Luncheon of the Boating Party by Susan Vreeland

then she didn’t even want it.”
    • 35 •
    S u s a n V r e e l a n d
    Madame’s quiet, sudden intake of breath gave him a fl eeting consolation.
    She patted his cast. “Perhaps a word from me might bring her
    around—to model for you, I mean. This Sunday, you say?”
    Renoir nodded. “I’d be much obliged.”
    “That means, of course, that you will take Cécile-Louise too.”
    His head snapped up to see her eyes, hard as the diamonds at her throat.
    “No.”
    “You’re rejecting two of my offerings? Auguste, you’re middle-
    aged now.”
    “Sounds like you’re talking about a cheese.”
    “You’ve been labeled as a philanderer, running with one model after another. If you persist in this profligate life, you’ll be called worse things.
    Marriage is the most crucial social institution in France today, to re-people the Republic—”
    He guffawed at the leap in her conversation.
    “And if you’re seen much longer in your perverse denial of the call of the Republic, no amount of beautiful paintings will touch the walls of the Salon or the drawing rooms in the better quarters. Find someone, Auguste. Fall in love and marry.”
    “It’s not that I don’t want to be in love, but marriage is something else completely.”
    He saw himself in Madame Charpentier’s eyes, nearing forty and
    already brittle in his bones, his forehead as high as the grand boulevards were wide, still trying to charm women a decade or two younger. Pathetic, maybe. But a philanderer? He refused to accept that.
    “I’m urging unmarried women to marry also, so they won’t fall to the province of the demi-monde. If Jeanne has truly left you, then consider Cécile-Louise. She is full of money, and owns a mansion on Île Saint-Louis.”
    “Hm. Inherited?”
    Madame pursed her lips. “Acquired. Not by marriage. By social
    contract.”
    • 36 •
    L u n c h e o n o f t h e B o a t i n g P a r t y
    Wasn’t that the demi-monde, living off a man? “The man still lurking?”
    “Conveniently dead. A duel. Auguste, such a match would leave you free to paint whatever and however you want.”
    “I don’t even know her.”
    “Ah, but you will, n’est-ce pas, when she poses for you?”
    “You forget. One of my rules is never to do anything out of any impulse other than pleasure.”
    She laughed outright at that. “Then take your pleasure in her.”
    He wanted to be stubborn, to show her that he had some self- respect, and that she didn’t have him in her pocket. She looked at him with the stern expectation of a mother. He pulled his shoulders back. The right one twinged.
    “ D’accord. I’ll let her pose. That’s all I promise.”
    “And shall I give Monsieur and Madame Beloir your regrets?”
    “Please.”
    A yellow glow poured out the windows of the Café Nouvelle-Athènes, the triangular-shaped building jutting like a white nose into place Pigalle at the foot of Montmartre. Pigalle, center for nightlife, for rendezvous at the fountain, for a vibrant mix of high and low culture. With any luck, Angèle would be in the café, one more model, one of the best.
    The etched glass door scraped against the sand on the floor as he entered. The place smelled like cigarettes, garlic, and cognac. Auguste nodded to Edgar Degas, who did the same from his own table behind the glass partition surrounded by his ducklings who never challenged him, Forain, Raffaëlli, and Bracquemond. Paul Lhôte was hunched over a sheaf of papers at his regular table forward of the glass partition near the front windows.
    “Clean your glasses, Paul, and you’ll see better,” Auguste said.
    Paul shook his head. “You just can’t stay off that engin de catastrophe, can you? At least this time you didn’t break your other arm.”
    Auguste sat down next to him. “I need your help.”
    “Fine, but right now I’m writing a story,” Paul said.
    • 37 •
    S u s a n V r e e l a n d
    “Ah. In the heart of every Paris clerk lurks a fi ction