Free Claude & Camille: A Novel of Monet by Stephanie Cowell

Never mind me. I’m just a dead man.” By now the coach was long gone and the rain fell steadily against the kitchen window.

1866–1867

We were all one group when we started out. We stood shoulder to shoulder and we encouraged each other .
—A UGUSTE R ENOIR
    C LAUDE RETURNED TO P ARIS ALONE ON A WARM SUMMER day a week later. He had bought and stretched the enormous canvas on which he would repaint the smaller portrait of the picnickers. Hands in his pockets, he prowled before it. He worried he would run out of paint. He found a half-used tube of dark brown near the oil cruet in the cupboard. He took it as his own, though he could not remember which one of his friends had bought it. Under his brush, it grew into earth and trees.
    He painted the picnickers, some strolling, some sitting. He painted flowers and shadow and movement. In the center, Camille Doncieux perpetually held out her empty plate.
    At night, when the last summer light had faded away, he lit his pipe and for the first time that day was lonely. Where the hell was everyone this late summer? The clock ticked, noises of carts and quarrels from the street below moved through the open window, and a mouse scurried across the floor.
    The burly artist Courbet, who had come to Fontainebleau to model for the painting, knocked on the door one day unannounced and came in. “Hot as hell in Paris this summer!” he said. “Here’s a letter from Bazille; the postman had just come below and I brought it up. So he’s home with his family?”
    Claude took the letter. “Thanks. Yes, he’s gone home to tell them he wants to paint full-time.”
    “Ah! Abandon all hope, ye who enter here , as Dante says. The same quote might apply to you and this painting you’re making. Manet’s painting of picnickers with the women naked caught more attention. Pity not to show a woman’s best qualities.”
    “Well that’s Manet, and this is me!” replied Claude irritably. “I like the flow of dresses.”
    Claude opened the envelope as soon as his visitor had left. I should not have let Frédéric go alone, he thought.
Claude! Well, it is over, and I am relieved enough to be able to hold a pen. I broke the news of my repeated failure to pass my examinations to my family and then—you will be proud of me—I told them I want to throw over medicine to the benefit of all healthy beings and paint full-time. My mother wept gallons. The maids came with buckets to clean up. My father puffed his pipe and failed to look stern and called me cher ami as he always does when he is not sure whether to take her side or mine. Still, all is well .
So , cher ami, I have done some painting here; not very much. Now that I’ve won my freedom, I’m a bit afraid to try. I wish you’d come here! I have a cousin I’d like you to meet, a very pretty girl. And how are you getting on with the Doncieux sisters modeling for you in the studio as they said they’d do if asked? Send them my greetings. By the way, my Lily sends regards and says she looks forward to knowing you further. Not that she would understand you one bit: you are an incomprehensible wretch .
F. Bazille
    Claude studied the letter again. It was like Frédéric to lighten the difficult.
    That night under the shadow of the huge canvas, he sat at a corner of the table cluttered with paint tubes and bits of old bread, and wrote a heartfelt response to his friend.
Frédéric, I’m happy for you and miss you a lot! I’m sorry I was so absorbed when we were away. I get so crazed I can only think of myself. I don’t even remember if I ate today. Courbet stopped by, the ass. If he wanted to unnerve me, he couldn’t have done better. Auguste isn’t here, though some of his clothes are, as always. He’s still somewhere for the summer. As for Cézanne, who knows what river he’s fallen into or if he’s begging his way through Provence. Pissarro wrote; he’s trying to earn some money. I think of you and wish you the best and am so glad