Sacre Bleu by Christopher Moore Read Free Book Online Page A

of the Colorman before. But somehow, he had known him. Perhaps from Vincent’s descriptions. Henri downed his cognac, then poured himself another. He folded the letter and tucked it back into the drawer, then picked up his pen and put it to paper.
     
My dear Mama,
Circumstances have changed, and it turns out that I will be able to join you at Château Malromé after all. Although I have finally been able to find some models, which is peace of mind to a painter, and all very proper young ladies at that, I am overwrought, not by my work, but by my personal circumstances. I have recently lost a friend, a Monsieur Vincent van Gogh, a Dutchman who was one of our group of painters. Perhaps you remember me speaking of him. His brother hangs my paintings in his gallery and has done very well by me. Vincent succumbed to a long illness and his loss weighs heavily on my heart, and, I fear, my constitution.
It is not so much a break from my work I need, for it goes well, but a break from the city, from routine. I shouldn’t be staying more than a month, as I need to be back in the city in the fall to prepare to show my paintings with the Twenty, in Brussels. I look forward to breathing the fresh air and spending the afternoons with you and Aunt Cécile. Give her my kisses, and to you, always, many loving kisses.
     
    Yours,
Henri
     
    Perhaps a month would do it. However long, he could not be in Paris now. He began to see the image that rose in him, the pentimento in his heart, upon seeing first Lucien’s Juliette, then the little Colorman. It was Carmen; not her sweetness, her soft voice and touch, it was something different, and dark, and he did not want to see it fully again, or he knew he would never be able to send it away.
    Now a bath, then back to the Moulin Rouge, watch Jane Avril dance, La Goulue the female clown sing and can-can, and then he would ride the green fairy into one of his friendly brothels and stay there in a haze until his train left for Mother’s castle in the country.
    H ENRI HAD FOUND HER FIVE YEARS BEFORE, ON HIS WAY TO A LATE LUNCH with Lucien, Émile Bernard, and Lucien Pissarro, the son of Camille. They were all young artists, full of themselves, their talent, and the infinite possibilities of the results of mixing imagination and craft. They had spent the day at Cormon’s studio, listening to the master prattle on about the academic tradition and techniques of the masters. In the midst of the lecture on the atmosphere of the room, of creating the chiaroscuro play of shadow and light like the Italian master Caravaggio, Émile Bernard had painted the backdrop of his painting with bold red stripes. His friends had laughed, and they were all ejected from the class.
    They decided to adjourn to the Café Nouvelle Athènes on rue Pigalle. Toulouse-Lautrec paid for a cab to bring them down the hill and they tumbled out of it in front of the café, laughing. Just down the block, a young, redheaded woman was leaving her job at the laundry, her hair in a bun that was unraveling, her hands and forearms were pink from her work.
    “Look at her,” said Toulouse-Lautrec. “She’s magnificently raw.” He held his arms out to push his friends back. “Stay back. She’s mine. I must paint her.”
    “She’s yours,” said Bernard, the baby-face, barely a beard pushing through on his chin. “Like new mold on cheese,” Henri had teased him. “We’ll wait for you inside.”
    Toulouse-Lautrec waved them off and called to the redhead, who was trudging down toward the butte. “Pardon! Mademoiselle? Pardon!”
    She stopped, turned, seemed surprised that anyone could be calling to her.
    Henri approached her with his walking stick held before him with both hands, as if in supplication. “Pardon me, mademoiselle. I don’t mean to bother you, but I am a painter. Henri Toulouse-Lautrec is my name. And I—I…”
    “Yes?” she said, looking down, not making eye contact.
    “Pardon, mademoiselle, but you are—you are