“Choose the best of your efforts, and set it on your easel,” their teacher commanded.
Ma?tre Czerny walked along the rows, muttering to himself in French and what Helena took to be Czech. Periodically he would groan loudly, or run a hand through his hair. Two or three times he examined a sketch for a few seconds longer, and then, before moving on, nodded curtly.
At last he was at their row. He paused by Mr. Moreau’s sketch, a marvel of simplicity that captured the conch shell in four or five sweeping lines, and nodded approvingly. For Helena’s sketch, he offered no response, instead moving past as if he hadn’t even seen it. A moment later, she knew she’d been lucky to escape so easily, for his groan of disdain upon seeing the American girl’s work was accompanied by yet more hair-pulling and grumbling.
When he had finished his inspection he returned to the front, scrubbed his hands over his face, and raised his eyes to the heavens. “Terrible. Simply terrible. Try again,” he commanded the entire class.
Ten minutes to sketch a vase filled with ostrich plumes, five minutes for a heap of red and gold brocade, two minutes for a forlorn and moth-eaten stuffed pheasant, and finally one minute for a green glass fisherman’s float.
“A few—a very few—of these sketches show promise,” he said upon his return to the front of the salon. “The rest belong in the bottom of a chicken coop. There is only one thing to be done: you will start at the very beginning.
“Cone. Cylinder. Sphere. Cube. Torus.”
Someone at the front must have grumbled, or made a face, because Ma?tre Czerny was across the room in a flash, looming over the poor fellow, all but shouting in his face. “Did I not say I care nothing for your opinions?”
He paced the width of the salon, back and forth, pulling his hair back from his brow so forcefully that Helena’s eyes fairly watered at the sight.
“You long to be successful, do you not? You long to be the young new painter everyone is talking about. But you do not wish to do the work. And you cannot become great without learning how to draw.
“It does not matter if you wish to paint like an Old Master or a Cubist—the education is the same. If you cannot draw, you are nothing. And your art? It is nothing.”
He went once again to the shelves, and this time took down a plain wooden cylinder. This he placed on the stool. “I will give you one half hour to draw this cylinder. Begin.”
Calm yourself, Helena thought. Calm. She could draw a cylinder in half an hour. This, she could do.
Helena decided to prepare the paper before she began—not as painstakingly as she would ordinarily do, but enough to provide some depth to the sketch’s background. She dug a flat piece of compressed charcoal from the cup on her easel and, holding it flat against the paper, spread an even layer of light gray across its entire surface. No rag had been provided, so she used the cuff of her smock to blend the charcoal to a pale, even wash of silver. Turning the stick on end, she sketched the cylinder’s outline in quick, confident strokes. Shadows came next, and then highlights, which she created with swift, sure touches of her putty eraser. She worked carefully, pausing now and again to survey her progress, blocking out all thoughts of Ma?tre Czerny and the other students.
“Enough!” he called. “We have only enough time for one more shape. Shall we see what ruin you can make of a sphere? Begin.”
Moments later, it seemed, the bells at Notre-Dame Cathedral began to chime the hour. It was noon.
Ma?tre Czerny went to the door, issuing a final directive before departing. “Take your work with you. I have no use for it. For tomorrow, I expect you to prepare one example of each shape, executed to the best of your sadly limited abilities. à demain.”
Chapter 9
As soon as the door had closed behind Ma?tre Czerny, air began to fill the salon again. Helena took a deep breath and tried to collect her thoughts.
“You seem a little bouleversée,” Mr. Moreau said. “I am not sure of the word in English. Overturned?”
“Bowled over, perhaps?”
“Yes, exactly. I was thinking we should—”
“étienne!”
They were interrupted by the arrival of another student, a woman who had been sitting on the other side of the salon, and whose work had elicited several rare nods from Ma?tre Czerny. She and Mr. Moreau kissed cheeks and began a conversation in French that was far too animated for Helena to follow.
“Miss Parr, allow me to introduce you to Mathilde Renault. I was about to ask if you’d like to share a coffee with me.”
“Yes, please. But you must both call me Helena. I insist.”
“We shall. We should all be on a first-name basis, should we not? As comrades in arms? Yes?”
“I have the time for one coffee,” said Mathilde. “But what of your other friend?” she asked, looking over Helena’s shoulder at the American girl, who was slowly gathering her sketches into a bundle.
“Of course,” étienne agreed. “Excuse me, Mademoiselle—would you like to join us?”