the lack of light stops me. I accept invitations to the theater, which I adore, and to supper parties and to the countryside. I enjoy these activities to the fullest, knowing I have spent the day with my passion.
Like my stepfather, my husband receives all my commissions, which is his legal right. He has great need of the money, for he not only gambles but he also has an uncontrollable passion for extravagant women. His gifts to them are the fruits of my labor as well as his sales through the atelier. I refuse to be bitter. I prefer to accommodate myself to the truth and not to have illusions about my marriage, which is finally announced. And the deal is done.
Unlike proximity to my stepfather, it is no burden to be in the presence of M. Le Brun. He has an obliging nature. Not only is he pleasant, he is in fact kind (if one makes exception for his gambling and philandering, and the subsequent disillusionment). His manner and indeed his nature are a mixture of sweetness and gaiety. I refuse to hurt myself by harboring either bitter disappointment or low jealousy. I vow to appreciate what is best in him, and to give myself to the good pleasures with him and with witty and charming friends, to the theater, to conversation, to music, to nature, and above all to art.
We have discovered that M. Le Brun does not own this mansion; he is a mere lodger like my family, though he led my mother and myself to think Lubert was his. To augment my earnings (which are now very considerable) from my portraits and other paintings, my husband asks me to take on students.
MY MOTHER AND I are closer friends than ever, for without dishonoring the memory of my father, she has implied not only are we mother and daughter (with many shared memories) but sisters in managing the art of marriage. What else can one do but embrace and refine manners that enhance and favorably affect the inner being? It is for a woman’s own sake that she lives a life beyond reproach of any sort, and that she recognizes, treasures, and enjoys true friendship for its congeniality.
When our lives need refreshing we often go together to Marly-le-Roi. We like to visit that sanctuary on Sunday afternoons, as we did that long-ago day with Mme Suzanne to escape the “country garden as shooting gallery.” Not only the Marly grounds but also the nearby château and park of Sceaux with its ancient trees have been made open to the public by the generous Duc de Penthièvre.
Soon after our arrival at Marly-le-Roi, as my mother and I walk arm in arm along the broad paths between the great trees of the park, we feel more at peace with the world. As though we were a pair of sheep, we dip in and out of pools of shade and splashes of light and gaze appreciatively at the still-dewy sward. There are sheep, clean and bright, to be seen, and occasionally we also see shy deer. In this natural paradise, between the dark trunks of the oaks, one occasionally glimpses a flurry of dainty dresses in the distance and graceful ladies floating along.
Around one bend, to our surprise and instant trepidation, we happen to come upon Queen Marie Antoinette strolling with several of her ladies. All dressed in purest white they are, and for a moment I think a small group of clouds has come down into the park. They do not seem like real people but like a confection, or like zephyrs, each of them with a prettiness of figure and face that appears visionary.
Immediately my mother and I change our direction so as not to intrude on their private pleasure, but just as immediately the queen calls to me, acknowledging me even by name!
“Please,” she says, with exquisite politeness, “let us not inconvenience you. Please continue your stroll as you wish, along this walk or any other that may please you here at Marly.”
My mother and I thank her graciously, but of course we do not tarry as though we are expecting more conversation.
“To the lake, then,” I say to my mother, for that is the part of the park I prefer to any other. While geometric parterres of small flowers flourish like carpets in the open sunny area close to the château, I like the more dreamy glades that have nothing of symmetry about them. Perhaps I want the queen to have a vague idea of my aesthetic sensibility by mentioning the lake as our destination. Beside the lake, which I have already come to love from another vantage point, we now find the most beautiful trees—noble, graceful, immense—that I have ever seen in my life. They seem to me to be the essence of the earth, mediating between us and the blue of heaven.
This day, with my mother, having just enjoyed proximity to the queen and her ladies and lingering among the huge old trees beside the lake, I am in a special rapture that I vow to hold in memory, for it is more precious than a casket covered with jewels. It proves that despite vexation—and who does not experience annoyances in l
ife?—there are redeeming moments. One must embrace them. By doing so, one is true to one’s own nature; one is creating a self that is sufficient unto itself. I believe that is the way for me to live happily.
I ADMIT I DO NOT LIKE TO TEACH. I do not have confidence that what is true for me will be of value to others. Most of my students are young women but older than I am. It is difficult for me to assume an unnatural air of authority and stuffiness, and so I fail to gain the respect that one must be accorded if one is to teach well. I try to do my own work while they do theirs, but I am constantly interrupted by the need to offer advice about how to paint eyes, noses, and faces. Form divides itself into mere technique. I feel like an accomplished writer who is required to teach youngsters the alphabet, or an actor capable of transporting everyone in the theater, who is asked to teach children to speak a word.
One day recently, before I mounted the stairs to the old hayloft M. Le Brun has rented for my teaching studio, I heard joyful giggling. My young ladies had attached a rope to an exposed beam, and they were having a high time swinging about. I scolded them as best I could about wasting time and about their failure to take the opportunity of lessons in a serious manner. However, the swing was a temptation, and I tried it out myself after ousting them. Soon I was laughing unrestrainedly and they were enjoying the spectacle of their teacher flying through the air.
Afterward, I gave a lecture on Watteau’s painting (asking them to recall it by memory) of a young lady, outdoors, swinging. My dear papa, who excelled with pastels, was much influenced by Watteau, and I think that he might have been proud of me if he could have heard me lecturing and seen me standing before my students; however, he would have taken far greater delight in my own painting of portraits and my acquaintance with the notables I have been engaged to paint.
I must say that I have had one student of real talent, the youngest of the lot, named Mlle Émilie Roux de la Ville. Mlle Roux de la Ville is fascinated with human skin, as I am, and she practices diligently to catch its innumerable variations.
IT IS THROUGH the recommendation of the queen’s friends Comtesse de Polignac and her lover the Comte de Vaudreuil, both of whom I have rendered in oil portraits about which they expressed the greatest pleasure and satisfaction, that I am invited to the queen’s private apartment hidden in the labyrinth of the Château de Versailles. Through the recommendation of these powerful people, to whom I will always owe my gratitude and loyalty, I am invited to paint the portrait of my most gracious sovereign.
M. Le Brun has given me a thousand pieces of advice about how to comport myself so as to win favor, and while I have listened to him with the courtesy and respect due a husband (as I have always made it my rule to observe despite my disappointment in his profligate spending of large sums on gambling and on women), I intend to forget all of his counsel. Of course this portrait will bring the largest remuneration we have ever known, but it is not for gold that I tremble. I tremble because I am so thoroughly and deeply honored by having been deemed worthy not only to receive the commission but also merely to be invited into her presence.
I have dressed myself with the utmost care, choosing the colors that complement my eyes and my hair, which has a natural hint of red in it, like the chestnut berry, and I have arranged my hair myself, as I always do, with special care for special moments. It’s as though I am creating myself for the occasion to come, as I assemble my appearance. Today my hand has been a happy one and a confident one. Oh, I can hear the puffery in my own inner voice, but I need a draft of bravado, for soon I shall see and be seen, not by accident but by design, by my sovereign.
My hair falls loosely in natural curls, and I wear a rose gown shot with thin brown stripes, but the brown dye has a hint of red about it. While the carriage is conveying me to Versailles, I look down at the colors of my dress, rose red and chestnut brown, as though they both contain and bespeak all my hopes for success with my interview and with the work to come.
When I see the queen in the sumptuous surroundings of the Château de Versailles, I instantly make my curtsey, long and deep. She is dressed in magnificent white satin, a court dress with wide panniers, and I am dazzled by the reality of her presence. My eyes seek the relief of looking away from her into the weave of the rug. She is like an orb of light! She has sent for me!
Her voice finds my ear, and it is as quick and light as the song of a bird. She invites me to rise.
“I think that we are friends already, Madame Le Brun. You and I are the same age, and we have some of the same friends. You are the friend of my very dear friends, who have spoken of you with warm fondness and admiration for both your person and your talent as a painter.”
For only a moment, overcome by the naturalness of her kindness and by her lavish and generous words, I look down again, but this I must not do, for my eyes are the emissaries of my own inner gifts. When I look at her again, I show her my spirit.
But I am no casual observer. Immediately I am struck by the quality of her complexion, for it truly is dazzlingly transparent, and my first impression of her extraordinary radiance is not caused entirely by either the shock of being in her presence or the shimmer of her gown. While she has something of the long chin of her Austrian forebears, her mouth is mobile and expressive. Even beyond the tones of her complexion, it is the carriage of her head and indeed of her whole body that suggests her royal lineage.
“It is almost hard to believe we are the same age,” she says, “because you seem so fresh and youthful. I like your natural curls, and I rather wish the court custom of dreary powder were not a necessity.” With cheerful audacity, she adds, “How do I look to you?”
Ah, she breaks my silence with a direct question. But it is a kindly, lighthearted question to which there can be no incorrect answer, that is if I can keep even half my wits about me. Strangely, I remember my father at our old home, how he would pause a moment sometimes before answering a question directed to him by D’Alembert or Diderot.
“As any queen would give her life to look,” I say, and I am surprised at the confident, even confiding, warmth of my own voice. It is a brown voice ruddy with life, like the rich back of a viol. “Not only as a queen but as any happy and virtuous woman would like to appear, so you appear to me—full of life and goodness.”
“But can you paint such abstract qualities?” she inquires, and I realize that she is a woman of quick wit, that she likes to tease and playfully, harmlessly to challenge those she counts as friends. Dare I think as much? This friendship she spoke of in her first utterance—I do feel its glow and its ease brightening around us.
“If you will forgive me for saying so, I believe that I can, with my paints and with your most gracious permission, embody something of the grace and goodness of Your Majesty.”
“In truth, the reputation of your extraordinary skill is well established. You understand far better than most painters”—the palms of her hands lightly smooth down the shimmering white silk of her robe—“that our surfaces are nothing without the animating spirit that lies within.”
Although my impulse is to amend her statement, for my art depends on my belief in the integrity of surfaces and the unity of the self, I say, “Your understanding of these matters makes me wonder if you have not yourself occasionally taken up the brush.” And I realize that I am no longer afraid; it is possible to think in her presence. I have asked a question of her as naturally as though she were indeed a friend.
As she sits, she tosses a pink shawl across her lap, and the sheen of the silvery pink silk acts like a mirror and throws a delicate pinkish tint over her incomparable skin. Since I am standing while she sits, I see her face from a new angle, one that emphasizes her blue eyes, both their quiet kindness and the lively sparkle that perhaps one notices first.
I think that she is a woman fully comfortable with herself and who both is enjoying and intends to enjoy every moment of her aliveness.
“In Vienna, my sisters and I were given lessons in drawing and in paint
ing and in all the arts. Do you have sisters?”
“My friends have been my sisters, Your Majesty.” I am thinking of Mlle Boquet.
“But it is the art of dancing that most delights me,” the queen continues. She smiles at me with the very thought of dancing. “My feet are more talented than my hands.”
“I do not exaggerate to say that no member of your circle whom I have painted has failed to remark most enthusiastically about the beauty of your dancing, and of—”
Here she interrupts me to say, “And of my carriage.” With those words she rises from her seat, lays the pink scarf across a nearby table, and pretends to be giving unseen friends a little lecture. “My dear friends, no doubt you who let nothing at court go unnoticed have remarked that I have two ways of moving myself across a room, that is, of walking, of perambulation.” She is witty and charming, pretending to be pompous. “When I am with you or with my family, I walk in such a way as to express my happiness, my sheer happiness that I am in your company. On the other hand, when I wish, I use another carriage to impress viewers with my dignity. I employ that method of propelling myself forward or backward or on the diagonal as though I stand on a little wheeled platform. There is no disturbance or expression in the upper body that suggests my feet are even moving. I move like a minor goddess.” She frowns slightly. “But is there then, dear friends, a stiffness about me?” By extending her open hand, she pretends to address her circle of ladies. “Perhaps we should let my newest friend, the most beautiful and admired artist in Paris or the whole of France, be the judge.”
The Fountain of St. James Court; Or, Portrait of the Artist as an Old Woman Page 25
