MADAME X

Over the course of my 45 years, I’ve fallen in love three times. Once in high school, once with my wife Angela. And then, last night at the Met. 

I’m still not sure how it happened. Or even, if it happened. That’s why I’ve decided to create this record in my diary. Partly to get the sequence of events clear in my mind. And partly so I will remember every detail…of her. Virginie. Those eyes, deep enough to drown in. The toss of her head when she laughed - a sound like a delicate wind chime. The charge that ran through me like static electricity the moment her hand first touched mine. She was like no other woman I’ve ever met. Yet now in the raw dawn of a new day, I’m questioning if I ever did. But why then do I feel this way? Why is every fibre of my being telling me I’m in love?

The night got off to a bad start. I was flustered and sweating when I arrived at the museum already 10 minutes late for the 6pm night tour. I’d booked the tickets weeks before as soon as I’d learned I was coming to New York for the first time. As I rushed into the building and strode across the monumental Great Hall I was head down, tapping desperately at my phone in search of the email I’d been sent containing the tour details. I couldn’t find it. 

“Damn!” Frustrated, I looked up for someone who could help. And stopped in my tracks. My lateness was forgotten in the face of such grandeur. The stunning mosaic floor of marble, the immense masonry pillars soaring upward to form eight sweeping arches and three stunning domes far above. This was a public building, with free entry for ordinary New Yorkers and yet it was palatial. I stood and stared. It took my breath away. 

Finally, my eye drifted downward and landed on a vase bursting with an enormous display of fresh flowers. Fortunately it stood on the desk of the central Information Desk and I was abruptly reminded I had no time to admire the architecture. The desk was blessedly free of tourists at that hour and the helpful attendant, whose name was Marie, according to her  Museum of Modern Art ID badge directed me to the meeting point for the Met After Dark tour. 

“If they’re not there,” Marie told me, “they’ll have moved on to the first exhibit, the sunset viewing of the Temple of Dendur.” 

“Thank you!”

That’s where I found them. A group of about 20 people were gathered around the impressive stone temple as the last of the day’s light filtered in through the Met’s floor-to-ceiling windows giving its sandstone façade a golden glow and highlighting in greater relief the hieroglyphics that covered the exterior. I’d hoped to blend quietly into the group before anyone noticed. But the tour guide spotted me and stopped midway through her story of how the temple had been a gift to the United States from Egypt more than fifty years ago.

“You’re here for the night tour?” All eyes turned to me. Those at the front craned their necks to see the latecomer.

“Yes, that’s right. Sorry I’m late.” I’d finally found the email which also contained my admission e-ticket. I waved my phone above my head to prove my legitimacy. 

“I’ll check you in after we finish here,” said the guide pleasantly. That seemed to placate the group and the faces turned back to the front, satisfied I wasn’t scamming my way onto their exclusive tour. I could hardly blame them. Tickets cost close to $400. 

After we were finished at the temple, our guide, Joanna, who I learned was a highly qualified art historian, authorised my e-ticket and brushed off apologies for my late arrival. Still, the embarrassment stayed with me as we made our way through the American wing heading for the next exhibit. I kept my head down avoiding eye contact with my fellow patrons.

“Do you always care so much what others think?”

She’d appeared beside me without me noticing.  A young woman in her early 20s with auburn hair, pale skin wearing a black dress that showed lots of cleavage. That’s all I could really tell under the passing glow of the museum’s original copper lights. But the way she was looking at me with a mocking smile, I felt like she saw me much more clearly. Under her direct gaze I was momentarily lost for words.

“What makes you think I care?” I finally managed. 

“Oh let’s just say I can read people.” Her smile broadened into a wicked grin. “Especially men.” She spoke with a slight accent, French perhaps. Her dress was very formal with thin shoulder straps. A small tiara was almost hidden in her swept up red hair. Maybe she was going on to a formal event after this, a Broadway premier perhaps. But then, maybe she’d just come from the office. You are in New York, I reminded myself. 

I was intrigued by this confident stranger but before I could pursue the conversation our group had reached the next exhibit, a golden sculpture of the Roman goddess, Diana. Our guide, Joanna was already going into her spiel. “Diana was the goddess of the hunt, the moon, and nature.” 

The statue, depicted the goddess naked and taking aim with a bow and arrow. It was brightly lit and its reflected golden glow revealed the full beauty of the woman at my side. Her delicate facial features were perfectly balanced and proportionate offering a stunning  profile. The black dress, which was made from satin accentuated the paleness of her skin and was fitted to showcase a classic hourglass figure. It was supported by thin diamond-studded straps, one of which had slipped off her  shoulder and lay slack against the side of her right arm. I was tempted to slip it back into place. But it didn’t diminish the overall effect of poise and elegance that radiated from her just as strongly as the golden glow of the Diana’s statue.

She turned suddenly and whispered, in my ear. “How do you think we compare?” It was as if she not only knew I’d been staring, but had read my exact thoughts. 

“What?” 

“Me and Diana. People have made the comparison before.” 

“That’s hardly fair. She’s a goddess. You’re not.”

“She’s also a virgin. And I’m not.” She grinned. “Despite my name.”

“You haven’t told me your name.”

“You haven’t told me yours.”

I took her hand and had to resist an urge to kiss it. “I’m Rob Butler.”

“I’m Virginie. Virginie Gautreau. But you can call me Madame X.’

“Why would I call you that?”

“Because I’m scandalous.” And her smile melted my heart. 

Halfway through the tour I suggested dinner instead and Virginie loved the idea so we sneaked away to the onsite restaurant, The Met Dining Room. I’m sure Joanna and the rest of our tour crew were none too pleased that I’d arrived late and left early, taking one of their number with me. I was also squandering the $400 I’d paid for admission, but I didn’t care. By then I was completely besotted by this fascinating human called Virginie. 

Over dinner she told me she was born in New Orleans, but moved to France with her mother at the age of eight and was educated in Paris. Our French waiter was mightily impressed when she’d ordered the entire meal in his native tongue. So was I. We talked and talked. 

At one point she stopped the conversation and reached across the table to touch my wedding ring. So I told her about my wife, Angela. I told her how on our first date, Angela related a story about a kid who - using nothing but the cheeks of his bum - could land quarters in a glass from six feet across the room. 

‘Every time,’ Angela had squealed, slapping the table. And I right then, I knew she was ‘the one’. By far the best thing that ever happened to me. And would  still be happening today but for that dumb rule about the good dying young. After 15 wonderful years and two of hell at the end, cancer took her at just 37 years of age. I still wear the ring in her memory.

In response, Virginie told me about her marriage. A lonely loveless union by her account, with a French business tycoon who introduced her to the high flyers of Parisian society then cut her loose. What followed was a string of bad decisions, shallow, short-lived relationships and the scandalous reputation she’d referred to earlier. She grew serious and reached for her glass of wine. “It became too much. The press were so cruel. They accused me of using my looks to climb the social ladder. They said I dressed like a tart. Even made a big fuss because the strap of my dress had slipped off my shoulder.” 

I was engrossed in her story, mesmerised by her accent, but just in that moment I felt a sudden chill ripple down my spine.

“They wouldn’t leave me alone. I had no choice in the end but to leave.” She shrugged.

“Are you telling me you were the Britney Spears of Paris?”

She looked confused. “No. I told you. I was the Madame X of Paris.”

She smiled and raised her glass. “To Madame X.” We toasted. And then we kissed. When we parted and I gazed deep into of her eyes I knew I was in love. 

I don’t say that lightly. I’m not talking about what’s sold as ‘love’ by our modern media. Where YouTubers love their followers. Politician love their country. Oprah loves everyone on the planet. Endless ‘reality’ TV shows posing as ‘social experiments’ feature young men and women with occupations like ‘adventurer’ and ‘entrepreneur’ and ‘influencer’ are manipulated to weaponized love and create conflict - the search for a soulmate reduced to  a battle for screentime. Valentine’s Day is a marketing frenzy. Young couples pay jacked up prices for everything as soon as the word ‘wedding’ is mentioned. Tina Turner was right to ask: ‘What’s Love Got to Do With It?’ Because usually these days the answer is absolutely nothing.

But true love still exists. And its impact is just as powerful as it ever was. Real love hurts. And true love is torture. Anyone whose been there will tell you it’s an intense visceral experience. It’s that can’t-bear-to-part, all-consuming, care-so-much-it-hurts, borderline-obsessive, no-you-hang-up, can’t-go-on-without-you, destined-to-end-in-tragedy breed of passion that Taylor Swift has built her billion dollar empire upon. But Tay-Tay is not the first to say so. Emily Bronte harnessed love’s terrible torment in Wuthering Heights which, when you think about it, is 1847’s version of ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together’. Despite confronted with more red flags than a Moscow military parade, the love-sick Cathy nevertheless, returns time and again to the arms of her narcissistic sociopathic lover, Heathcliff. But it was the Bard himself, William Shakespeare way back in 1597 who first realised that real passion couldn’t be fully expressed without angst, tragedy and multiple fatalities, His star-crossed teen lovers, Romeo and Juliet, are so befuddled by fanatical devotion, they confuse each other into accidental suicide. Now that’s love.

And that’s the kind of pain I’m in right now. Because I fear – in fact looking over what I’ve just written, I’m certain – that I’ll never see Virginie again. 

When the meal at the Met was done and it was clear the restaurant staff were waiting for us to leave so they could go home, I went to pay the bill. When I got back to the table Virginie was gone. She’d left a note folded on the table. I picked it up thinking she’d at least given me her phone number. Instead she’d written the following: ‘American Wing - Gallery 711’. I stared at the words numbly, wondering if she was sending me on some kind of strange treasure hunt that would end at her apartment perhaps.  But I couldn’t go looking now. The Met was closing for the night. I had no choice but to go back to my hotel and return in the morning.

After a sleepless night I returned to the museum and sought directions to Gallery 711, with no idea how long it would be before I’d got to see my new love again. When I entered the designated room there, prominently displayed on the wall was my answer. I couldn’t breathe. It felt like the floor beneath me suddenly tilted 90 degrees. I fought to stay standing. If  I hadn’t standing by the wall I would fallen. The painting before featured and elegant woman in a black satin dress. Beside it I read the following description. “Madame X (also known as Madame Virginie Gautreau) Artist: John Singer Sargent Date : 1884 Style: Realism Genre: Portrait: Media: Oil on Canvas.”

Much later, after I’d staggered back to my hotel and swallowed down three large whiskeys in quick succession I would learn more from the Met web site.

“Madame X by John Singer Sargent was displayed in the Paris Salon of 1884 and immediately caused public scandal due to the subject’s personal notoriety. Virginie Gautreau was a woman known for her exquisite beauty and notorious love affairs. It was considered a brazen image of a disreputable married woman who used her beauty to pursue other women’d husband’s. Public disapproval was so vicious both Sargent and Gautreau had to leave Paris”.

But one detail in particular has stuck with me and will ensure I avoid at all costs ever falling in love for the  rest of my days. In the portrait today, both diamond studded shoulder straps of Madame X’s black satin dress sit respectably on her ivory shoulders. But it wasn’t always the case. Sargent had originally painted the right strap off her shoulder, laying loose against the side of her right arm. The bodice appeared unsupported and that was a state of undress that was too much for the French sensibilities of the day. In response to the widespread outrage, the artist repainted the right shoulder strap to be firmly and respectably back on her shoulder.