After-Hours in the Louvre

                                         After-Hours In the Louvre

At the end of the day, the Louvre closes its doors on the last visitors of the day. The night porter checks through the echoing galleries, switching off lights as he goes. Silence reigns.

“I think they’ve all gone now,” whispered Victorine. “Can I put some clothes on. It really isn’t very warm here now.”

“But you look so beautiful,” protested Ferdinand. “It would be a shame to cover such loveliness.”

“It’s alright for you two,” retorted the girl. “You’re wrapped up warmly in fine suits, & even a hat! & no-one is staring at you! That girl behind Eugene hasn’t stopped looking at me since she arrived. She’s pretending to pick flowers, but I know she’s just being nosy. She’s wondering why we are all sitting here on the grass, with you two fully clothed & me completely nude? It’s a reasonable question. Why are we?”

Ferdinand laughed quietly to himself. “Why not?” he replied. “It’s all perfectly normal & innocent. We were just having a picnic on the grass. It’s been lovely.”

“Lovely for you two perhaps,” the girl hissed back. “You two have had your fill of “my loveliness” while I have been eaten alive by ants & shrivelled up by the cold. Why don’t you two strip off as well, so I can admire your manly beauty? Then that girl could really get an eyeful”

“Oh really, my dear Victorine. That would never do,” Eugene interjected. “We would probably get arrested for indecent exposure.”

“Isn’t that just typical!” Victorine exploded. “The rules are always different for men than they are for women. Why should nudity be considered indecent for men, while women are expected to bare all in the name of “art” & “beauty, at the drop of a man’s top hat?”

“But you have to admit we pay you well, for having the pleasure of our company,” replied Ferdinand with a laugh. “And we did provide the food for the picnic.”

“Oh,” she almost screamed, as she started to pull on her clothed in a rage. “So now we have it! You gave me money & a little food, so now you own me body and soul. I had thought you had invited me to join your little “dejeuner” as a friend, not as a prostitute, for your pleasure.”

“Oh, come now,” Eugene protested. “We haven’t laid a finger on you. You can’t accuse us of taking advantage of you. We were just enjoying looking. No harm in that, surely.”

“Looking is usually how these things start,” Victorine muttered under her breath. “Looking becomes lusting & lust becomes demands. One thing can lead to another in the blink of an eye. Men always have to prove their manliness; their strength surpassing mine! You hear of these things all the time.”

“Of course,” she continued, “it’s always the woman’s fault, for dressing (or undressing) provocatively. We can’t blame the poor little man for assuming she’s compliant. And of course, because he’s stronger, the woman barely struggles, so there’s very little evidence that she didn’t want to have sex with him. She obviously consented.”

“You’re talking utter tosh!” young Eugene burst out. “No-one has even suggested having sex. We were just enjoying the sight of your body. No harm intended, and you didn’t seem to mind us looking.”

“I needed the money you offered,” she conceded. “I should have known better. I shouldn’t have agreed. You said that your brother just wanted to paint me & I was foolishly flattered by the admiration.”

“I’m sorry for suggesting that your intentions were dishonourable,” she added quietly.

She pulled on the rest of her clothes. “I’ll make my way home now if you’ll excuse me. I bid you goodnight, gentlemen.” and she started to leave.

“No wait,” cried Ferdinand. “Pray, let us escort you. It’s the least we can do for the pleasure you’ve given us, this lovely afternoon in the park.”

So, the three walked together away from the gardens. She was glad of their company as the darkness of evening began to close in & the busy boulevards gave way to the deserted back allies which led towards the poor part of the city, where her home was.

But then she became aware of them pressing in closer than she really wanted them to. She found herself being propelled in directions she really didn’t want to go.

She tried to protest. “This isn’t the right way!” But they moved in more closely, taking hold of her arms. She started to scream but a hand quickly stifled it, while other hands forced her back, against a wall.

They each took turns at her, until they’d exhausted their lust & their pride. Then they pulled away & walked silently off into the gloom, leaving her bleeding & silently weeping. Slowly she pulled herself up onto shaking legs & dragged herself back to her lonely apartment & closed and locked the door.

She knew there was no point reporting the incident to the gendarmes at the local commissariat. She knew in her heart she had brought it on herself. She should never have agreed, for the pittance they’d paid her, to take off her clothes to pose for a painting & sit with them in the park, to share their picnic - le dejeuner sur l’herbe.

But no need to worry. When morning returns, the scene will revert to the artist’s idyll of an innocent picnic in the park. Two gallant young gentlemen, beautifully dressed, with an inexplicably naked young woman, enjoying the summer sun together.  

And yet the picture timelessly illustrates differing attitudes, still all too evident today.

We don’t blame the man. It must be the woman’s fault. She must have been asking for it, either by the way that she dressed, or because she had had too much to drink, or simply because she dared to walk home alone.

Of course she should really have stayed home with her parents, until some man deigned to select her as his consort, never allowed a life of her own. This is a man’s world. She ought to put up with it and not try to change the rules as they are.

How dare young women declare independence, expecting to be respected as individuals, with gifts they can offer to others around them, without having to kowtow to the men that surround them, and not having to remember their inferior place in society at large.

We should remember to teach little girls that their place is inferior all the way through life. Their only function is to please a man, producing the children to carry on his name. Besides that, really she’s just his “chief cook and bottle-washer”: his unpaid servant, in other words his slave.

Maybe we need to choose a different picture to look at – one which shows the strength of the females in society and raises their status above merely being objects. Yes, they may be beautiful, when stripped of their clothing, but really, they are so much more than that!

Maybe we need to choose a different picture to look at – one which shows the strength of the females in society and raises their status above merely being objects. Yes, they may be beautiful, when stripped of their clothing, but really, they are so much more than that!

Maybe, instead of Manet little fantasy, we should go to the Imperial War Museum to look at Laura Knight’s wartime heroine, “Ruby Loftus, screwing a Breech-ring.” I suspect after dark she would simply go home to sleep in her own bed, with the knowledge she has been “doing her bit” for her country & loved ones. She proved that she was equal to a man, filling his shoes while he was away fighting. Of course, even women like her were devalued when the war ended & the menfolk returned. Then they were relegated back to where they belonged, as some man’s “little woman”, his “other half. Gender equality is merely a myth; a dream to keep us hoping.”