The gallery’s location was partly to blame. True, from its doors on Boulevard de Rochechouart me could throw a rock in any direction and hit an artist, or at least someone standing in a drafty room before a canvas, with brushes and palette in hand. The attics and crannies of Montmartre’s creaking old buildings, which hunkered shoulder to shoulder up and down the steep streets, had been partitioned into hundreds of tiny studios. But their inhabitants could seldom afford an afternoon glass of wine, let alone the price of even a cheap painting. The buying of art was the purview of more prosperous citizens, and they seldom wandered north of the Grands Boulevards.
The true connoisseur did keep an eye on obscure little galleries like Galerie Lefevre, in case some undiscovered genius happened to hang his work on its wall first. Mrs. Poll was a true connoisseur. She was also Paul Aichele’s nominal housekeeper. That is, she did some cleaning on Mondays and Thursdays but only because, as she said, those afternoons would otherwise be insufferably dull. Aichele was not a connoisseur, although he never lacked an opinion about a painting. When Mrs. Poll invited him to the opening at Galerie Lefevre, he gladly accepted.
On the way, Mrs. Poll mentioned that the young Henri Berhard had first exhibited at Galerie Lefevre, but once they arrived she was first to admit that Marcel Sieurac was no Henri Berhard. His work consisted of city scenes, meticulously true to their subjects but also very stiff, especially in their human figures, which looked posed even though they were supposedly engaged in everyday activities.
It took Mrs. Poll only one pass through the exhibit to exhaust whatever potential it had for her, but Aichele found himself enjoying the familiar Parisian sites the paintings presented. And like himself, the artist had taken more than a few long strides down the road of middle age. This was a point in his favor. It was also impossible to watch unsympathetically as Sieurac responded with smiling pleasantries to the vacuous comments of those low echelon denizens of the art world who were there.
The one person of importance was a M. Boucherot, who, Mrs. Poll explained, not only wrote artistic criticism for Le Figaro but authored an immensely popular weekly serial in La Gazette de France under the nom de plume of “Antonin.” The fact that “Antonin” and M. Boucherot were one and the same was, by M. Boucherot’s design, one of the worst kept secrets in the city’s artistic circles.
It was hardly necessary to point him out, since he was holding court in the center of the gallery. The group around him was never smaller than the little knot of spectators around Sieurac. He left after a few minutes, and took most of the crowd with him.
The event had been under way for some time when Aichele and Mrs. Poll arrived, and it seemed to be on the verge of simply ceasing to be, without a ripple of ceremony. Mrs. Poll suggested they adjourn for drinks and, courteous as always, surprised both Sieurac and M. St. Cloud, the gallery owner, by inviting them, too.
M. St. Cloud was a doleful, dark-haired man who had attended the opening in a black frock coat. He declined the invitation, looking appropriately weary and explaining there was work to do yet in closing the gallery. Sieurac, in contrast, readily accepted, and suggested Café Dancourt, half a block north on the square of the same name.
To describe Cafe Dancourt as a hole-in-the-wall would conjure too expansive an image. It consisted of one tiny, gloomy room a few steps below street level. The light was feeble, and the tobacco smoke was thick. Sieurac was instantly recognized, and greeted loudly by the waiter and several customers. They were directed to the premier table, although once the three glasses of beer they ordered arrived, there was no longer room for them all to rest their elbows on it.
Sieurac emptied his glass in the time it took Aichele to light the cigarette Mrs. Poll had taken from her handbag. It was just as quickly refilled. The alcohol eased the furrows on Sieurac’s brow and lightened whatever care it was that had kept his mouth so downturned at the edges. He even looked younger than he had appeared at the gallery, and he was most definitely more at home at Café Dancourt.
“And so what brings you to our little faubourg today?” Sieurac asked, to begin the conversation.
“Your exhibit,” Mrs. Poll answered.
“Come now. All the way out here to see the work of a nobody?” Sieurac drained his second glass and wiped his lips with his sleeve. “If that’s so, what was it you liked so much about my paintings?”
“I did not say I liked them,” Mrs. Poll answered.
“That’s right, you didn’t.” Sieurac turned toward the waiter and called for another glass of beer.
“I did rather like some of your work,” Aichele said. But his comment was too hesitant, and betrayed the difference between a personal opinion and a judgment of true quality.
“Which ones?”
“View of Pont Neuf for example.”
“Oh?” Sieurac sounded skeptical. Then, dismissing the whole thing, said, “You’re not drinking. Maybe you’d rather have cognac. If so, you’re out of luck. They water the liquor here.”
“The beer is fine,” Aichele said, observing that he and Mrs. Poll’s glasses were actually almost empty, and that a suitable exit would then present itself. But before he finished the thought, the waiter had refilled them from a large enamel pitcher.
“Have you ever heard of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, of Lyon?” Sieurac suddenly said. He did not wait for an answer. “At my age, he had exhibited in all the best galleries, and now he’s somewhere basking in the sun. And do you know what? The only reason anyone ever looked twice at anything he did was because of all those articles that idiot Guerin wrote about him. And do you know why Guerin wrote what he wrote? Because Puvis de Chavannes was Countess Mategna’s lover, and Guerin thought that if he praised Puvis enough the countess would eventually invite him to her salon. He must have written twenty articles, trying to get her to notice him.”
“Did she?” Mrs. Poll asked.
“Of course not,” Sieurac said, as if she should have known. “But everyone in Paris found out who Pierre Puvis de Chavannes was.”
“The critic M. Boucherot was at your opening,” Aichele volunteered. “Perhaps there will be something said in Le Figaro about you.”
“He was at my first exhibit and never wrote a word. Not even an insult.” Sieurac made a pained smile. “He only comes because an opening provides an audience for his pontifications. Are you hungry? They boil cabbage here. If you’re lucky, you even get a morsel of ham. How about it?”
Before either Aichele or Mrs. Poll could answer, their attention, and the attention of everyone else in the room, was drawn abruptly to the entryway, where a very intoxicated woman made an entrance befitting the stage at the Variates. She swept in at top speed, opened her arms to the room, then dropped them quickly to her sides as her bleary gaze settled upon Marcel Sieurac.
She did not waste a moment of the crowd’s attention. “Good evening, dear husband,” she said loudly.
The features of her face were bulky and prominent. Her eyes were narrow, crowded between her thick brow and high cheekbones, which were reddened to match the startling hue of her lipstick. Her skin was rough, even under its veneer of makeup.
“I take it your opening was such a success that you have come to Café Dancourt to pay one last visit before moving on to more rarefied establishments. Tell me, do we have a new address in Saint-Germain? Should I pack my things? Or will you simply buy me an entire new wardrobe?”