With Violets by Elizabeth Robards Page A

precisely the problem. I should not be surprised that she turned out this way. But I am surprised.” She turns back to me. “Surprised and shocked and saddened. Because with all we have given you, all the leeway and latitude, you have become a person I do not even know anymore. A person I do not wish to know.”
    “How can you claim you do not know me, Maman? I am your daughter. I am an artist just as you and Papa have encouraged me.”
    Maman f linches, almost imperceptibly but I see her react to the sting. Then she refocuses her glare on me, even more pierc-ing this time.
    “Your father and I have encouraged you to be a proper lady.”
    I should let it go. I know better, but my ire is like a door forced open under pressure. No matter how I try to bar it shut, bile manufactured by the talk of my place in this world grows until it oozes out between the facade’s cracks and crevices, until the door swings open and everything spills out.

    “Proper? As if that were my life’s purpose? It is not my fault I was born a woman.”
    My mother stares at me for a moment, cold and disbelieving. When she speaks, her voice is low and uneven, as if I have wrung from her all the energy she possesses.
    “Berthe, we have afforded you advantages many a young woman would be delighted to have. Luxuries. The best cloth-ing, the best upbringing, the best possible position to meet a man who will ensure your future. Many respectable young men call, yet you push them aside, when all you would have to do is —”
    “What? What should I do, Maman ? Sit upon the sofa waiting for a proper man to give me permission to live? If that is so, it is a dull existence. If that is all you want for me, then why, Maman, did you raise me to think? Why did you and Papa encourage me to have an opinion?”
    She closes her eyes against my words. I know I have delivered the fatal blow in our verbal jousting match. Although all the bile has drained from me, I only feel worse. It is as if something, some bond or branch between us that once seemed immovable, has splintered. Panicking, my mind reels, searching for a way to mend the fracture.
    “I am sorry, Maman . I never meant to . . . I never meant to disappointment you . ”
    I am sincere. But she does not answer me. She simply turns, leaving me alone in the room with my words reverberating in the air.

    Two days later, Maman accompanies me to Édouard’s rue Guyot atelier . Would she have gone if Papa had not returned home? He did not mention the incident with Édouard to me, but I know she told him. How else would she have explained why she was not speaking to me after our argument in the drawing room?

    I am sorry to give Papa such a stressful homecoming. I have missed him. Our house is not the same without him, and my mother has grown so tense.
    But I do believe it is he who is to thank for Maman’s accompanying me to Édouard’s studio. He is a strong man. A practical man. He looks beyond the silly superficial dictations of society to the matter-of-fact. The fact that I can learn something from Édouard.
    Ah, Papa, I really do not know what I would do without him.
    Maman and I arrive late, or at least later than Fanny Claus and Monsieur Guillemet, the other models Édouard has engaged for the painting.
    “Bon jour, bon jour!” Édouard greets us warmly. Maman is cordial, but aloof—for my benefit, I’m sure—as he takes our wraps and makes introductions.
    Tall and distinguished, Monsieur Guillemet bows with a f lourish and works a bit too hard, I must say, to charm us. I’m glad because his agreeable demeanor might melt Maman’s icy formality.
    Édouard presents Fanny Claus, a young violinist and friend of his wife, Suzanne. Apparently, she and Suzanne often play duets at the Thursday night parties at his mother’s house.
    Fanny Claus nods demurely. I am a bit disappointed when I realized both she and I have worn white dresses for the occasion. They are of vastly different styles, still I worry