Girl Braiding Her Hair by Marta Molnar

Author:Marta Molnar [Molnar, Marta]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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1885/Age 19

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Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa is shorter than I am, but just barely, which I can tell he likes. He likes everyone who’s short. At the circus, his favorites were the dwarves.

He is about my age, a comte like his father, part of the nobility. He stands about halfway up the ladder of the hierarchy, higher than a baron and a vicomte, but not as high as a marquis. He has stubby fingers, lips too voluptuous for a man, and a flat nose. If he didn’t have a beard, one might mistake him for a boy. He has no beauty in him, except for his lively brown eyes that meet mine with interest.

“I have such plans for you, my stunning Maria.” He rubs his hands together.

“They’d best be professional.”

I haven’t been completely honest with Zando. I don’t merely know Toulouse-Lautrec by sight. I also know him by reputation. He has a famed affinity for the bottle and the brothel. The prostitutes on rue d’Amboise call him the little teapot with the big spout. His saving grace, in my eyes, is that he’s a talented artist. His father paid for him to study under Léon Bonnat. Currently, he’s studying with Fernand Cormon. And from now on, without knowing, he will be teaching me. It’s an arrangement that suits me, even if his studio leaves much to be desired. His dusty and cluttered workspace makes me wish for the spotless order of Puvis’s place.

“You may trust me entirely.” He speaks with a lisp.

“Not entirely, entirely,” Zando warns, his words punctuated by a howl from the winter winds that sweep by the window.

Zando was supposed to bring me by in the fall, but other work proliferated, so we are in the new year. “What do you think of this?” Toulouse-Lautrec leads me to an unframed painting, leaning on his cane. “Do you like it?”

The work is a parody of Puvis’s The Grove, for which I was the main model. Instead of my own figure, Toulouse-Lautrec put his friends in the grove. He is there too, with his back to the viewer, in a stance that… Is he urinating on the ground?

He watches me to see if I’m offended.

I laugh. “Best not to tell poor Puvis. He is a good man, but he is a vain man.”

”There’s a reason some call him the Peacock behind his back.” Toulouse-Lautrec snorts, and then he nods, as if I passed a test. “Let me see.” He examines my face and body. “Perfect.”

I strike a pose.

He glows with approval. “Exactly what I need. I only wish you’d come sooner. I am working on a number of new pieces. Aristide Bruant is opening his own cabaret, Le Mirliton. He’ll take the building over from Salis. Salis is moving Le Chat Noir to the rue de Laval, into larger accommodations.” He rocks to the balls of his feet to make himself an inch taller. “Bruant invited me to exhibit at his cabaret once it’s open.”

“Bruant?”

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