Sacré Bleu

ps and bent down until his nose was nearly touching the paint.

He looked up at Lucien, who was still steadying the canvas against the breeze. “This is very good.”

“Merci, monsieur,” said Lucien.

“Very, very good,” said Renoir.

“It’s nothing,” said Lucien.

“Ha!” Renoir slapped his leg. “It’s no humping dogs, but it’s very good.” Renoir pushed his hat back and he broke into a wide grin, a gleam in his eye betraying something joyful surfacing in his memory. “Do you remember moving that big picture of the Moulin de la Galette across the butte with me, Lucien?”

“Of course,” said Lucien, now sharing the smile.

“It was a big canvas,” Renoir said to Henri. “Not as big as this one, but too big for one person to carry. Caillebotte has it now.”

“I know the painting,” said Henri. Of course he knew it. He’d been so impressed with it that he’d painted his own version of it a few years ago.

“Anyway, I wanted to paint a party, all the life that happened on a Sunday at the Moulin de la Galette—dancing, drinking, gaiety. It was going to take a big canvas. And I could only work on Sundays because my models, Margot and the others, all worked during the week. So every Sunday, Lucien and I would walk the big canvas from my studio on rue Cortot to the dance hall, and I would paint while my friends posed. After the rough sketch, I could only keep them still one or two at a time. It was like herding cats. They wanted to drink, dance, celebrate, the very things I was trying to capture, and I was making them pose. I’d paint all day, doing a little of each model until they got impatient. Except little Margot. She would pose like a statue for as long as I needed her to. Then in the late afternoon, we would move the canvas back across the butte to my studio. Oh là là, the wind. We had to pick leaves and pine needles out of the paint every week, and I would fix each little scar, just to have a new set to fix the next week. You remember, Lucien?”

“Oui, monsieur. I remember.”

“You remember that white dress with the blue bows Margot wore?” Renoir asked, the gleam in his eye now going misty.”

“Oui, monsieur.”

“I loved that dress, but I had already painted her in it for my swing picture, and another picture of her dancing in it. I painted her in the blue stripes for Le Moulin de la Galette. Margot in blue.” A tear streamed down the painter’s face and he looked away, ashamed. “I’m sorry, messieurs, I don’t know what has come over me. Seeing your picture, Lucien—see what you’ve done.”

“I’m sorry, Monsieur Renoir,” Lucien said. He was sorry for his mentor, but he didn’t know how to comfort him. This was not the realm of their relationship. They were student and master. Best now, as men do, to pretend that nothing had happened.

Henri stepped over to Renoir, took a clean handkerchief from his breast coat pocket, and offered it to the master even as he turned to look the other way.

“These winds make my eyes water,” said Toulouse-Lautrec to no one in particular. “The dust, I think, and the soot from the factories in Saint-Denis. It’s a wonder a man can even breathe in this city.”

“Yes,” said Renoir, wiping his eyes. “The soot. Used to be we only had to put up with the coal soot in the winter. Now it’s all the time.”

“Monsieur Renoir,” said Henri. “About those days, when you painted Margot. Dr. Gachet said he treated her?”

Lucien picked up his end of the painting and began blinking furiously, shaking his head in tiny jerks to signal Henri to come on and let Renoir go about his day, but because Toulouse-Lautrec was ignoring him, Lucien looked instead as if he had suddenly developed a very elaborate facial tic.

“I was very fond of Margot,” said Renoir. “She fell ill with a fever and I had no money for a doctor. I wired Gachet and he came immediately. He tried, but he couldn’t help her.”

“I’m very sorry,” said Henri. “I can tell from your paintings she was extraordinary.”

“I would have married her if she had lived,” said Renoir. “She was such a sweet little thing. But I know as the years passed, her bottom would have gotten huge. She was lovely.”

“Did you ever lose time with her?” Henri asked.

Lucien nearly let the painting drop. “We should go, Henri. Let Monsieur Renoir get back to his day.”

Renoir dismissed Lucien’s distress with a wave of his delicate hand (his fingers were starting to knot with arthritis). “It was a long time ago. That whole time is a blur for me. I painted all the time. After Margot died I just traveled and painted. Just changing scenes to clear my head, I think. I don’t remember much of it.”

“I’m sorry to bring up a painful time, monsieur,” said Toulouse-Lautrec. “I only hope there is something that we younger painters might learn from your experience. Lucien has suffered a heartbreak recently.”

“I have not,” said Lucien.

“Your mother didn’t really kill this girl, did she?” asked Renoir. “That’s just Montmartre milling rumors, right?”

“No, monsieur, just rumor. She is fine. We should go now. Please give my best to Madame Renoir and the children.”