Rodin's Lover (33 page)

“Camille, it’s Auguste. Let me in.”

The Devil has come! He wants to cage you, drag you with him to hell.

She cradled her head in her hands. “I don’t believe in the Devil.”

But you do. You made a pact with him, don’t you remember? He is here for you.

More pounding. “Open this door or I’ll break it down!” he shouted. Auguste wouldn’t try to poison her in daylight, would he? “Camille!” If she did not open the door, the neighbors would give her trouble. “I need to see you,” he said.

She moved to the door and swung it wide. Auguste pushed inside and kissed her cheek in greeting, the way he would a friend. Camille’s arms dangled lifelessly at her side. What would she say to him?

He walked from one worktable to the next, studying a series of
busts she had begun—all of young girls. “These are magnificent.” He fingered a groove of brow bone.

“Don’t touch them!” Her voice came out garbled, rusty from disuse. She moved frantically from one to the next, covering them with rags. She could not let him steal these from her as well.

“What could I possibly do to your portraits?”

“You rob me of my inspiration and call it your own.”

Auguste looked at her with a dull expression, as if all of his emotion had been drained from his body these past months of their separation. Until the sketch of
The Age of Maturity
caught his eye. He picked up the envelope to get a closer look. “Is this a farce of our lives together?” With his finger, he traced the drawing of a young woman on her knees. “You don’t intend to make this? I would be ridiculed.”

“You think this piece is about us and that vile woman, don’t you?” She scoffed at him. “You’re as self-centered as I always suspected you were. This woman represents youth; the man is the present and is being spirited away by the angel of age to the grave.”

He put down the sketch. “You have shut me out, Camille. I have made our love foremost, always, but you reject me.”

“Foremost? Like the afternoon you brought Rose to Villeneuve to humiliate me? Those many nights when you were finished with me and you returned to her? And then there is the matter of Rose trying to kill me, yet you comforted
her
. You escorted her home and you left me alone. With child.”

Silence echoed in the immeasurable space between them.

“You are pregnant?” Emotions warred on his face. He glanced down at her abdomen. “When? When are you—”

“There is no child.”

“You have terminated it? God, Camille.” He clenched his fists. “You didn’t even speak to me about it. A child with you . . .” He rushed toward her. “
Mon amour
, if I had known.”

She stepped out of his reach. “And what would we have done then? You would continue to spend all of your hours in the studio while I chased the babe?” A high-pitched laugh escaped her lips. “That’s how you would have wanted it, isn’t it? To keep me out of the way.”

His face twisted in pain. “How can you say that? I have loved you
since the moment I met you. I will never love anyone the way I do you.”

“Yet you would not leave Rose to be with me, make an honest woman of me.”

He stood stock-still. The silence grew as her stare burned through him. In a soft voice, he said, “Why didn’t you come to me first? We could have talked about our options at the very least.”

“The Voice told me what I should do.”

“The voices are back?” He stroked the soft spot on his beard in agitation.

“It never left.”

He reached out to her. “Let me help you. I can find someone—”

“You have helped enough.” She motioned to the door. “Now, get out. I don’t want to see you ever again.”

Desperation crossed his face. “Camille, don’t do this!” He yanked her arm and crushed her against him.

“Let go of me!” A desperate panic rose inside her. He would crush her and do away with her! She pushed against his chest. “Leave me!”

He tightened his hold. “No.”

“You’re a coward!” she screeched as panic strangled her.

He held her fast against him. After several minutes of struggle, she relaxed. “Let me help you,” he whispered in her ear.

“You have helped enough. I never want to see you again. I mean it, Auguste. The sight of you, your scent, your art make me sick.”

He released her.

“Just go.” She wrapped her arms around herself, the fire of her anger suddenly extinguished. A chill cooled her blood and penetrated her bones until her teeth began to rattle.

Tears shone in his eyes.

“I have made the great man cry.” She mocked him.

“More than you will ever know.” He fumbled for the handkerchief in his pocket before moving to the door. He paused to look at her a last time. “Good-bye, Camille.”

“Don’t you mean good riddance? You are free of me.”

“I will never be free of you,” he said, voice soft.

With that, he disappeared through the door.

Auguste sat across from Cazin, Monet, and several other members of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. They discussed matters of the next salon and various topics, but Rodin had barely heard a word. He stared into the bottom of his beer glass. He could have had a child with Camille, but now it was finished.
They
were finished. For good. Each time the sorrow drained away, it welled inside him once more until it oozed from his pores. He ran his fingertip around the edge of his glass. Yet despite the pain, his relief was still stronger. An illness had seized her beautiful and terrible mind and she could not prevent it, nor control it. She could not raise a child. She could scarcely support herself, but still, she turned away the money he had sent. An exhaustion consumed him, one so profound, some days he could not leave his bed.

The pitch of the conversation around him changed.

Claude opened a clipping of newspaper. “Auguste, have you seen this?” Monet smoothed the rumpled paper clipping, smudging the black ink. “Your
Balzac
is ‘the polemic of the moment. Before long it will be necessary to be for or against Rodin, as it is necessary to be for or against Esterhazy’.”

Monet scrutinized his face—for what, Auguste didn’t know. He had no opinion on the matter, at least not one he would share, and he knew for certain Claude was decidedly pro-Dreyfus.

“The journalists align your supporters with Dreyfus and the naysayers as traitors of the republic.” Monet drained his beer and speared a slice of cured ham with his fork.

“How they came to that conclusion baffles me,” Cazin said, then sipped from his brandy glass. “Zola is a Dreyfusard, yet he is the one who has denied
Balzac
—”

The stirrings of anger arose inside Rodin. “I’ve read them all. All of the spiteful reviews and hate directed at me. I am an artist, not a political tool. The bastards will ruin me.” His pulse thundered in his ears. “Now Descaves claims I am organizing a Jewish cavalry to overthrow the government. What complete nonsense is that? I’m an old man, for Christ’s sake.”

“Why don’t you take a stand?” Monet’s eyes challenged him.

Auguste clenched his fists. “And be caught up in the scandal? I want to be as far from that
merde
as possible.”

Monet’s characteristic passion rose to the surface. “It’s an important national issue, Auguste. Why not speak out?”

“The Gens de Lettres have rejected the commission.” Auguste stood. “Zola has turned his back on me.” He waved his arm about in frustration. “I slave for them and they belittle me in their papers. Leave me with empty pockets. I have no interest in speaking out. It seems it has been done for me.” He ran a hand over his hair and put his beret firmly in place. “I’ve had enough.” He tossed a few coins on the table.

“Where the hell are you going?” Monet asked, his face scrunched.

“Away.” Auguste departed in a rush.

Speeding cabs, the prattle of omnibus over cobblestone, and the rush of people to and fro—all of it—bore down on him. When he reached his home, he slammed the door behind him.

“What’s happened?” Rose rushed to him from the salon.

“We’re leaving. Away from the city racket and these idiotic journalists. I need space from it all.”

Rose touched her lips in an attempt to hide her smile. “Whatever you wish,
chéri
.”

He uncurled his fists and took her in his arms. “Thank you.”

“For what?” she whispered.

“For always loving me. For standing beside me. I don’t deserve you, but I am grateful.”

She kissed him lightly. “You are my home.”

“We’ll go to Meudon after my meeting with Mathias at the end of the week.”

“Very well,” she said.

Auguste released her and clomped up the stairs to his office. He lit his lamp and a stray candle atop his desk. After riffling through a stack of articles and reviews, he formed them into a neat pile. One by one, he held the articles over the hungry flame and watched their edges singe and disappear.

Auguste wrapped his fingers around the heft of brick he’d found at the Dépôt des Marbres that morning. Someone had shattered one of the front windows of the atelier. It could have been a coincidence, but he wasn’t a betting man. Someone had sent him a warning. He glanced at a maquette of
Balzac
, one of his first studies. With a quick thrust, he launched the brick at the dried clay, knocking it over in one hit. He reached for the brick and pounded the statue, breaking its limbs, crushing the duck lips and large nose on the face of the man he had so wished to replicate. An angry laugh strangled his throat. He beat the statue again and again, until only rubble remained. Satisfied, he dropped the brick and brushed his hands against each other to dust off the debris.

At that moment, Mathias rapped on the office door, in the rear of the atelier.

“Come in.” Auguste said, breathless. He would make this meeting fast—he could not wait to leave.

Mathias closed the door behind him. He raised an eyebrow at the dust covering Rodin’s suit before continuing. “I have good news. We’ve collected more than half of the sum we need to purchase
Balzac
from Zola and the Gens de Lettres. We’ll find a placement for him in Paris yet.

Auguste shook his head. “I don’t intend to sell the piece. Please return the funds.”

“You cannot be serious!” Mathias’s eyes bulged like a bulldog’s in his round face. “Hundreds have donated to see
Balzac
erected in public.”

“I will not be associated with a public outcry. It would pit me against the other side. No,” Auguste said firmly. “My works represent a truth about humanity and I have no agenda other than illustrating the beauty of those truths.”

“But if you withdraw it, your enemies will win.”

“And who are my enemies?” He paced in the confined space. “The Gens de Lettres? The bourgeois? Or is it those who believe Dreyfus is an enemy of the Republic? I don’t know who they are! At any rate, I have written a rebuttal to the nonsense about my Jewish plot. It will run on the cover of
L’Aurore
. After that, I am finished with
Balzac
, once and for all. It will remain in my studio.”

“But they will crucify you,” Mathias said.

“They already have!” Auguste raised his voice. And he was done with it all.

Mathias watched him in silence. “And those who champion your cause?”

“Can do so without me. I appreciate their patronage and friendship, but I am not a political martyr. I am an artist.”

“You flee confrontation.” Mathias’s chubby cheeks puffed indignantly. “But that is your choice.”

His friend’s words stung. Auguste detested making impossible choices. Camille and Rose. Camille’s final letter had praised
Balzac
, and had given him greater happiness than all of the critics combined. She had found it perfect in its simplicity. She knew his heart, understood his longing, his vision. Yet he had not known his own—and he had left Camille for Rose again and again. Now it was done, just as he was.

“Auguste?” Mathias leaned toward him, his round middle bumping the desk.

“I won’t hold that comment against you because we’re friends,” he said. “You may sympathize with me, but you are not an artist. You can’t truly understand what it is to bear your soul for others to ridicule. I will not lay myself before the vultures so they can pick my bones clean.”