Sadie found she rather liked not working with George. She was not held back by George’s insistence on universal themes. She was living in a decadent imaginary world. She reveled in depicting outrageous sexual antics. She was writing about extreme freedom.
Women were never supposed to put themselves first above all else. History was the foul record of men putting themselves first. Yes, it was replete with grotesque injustices. But it had enabled them to make their mark. It was the only way to know the self, Sadie believed. She was not after breaking down the boundaries between classes the way George was. But she was certainly attempting to blast through the walls that were put around the female imagination, saying it was not at all kind or proper. If women in society did not mirror the portraits she was describing, it meant society was itself a prison.
When she was done, she could not give her book to George’s press. She had no difficulty finding another press, one much bigger than George’s. The book was sold not only in Montreal but began to cause controversy all over North America and Europe. Sadie began to revile and intrigue readers all over the world, much to her delight. The name Sadie Arnett became synonymous with intellectual and sexual decadence. She was twenty-six and on her way to becoming a phenomenally successful and wealthy writer.
CHAPTER 45
The Etching on Your Fingertip
In a good mood after her Philadelphia acquisition, Marie went to visit a gallery owner. He brought her to the atelier of an artist who had been working on some dark illustrations. The gallerist knew Marie had a penchant for images of women in peculiar circumstances. They walked up three flights of stairs to a large, open attic apartment. The artist was wearing a pinstriped coat and was leaning against the wall, biting his ink-stained fingernails. Marie’s delicate shoes stepped over the squalor on the floor in order to look at the etchings hanging on the walls. She immediately admired the fineness of the artist’s lines. The etchings looked as though they had been created from single pieces of black thread. And if you picked up the string, it would all untangle and there would be nothing left on the page.
She stopped in front of one wall and her heart was like a teacup that had knocked over and spilled warm tea into her whole body. There was a series of etchings illustrating the poem Goblin Market. It was the poem she and Sadie had both performed and that had been the cause of their falling-out. Everything else around her disappeared. She heard the gallerist suggest she come look at something on the other side of the room, near where the artist was hovering, but Marie stood transfixed looking at the series of etchings.
The first one was an illustration of the two sisters who had set out together for a walk in the woods. One had dark hair and the other was fair. They reminded her so much of herself and Sadie. It was uncanny. She leaned forward to get a better look.
She looked at the drawing of the blond. She looked so na?ve. Her vulnerability and ignorance were what made her beautiful. She was acting in a manner that made her seem genteel and lovely, but also asinine. She was endangering herself but also her sister. Her dark-haired sister was mercurial and wicked-looking. She viewed the world with suspicion. You could tell she had very often worn that expression, as her face now looked permanently suspicious.
The next etching was of the goblins in the woods who were setting up their fruit market. They were all male. She had no idea how they procreated. Perhaps they masturbated onto a tree trunk and then a bole formed on the side of it that grew and grew until it morphed into a goblin. The goblins all seemed to have melded with the woods.
One had tiny mushrooms sprouting from his neck. One looked so much like a frog he must get insulted when he was called one. There was a naked goblin whose skin was so loose he looked like a flaccid penis. Perhaps when he got excited, he grew three times the size and his skin became taut.
In the next illustration, the girls encountered the goblins. The blond sister seemed oblivious to how grotesque they were. She was only obsessed with the fruit, which did not look like real fruit but rather like jewels. There were apples that had not come from a tree but that must have been grown underneath the earth. A bear had been slaughtered and when it was cut open, there was a pomegranate in place of its heart. The goblins knew how to find fruit in places no one else knew to look.
In the next etching, the blond-haired sister was sick because she had eaten the fruit. She was lying in bed delirious with fever. Again, Marie was reminded of herself. She had always cast herself as a victim to get Sadie to do what she wanted. And, sure enough, in the next etching, the dark-haired sister went back to the woods to deliberately eat the fruit and find an antidote.
In order to save her sister, she had to endure the same fate as her. But she endured it while knowing it wasn’t going to be easy. She tasted the fruit, knowing it was poisonous. Marie suddenly wondered whether she was dangerous for Sadie. She created traps for Sadie to walk into.
Although they both endured a horrific poisoning, the sisters knew what the fruit tasted like. And they were inextricably bonded. Sadie had known the true meaning of this poem. Sadie’s interpretation had been much more astute than Marie’s. In any case, it had played out in real life. Life had shown her darker interpretation to be more accurate.
Marie bought the series of etchings for Sadie.
* * *
When Marie got back to her home in Montreal, it was very late and Sadie was asleep. She put the etchings away so she could give them to her on a special occasion. Marie looked at Sadie sleeping in her bed. Her breasts were like loaves of bread rising in the night. Sadie was back. Sadie was finally back. And Marie was going to make sure she protected that. She looked so splendid and beautiful and at rest. She would not let anyone touch or disturb her friend’s repose. The outside world would be kept outside.
When word got out that the Philadelphia acquisition had gone through and Marie Antoine had not made good on her promises, a mob of women spent the night in a frenzy. They could not believe they had been betrayed by a woman. This seemed to be the most heinous of betrayals. Marie lacked any empathy for other women. She was worse than a man. No, she was a monster. They decided a more concerted, organized opposition was needed to take down Marie Antoine. They needed men on their side this time. And a general strike at the factory was called.
Marie had had more than enough of the revolting workers and revolutionaries. She declared that anyone who did not return to work in the morning would be fired immediately.