Claude & Camille: A Novel of Monet (15 page)

“Can you extend me credit for a few canvases and a little paint?”

The old man sighed. “There’s a rumor you owe money all around this town since your last visit, that even your Paris creditors know you’re here. You owe me as well. Not good, old friend. If you had stayed with caricatures, you would be a wealthy man. I will give you three canvases and some paint.”

Claude walked back to save the coach fare, his face in the wind, past the grocery shop, where he stopped for his letters alone, murmuring to the old woman that he would pay her soon; they had food left in the house and they would manage for a time. He walked past the shack where he had made love with Camille. Surely a sale will come tomorrow, he thought.

At least Frédéric had written. A few minutes from the cottage he stopped to read the letter.

Claude, I changed studios to one on the narrow rue Visconti. They wanted more rent on the other. All of our same pictures are hung on the walls and your big easel’s in good light. Auguste is sleeping here sometimes. Yes, we’re all around. Paul’s in the city and Manet keeps painting that red-haired model. Sisley’s father died, so he’s as poor as any of us now. I hope you and Camille and my godson are well
.

The date of my marriage has been set for two years from this autumn. To be honest with you, this is what kept me from writing, admitting this. I’m not ready to marry, to take on my father’s life, and yet life goes on even if we’re not ready for it. It pulls us along. Sometimes I wish we were twenty-four again, all of us crowded in the studio
.

Meanwhile I expect you are doing wonderfully there and have sold several pictures as you hoped. I saw in the papers here that you won a medal, as I knew you would
.

F. Bazille

I can’t write him for help, Claude thought as he put the letter in his pocket. I just can’t.

H
E HAD ONE
more canvas and hesitated to use it, and so he ceased to paint. He slept badly, was up every night looking out at the steady sea as if it might tell him something. He was so ashamed he could not tell Camille, though she sensed it. He was amazed at how tied together they were; when his moods fell, hers followed. She burned what she cooked when she did cook. They tracked in sand and it was not swept and the dishes were not washed. They could no longer afford the fisherman’s wife to help and missed her cheerful presence. He dreaded that his old teacher would return and find his cottage in such a state.

Outside the window the sea was docile and the dirt road largely empty but for the daily milk cart. Each day they spoke less until they ceased to speak much at all, but he could sense their feelings rising so much that they had to struggle through them to walk across the floor.

She spoke first one gray, windy January morning when he had buried himself in a book. “Oh, Claude, what is happening to us here? We see no one, we go nowhere, and all’s silent between us.” She jumped up and held out her hand. “At least walk with me! We can talk a little. You’re not sleeping. It’s bad, isn’t it?”

With her forced joy she sounded like her sister. “Everything’s fine,” he muttered.

“It’s not and I know it.”

“We owe a little money, and when I sell the maritime pictures, I’ll cheer up. There! I can’t tell you how disappointed I’ll feel if no one buys them.”

She sat down on a footstool beside him, took his book away, and draped her arms over his knees. She looked away, then at the fire. “Our problems begin when we don’t tell each other things,” she began earnestly. She blinked a little and hesitated and then shook her head.

“I’ll tell you something you’ve wanted to know for a time, I think,” she said, stammering a little. He could see she had been biting her nails again, down to the quick. “About what happened when I was sixteen. I ran away with a young actor called David. It was my first experience. I found out he was married. I wrote him for a time after he went to Canada. I was writing him when we first met.”

He looked wearily at the waves and the gulls from the window. “Were you writing him when we first knew each other? When you were engaged? And did the letters to him continue? I am not in the mood to hear this today, Minou, when I can’t manage so much.”

She rose suddenly and looked down at him, appalled. “Why did you answer me like that when I told you my secret? It took courage to tell it. We left our friends and my family for this place. Lise writes me of what a marvelous season it is in the theater, and I’m missing her performances. I gave up my own theater engagement to come with you.”

“You gave it up for your father.”

“That’s not the truth; I gave it up for you.”

“Oh, indeed! Was that before you knew I was going away?”

She crossed the room to the shelf that held their remaining supplies—some beans, some coffee, a few sausages—and stood before them as if protecting them. Her long face was flushed with unhappiness. “If you wanted simply to be silent and shut yourself away from everyone and from me, why did you bring me here? I haven’t seen a soul for days and I can’t bear it, I can’t. You’re up half the night. I miss my sister. I miss my friends, and you’re a ghost. Yes, you’re a ghost.”

He jumped up, gathered together his coat, easel, paint box, and the last empty canvas, and left the cottage.

Outside, he turned away from the sea toward the farms inland. He walked down the road resolutely, his scarf blowing, slowing a little. The field in front of him was covered with snow, as was the dark wood, rough-hewn fence. He set up his easel, fixing the canvas to it. A few lines in charcoal marked his boundaries. The snow was so many shades of white.

Now that he painted he could breathe a little. It didn’t matter that it was cold. Damn the cold.

The fence was no longer empty. A single black magpie huddled there, contemplating the field. Claude painted it swiftly. It might have taken a few minutes or more. The bird turned its head and stared dark-eyed, then leapt into the air; it took flight and was gone. Yet now as he finished, painting a bit more slowly, a calm returned to him he had not felt in weeks. He had told the canvas what he could not tell her. He could manage her now. He was sorry he had been so abrupt with her and that he had stayed away several hours. His watch, which he only now looked at, told him the truth.

He walked toward home slowly, and as he came closer he heard the wailing of his son.

The door to the cottage was open, the fire was out, and Jean was shrieking until his little face was red. He was cold, and his diaper was soaking wet. Claude lifted him, covering his tiny body with a blanket, and rocked him while the boy tried to nurse from Claude’s coat between screams. Victoire had made a puddle in a corner.

Camille was nowhere to be found.

He discovered the last of the clean diapers that the laundress had left and changed the baby. The child still screamed, puffing out his little chest. Claude bundled him in blankets and ran out, shouting Camille’s name. The sky was bitter gray and the wild grass bent, defeated before the wind.

Now darkness was coming. He sheltered the baby in his arms.

He had gone a short distance when he saw the shed where they had made love a few months before. An elderly cat looked at him, terrified. It ran around the side of the worn gray boards. Instinct made him run down across the sand. Inside it was quiet, yet he knew.

He opened the door.

The shed was dark and smelled of rotting wood and salty nets. An oilcloth was spread over the floor, and Camille was sitting on it, absolutely silent. She looked as if she had been there all day. He called her name but she did not answer. He knelt, shaking her shoulder, calling again and again.

She turned and looked at him indifferently.

He grasped her against him. “What is it?” he cried. “What is it? How long have you been gone? The cottage was cold and the baby was … the baby was…. You can’t just go. You have to take care of the baby.”

“I want to go home,” she said.

She began to cry. He tried to give her the baby but she pushed him away. “I don’t want you,” she sobbed. “I don’t want either of you. We’re almost out of food. They won’t give me credit at the store. I want my old life back, my pretty room, my dances, theater, people, laughter.”

His head was pounding. “You have to feed the baby.”

“A letter came when you were out. They’ve confiscated your paintings from the exhibition for debt. You’re a dreamer, just a dreamer. Now I’m here and I miss everyone. I feel so empty. We’re alone and you don’t talk to me!”

He heard her words with a terrible shock, sitting down on the cold floor, rocking the baby as best he could, his ears pierced by the child’s hungry shrieking. I have to keep the child warm. Who can feed the child if not her? he thought. She just sat there, her back turned to both of them; the child shrieked, and Claude’s paintings were gone. Where had they taken them? How could he pay his debt? And what was the matter with her? Even if she had found the letter, how could she leave the child and let the fire go out? How could she refuse to feed their son?

“Yes, yes,” he stammered. “It’s all true. I’m careless with money, and maybe I have too much faith in myself. But Jean’s helpless and innocent. I beg you, feed him. We can discuss everything later.”

She took the child, and as Jean suckled, her face softened. “I left the door open?” she asked. “I don’t remember. How long was I gone? I feel so odd.”

“I’ll comfort you,” he answered, touching his son’s head. “I love you.”

Slowly they walked back to the cottage with the child. He made a fire and a thin barley soup. He read the letter about the paintings and shook his head. He could not eat. He sat across the table from her, reaching out to touch her hand. He said, “What will I do?”

She was utterly calm again now. “Claude,” she said. “I was wrong to get so upset and run out. We’ll raise the money to get your paintings back, and meanwhile, you have the new ones you’ve made. We must return to Paris. I miss my sister and our friends. We need our friends. We must stick together. We’re too alone here. You’re not just a dreamer. I believe in you.”

He could hardly trust his voice. “We’ve no money for the train.”

“We can sell our books and I’ll pawn my wool dresses.”

“Your dresses?
Putain!
Minou, your dresses?”

He sought her in bed that night, parting her legs and moving into her. She clung to him. “You’re not empty at all,” he said. “I shall fill you with all that I am.”

“I shall give you all that I am.”

“Only love me. I am the sea.”

1869

What can be said about a man who is interested in nothing but his painting?

—C
LAUDE
M
ONET

T
HE JOURNEY HOME HAD BEEN DIFFICULT: MANY HOURS
in the third-class train car with its hard seats and no heat, carrying their lighter trunks, his paintings by his side and all three of them shivering with colds and blowing their noses into damp handkerchiefs. In Paris he sent Camille and Jean to stay with her sister while he slept at the studio. He was feverish, and Frédéric gave him his bedroom so he could rest.

In the middle of the night, he heard Frédéric walking about, and rose in his nightshirt. The studio was dark but for the table lamp, and the easels stood in shadow with the paintings above them. “Couldn’t sleep?” Claude yawned. “This feels like old times. You were always pacing at night. What smells so good?”

“Julie brought some beef broth before and I heated it a little, thinking it would put me back to sleep. Sit down and we’ll have some.” Claude pulled out his old chair. He looked down at the chipped soup bowl placed before him. For a few minutes there was nothing but the sound of their pewter spoons against the bowls.

Then Claude let his spoon hover as he slowly began to tell his friend what had happened, making light of it when he could. He could see Frédéric’s long hand press down on the table.
“Ah putain!”
Frédéric said. “Maybe I could have done something. You didn’t let me know.”

“I wanted to manage things for myself, I felt until the end I could. Only sometimes I wish my life was as easy as yours,
mon ami.”

“My life isn’t easy,” Frédéric replied thoughtfully in his low voice, gazing at the flickering lamp between them. “You should know that. Look at me. I’m not in love and I’m marrying. I can’t love Lily the way you love Camille. It’s all compromises to get what I want, which is to stay here with all of you and paint.” He looked from the lamp to Claude with a sudden smile and exclaimed, “Anyway, I’ve some good news, worth my waking you!”

“Tell me anything good.”

“I couldn’t sleep so I read my new letters from home. Don’t fall off your chair. My family’s agreed to sponsor our exhibition next autumn.”

Claude stared at him. “Really? You’re not dreaming?”

“No, it’s in my father’s authoritative, manly script.
Cher ami
, etc.” Frédéric leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head.

“Really? Truly?” Claude flung back his head and began to laugh. “How can such a marvelous thing—you slob of a genius! How can you say it so calmly? How could you wait to tell me? Do the others know?”

“I just found out.”

“But that makes up for everything!”

Frédéric stammered a little, frowning shyly as he sometimes did when he gave a gift from the money raised by a pawned watch or pulled the cloth off a basketful of food sent by his wealthy relatives. “I hate it that you have to struggle so. It won’t be long, it can’t be long. I’ve more good news. The letter said something else. You want to know what? I have permission from home and funds to be your patron. Yes, your old friend who hauled you out of your fate as an army man can serve you a good term. You know that painting of Camille as four women,
Women in the Garden?
I’d like to buy it and pay for it in installments.”

“You should have shaken me awake for that! I can’t believe you’ll …”

Frédéric laid one long hand on the table near his soup bowl and said firmly, “You were snoring too contentedly. It’s nothing. Claude. It’s a small thing. I’m not due thanks for what’s been given me. I need all of you. I need to make sure we’re all safe together.”

“But you’re going home when you marry.”

His friend hesitated and then pushed his bowl away. “Not completely, only half the year. Lily has agreed to live in Paris half the time. Did you think I’d let myself just end all I value? We negotiated and I was firm. I’ll buy a house in Paris and the top floor will be a studio. You’ll all have the key. Do you think marriage will change me?”

Claude murmured, “So it’s true? It’s all true?
Incroyable!
—incredible. I was so unhappy and now suddenly it’s changed. Yes, I’ll come paint in the studio, but you’ll have to understand something.” His voice rose joyfully. “With the help of the exhibition, my real success will come
sooner
. I’ll buy a house of my own and you’re invited to come and paint
there
with your lovely, delightfully agreeable wife at your side.”

He drank some broth and hesitated. “Bazille,” he said more solemnly.

“Monet.”

“I love Camille so much, but sometimes I can’t talk to her honestly about things. Her things, mine. If I’m going to go forward at all, I have to have peace between us, so I keep silent. And she does too, I think. It was like that between my mother and father. Something builds up inside and we want to cry out and fight, but it’s awful when we do. And there are things I’m ashamed of … I’m afraid it won’t last between us with all our difficulties. She has her secrets, and I have mine.”

“What’s yours?”

“Shame that I don’t do better.”

“You will! This autumn! All of us. And women are secretive; they’re all like that. Maddening.” Bazille grinned and stretched; the lamp threw his shadow larger on the wall and the ceiling, and it seemed to hover above both of them as if it had a life of its own.

T
WO DAYS LATER
, Claude found a thatched cottage in Montmartre to rent.

With Jean, who was now six months old, he and Camille took the omnibus as far as it went up the hill and then climbed a snowy dirt path. Montmartre was not part of Paris: it stood alone, dotted with small farms.

He watched her face uneasily as they entered the sagging cottage. If she felt a moment’s disappointment after living some days in her sister’s exquisite rooms, she quickly hid it. “It’s not too awful, is it?” he asked hopefully, noting how the odd snowflake drifted lazily through a broken windowpane. “It’s just for a little while until I get on my feet again.”

“Oh no, it has such character, and besides, we’re near friends!” she replied gaily. She put Jean down on the sagging bed and took off the fur hat her sister had given her. “I can make it beautiful,” she said. “We’ll be happy here with you painting and I writing.”

“Writing?” he asked.

She shook her head mischievously. “Yes, of course,” she said. “I hope all our other things come tomorrow! I can hardly remember who we left them all with when we went away. Where are the sheets? My sister is sending our plates. Why yes, of course, I have my own plans.”

“What?” he said, gazing at her elegant face so flushed with the cold and wind.

“Never mind,” she said.

The humble cottage with its sagging floor and walls took on its own charm. A hired donkey cart brought up their books, which had been stored with friends, and he hung his pictures, all of them crooked. The bed ropes creaked and mice chased each other under the scant furniture at night. In the day she sang snatches of Offenbach breathlessly in her slightly hoarse contralto, her voice dropping out and coming back again as if she had forgotten some words in each phrase. He went out to paint, but never farther than Camille could walk to him with some bread, cheese, and hot coffee at midday.

“You don’t want to change your mind about the stage?” he asked her one late winter evening. The setting sun shone on the wide, rotting floorboards in a glorious way, and Jean tried to capture it with his small hands.

She wiped her hands on her apron. “No,” she said. “I told you,
mon cher!
Do you remember that I started a novel in the bookshop? I’m going to complete it. I want to make it brilliant, the very best. Jean is chewing on something, Claude! Can you take him in your lap?”

Later that evening he lay back in bed, hands under his head, and the baby asleep on his chest as she walked about the room, one hand behind her back, the other holding her few pages as she read him the opening chapter. It was about a girl who wanted to become an opera singer but who is trapped by her family’s expectations.

When she had done, he exclaimed, “The characters are so real!” and she sat on the bed’s edge and kissed him. “I have found my true gift, I think,” she said a little wistfully. And that month and the next she sat at the table and wrote.

When spring came, they wanted nothing more than to be outside and took long walks together, carrying Jean. Will the spring astonish me every year forever? Claude thought. The first buds on trees, the first dusting of green. All around them orchards, vineyards, and small pastures unfolded.

He sold a few paintings and settled with his creditors, redeeming his maritime paintings, which were shipped to Paris by train and which now would take pride of place in the planned exhibition with his friends in the fall. He redeemed her dresses. He was relieved to receive a letter from his father saying that he and Claude’s aunt had returned and that she was better. Aunt Lecadre enclosed amusing articles from the local paper.

More than twenty friends climbed the hill on the day of Camille’s twenty-second birthday and made a picnic under a huge old tree between vineyards and a wild field. Jean crawled about pulling up fistfuls of grass, following six-year-old Lucien Pissarro, who now and then sat down in the grass with him. The Pissarro family was back living in Louveciennes with Pissarro’s mother.

Frédéric walked up the path in old green plaid trousers, bearing wine and cake, followed by his friend Edmond, who had a guitar slung across his back. Auguste brought Lise, who wore a straw hat with flowers; he now lived in Montmartre as well. Sisley came with his new wife and a few musician friends. They did not expect Camille’s parents, who were to take her for lunch the following day, or her sister, whose little girl was again sick.

Lucien and the older children tried to catch butterflies and picked wildflowers. The sun shone on the leaves and the ground and the bright dresses of the women. A great number of cheeses and sausages and breads was laid on plates on the picnic rugs. Camille opened a few small presents. Edmond tuned his guitar and sang some songs by Schubert to his own accompaniment.

But the subject of their first private exhibition that autumn drew the painters apart to one picnic rug, where they talked and smoked pipes. Claude sat with his back against the tree trunk and Frédéric stretched out on his side. “I found rooms for it yesterday,” Frédéric said excitedly. “I have to paint like a madman until then. I can start on the draft announcements to the news journals and magazines this summer. We need to invite all the gallery owners and art dealers, perhaps even Durand-Ruel, the most important art dealer in Paris now.”

“He never wanted to see my work before,” Claude said ruefully. “He sent word by his assistant that he couldn’t sell it, it was too modern.”

“He’ll change his mind,” Frédéric answered gravely. “They’ll all change their minds. What do we call ourselves?”

They looked at one another. “The Society of Poor Broke Bastards?” suggested Sisley.

“Shut up! How about The Society of Anonymous Artists—
La Société anonyme coopérative d’artistes?”

Claude glanced at the women, who were sitting close together with the children. How lovely they looked with their summer straw hats, the ribbons stuck with flowers. Camille lay on her stomach, her white dress floating about her. “I’m writing,” she was telling them. “Something magical will happen. I’m going to be like George Sand, who took a man’s name to publish. I find her smoking cigars and wearing trousers most alluring. But she’s old now, way over sixty. Terrible to be old. I can’t imagine it. I’m always going to be young and happy!” She burst out laughing and sat up, reaching for Jean, who was examining a fistful of grass.

Pissarro fell asleep on a picnic cloth on his back with his hat covering his face, snoring slightly. The air was still sweet and the earth was warm, though the sun sank low in the sky over the vineyards. They packed the dishes and walked dreamily down the hill. Claude held his jacket slung over his shoulder; his sleeves were rolled up.

They said good-bye at the turn and he watched his friends walking back to Paris, Frédéric with his hands in his pockets, Pissarro’s son riding on his shoulders and the others in front of them.