He nodded but didn’t offer any information.
“Is it a love match?” I asked brazenly.
He didn’t answer, and his face offered no clue as to what his response might be. Finally he said: “My situation is complicated.”
“What situation isn’t complicated? My grandmother says it is the grand complications of life that keep her in diamonds and pearls.”
“Your grandmother is a wise and witty woman.”
“She’s also very secretive. She still has not told me anything about hiring you and this decision of hers to turn La Lune into a museum.”
“I wish I could give you some insight, but she hasn’t shared any of her secrets with me.”
“I thought when I came here the first day that perhaps you were a new lover.”
He shook his head. “I’ve never had the pleasure.”
“Which pleases me.”
“And why is that?” he teased.
“It would make me quite uncomfortable to take my grandmother’s lover as my own.”
Again I had astonished myself and, from the expression on Julien’s face, astonished him as well.
“I’m sure your husband wouldn’t like that either.”
“My husband and I are separated,” I said, lowering my eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“He’s not a kind man.” I wanted to tell him at least part of the truth. I lifted my face. “But that is in the past. I’ve come to Paris to start over.”
“Let me help you. Tell me what you are planning.”
“I don’t want to get you in trouble with my grandmother.”
“You mean if she were to notice that a jade frog is missing from the cabinet?”
“I asked you not to look. If Grand-mère thought you took it, she would—”
He put his hand up and touched my cheek. “Don’t worry about me, Sandrine. Are you in trouble? Tell me why you took it. What are you planning?”
How could I make him understand how deep my need was to study painting, to begin my life anew? What would he think of me?
Julien leaned down and kissed me, letting me know without a word that he didn’t need to understand, that he wasn’t there to judge; he just wanted to help.
“Any way I can, Sandrine.”
“Can you find a place where I can pawn the little frog? If I am going to attend Les Beaux-Arts, I need money for supplies and clothes, and I can’t ask my grandmother.”
“Of course I’ll help you. I told you that, but you do realize it will all be for naught. Les Beaux-Arts doesn’t accept women.”
“You mean they haven’t yet accepted a woman, don’t you?”
“You’re going to challenge centuries of tradition? How?”
I didn’t want to tell Julien; I wanted to show him. As long as he didn’t know what to expect, his reaction would be a true test of whether I could actualize my idea or was just dreaming.
Chapter 10
“All right then, we’ll go to my aunt’s,” Julien said. “Get your hat, bring the jade frog.”
I was astonished. “But why your aunt’s? Does she buy jewels?”
He laughed. “It’s an expression we use here in Paris. ‘My aunt’s’ is what we call the Crédit Municipal, the pawnshop owned and operated by the government. It’s the only one in Paris and has been for over a hundred years, since individual pawnshops were outlawed for overcharging interest.”
While we’d been inside, a light snow had begun falling, and rue des Saints-Pères was dusted with white. Standing on the steps of Maison de la Lune, I imagined we were inside a snow globe, two small figures in a dark fairy tale, about to set off on a dangerous adventure.
And it was dangerous. If my grandmother knew that I had taken an objet d’art out of the maison, she would be furious. And probably even angrier if she knew the reason.
There were no carriages to be had, so we began to walk. I didn’t mind; Paris looked so lovely under the mother-of-pearl sky, and so quiet. Everyone seemed to be inside due to the weather except for us.
We reached the corner, and he took my arm. “It’s slippery here.” When we reached the other side, he didn’t let go, and I was glad.
“You can really see the shapes of the buildings when you aren’t distracted by the materials they are made of,” Julien said as we turned onto Boulevard Saint-Germain.
“Are any of these yours? Can I see something you’ve built?”
“No, not here. I’ve done nothing on so grand a street. We would have to go out of our way.”
“Would you mind?”
He looked surprised by my request.
“There’s one just three blocks out in this direction, and once there we might find a carriage. Are you interested in architecture?”
“Very much. My father and I would often watch construction going on in New York.”
“Your father seems like a most unusual man.”
For a moment I couldn’t speak for missing him. “He was. For one thing he was a perennial student. He craved knowledge and studied constantly. In addition to the arts, he was interested in mystical teachings and was working on a paper that traced connections and showed the similarities between different esoteric philosophies.”
Julien laughed. “He sounds like a Renaissance man. That was a wonderful period for thinkers. Many men of the time were quite enlightened in the way they treated women.”
“I think my father would have supported me if I’d chosen the life of an artist. Even if he’d had to contend with my grandmother’s protestations.”
“Why would she have objected?”
“My father told me she was superstitious about Verlaine women becoming too involved in the arts.”
“So she knew there was an artist in your family?”
“Now that we’ve found the studio, I guess she must have, but at the time when I asked my father about it, he didn’t know why she felt that way.”
“So you always wanted to be an artist?”
“No, not seriously, not before I came to Paris. I was happy being my father’s companion in his pursuits. Going to museums and galleries with him, attending auctions, growing his art collection. He involved me when he built his bank on Wall Street. Together we met all the architects he considered, and afterward we pored over their plans and discussed their philosophies. Do you have a philosophy, Monsieur Duplessi?”
“Julien,” he corrected me.
“Yes, Julien.” For a moment I felt almost giddy to be walking down a Paris street in the snow, arm in arm with such an interesting man. Even though it was cold out, I welcomed the weather. The icy flakes stinging my cheeks were helping me wake after a long-dormant existence.
“Do I have a philosophy?” He hesitated for a moment, and I wondered if I had asked a na?ve question. Then he smiled. “An architect who does not have a philosophy is just a draftsman.”
“What is yours?”
He gestured to the buildings we were walking past. “These are outdated masks. There’s nothing here not borrowed from other ages. There’s nothing new and certainly nothing noble about adapting styles from Byzantium and medieval times and slapping them onto our present-day buildings. I’m not seduced by the past.
“I believe in the unique. Like the architect Viollet-le-Duc, my eyes are looking toward the future. Architectural forms for our times. I supposed you could say I’m tired of being mired in tradition and sick of the commonplace. Why build an ordinary building when you can create one that is unique? I strive for a structure that has harmony, logic, and will appeal to our love of beauty.”