The Naked Truth

Whatever the Countess expected, it wasn’t the modest cottage (modest by her standards at least) that appeared among the foliage. A doll’s house, pale green shutters on white walls made whiter by the glare of the afternoon sun, tucked away in the lush garden where bushes had been allowed to grow wild. She did not recognize Arthur’s touch in any of this and suspected that some choices had been made for him.

Neither did she expect the door to be answered by a rosy-cheeked young woman in an apron. The surprise must have been mutual. The maid was obviously unaccustomed to visitors of her standing. At least not ladies, thought the Countess.

“Who shall I announce, ma’am?”

“A friend,” the Countess said with a smile and the smooth authority that came with her rank. The servant did not dare inquire further and with an awkward nod, went to fetch her mistress.

*

The woman was older than her, possibly in her late thirties. That was the first surprise. Her red hair was pitted artlessly over her head, as if she had just gotten out of bed. One copper lock hung on the left side of her face. She was devoid of all the artifices the Countess had expected from her kind. But what her kind was, she wasn’t so sure anymore.

“Please excuse my state,” said the woman with a self-deprecating smile. She wore a shapeless man’s coat, speckled with colored flakes: red, yellow, green, some of the paint still fresh. “I have learned the hard way it’s no use dressing up when you’re working.”

Working? In the face of growing confusion, the Countess fell back on manners. “I apologize for coming unannounced. I did not mean to interrupt –”

The woman waved her off. “Don’t worry. I was looking for an excuse to take a break anyway. May I ask who recommended my place?”

“Friends,” said the Countess with a smile. “The Baroness de Hautefeuille, among others.”

The woman raised her eyebrows in pleased surprise. She would have found less pleasant, the Countess reflected, the exact choice of words the Baroness had used on Sabine Lacour.

“Would you like a tour of the workshop? Are you looking for one painting in particular?”

The Countess, with years of training in salons, knew what to say in any circumstances. “I would certainly love to see your work.”

*

The paintings were unlike anything she had ever seen. Specks of colors made the subjects appear in a haze, their presence hinted at more than seen. Was this sunset or sunrise, water or land? The colored flakes shone in the light and she instinctively took a step backwards in order to better see.

Sabine Lacour watched her with a smile.

“Things do get clearer when you take a few steps back, don’t they?” she said.

“They certainly do,” said the Countess. But did they, really? She turned to the woman. “You don’t know who I am, do you?”

“Should I?”

“I am the Countess Adelaide de Vaucresson.”

Sabine Lacour’s expression did not change, though she took a second to answer.

“I don’t think I’ve had the honor to meet you.”

“No but you have met my husband the Count, haven’t you? Repeatedly.”

“Did Monsieur le Comte tell you so?” She sounded almost amused.

“Let’s just say that I found out.”

“Through ‘friends’ no doubt,” said Sabine with the faintest smile. “Then I won’t insult your intelligence by pretending otherwise, Madame la Comtesse.”

She turned to a basin next to the easel. “Let me wash up, then we can sit on the terrace. It’s beautiful out there and I wasn’t lying when I said I needed a break.” She wiped her hands with a liquid that smelled strongly of alcohol. “Augustine,” she called out. “We’ll have tea outside. And bring out some of that cake.”

She stepped through the French windows and the Countess had no choice but to follow.

The terrace, paved with flat white stones, overlooked a back garden even more lush than the front. The whole place, the Countess realized, was like a cocoon. No wonder Arthur…She shook herself out of her thoughts.

“Maybe I should leave,” she said. “It was silly of me…”

“It would be sillier to leave now. Sit down, Countess. You walked a long way to come here, didn’t you? You must be tired, and thirsty. Am I right in thinking you asked your coach to drop you off a few streets away because you were ashamed of your destination?”

It was true. The Countess sensed the Lacour woman could also tell she had used her umbrella to shield her face from more than the sun, walking alone in the remote Parisian suburb.

Sabine sat facing her across the small round table.

“I am not going to apologize for anything,” she said. “The Count and I have an arrangement and I hold my end of the deal. I don’t create scandal and try to stay out of trouble. I can’t help rumors but I’m not interested in spreading them.”

“I’m afraid it’s a bit late for that, everyone knows about you and my husband. I want you to stop seeing him.” She had rehearsed what to say but did not feel any more confident saying it.

“Stop seeing him so he can see other women? Women who might be much less scrupulous than me, I daresay. He might ‘protect’ me as they say, but I'm the one protecting him - from himself, mostly.”

The Countess rose. “I won’t hear any more of this.”

“You react as you think you ought to, Countess. Even your outrage is educated. Did you come all this way just to look at my paintings? Sit down.”

No one below her rank had ever addressed the Countess that way. No one, that is, since the nuns at the Couvent des Oiseaux. The calm authority in the woman’s voice allowed no such nonsense as bruised sensibilities. She found herself sitting down again.

Augustine brought out a tray loaded with tea pot and pastries. The Countess accepted the cup Sabine poured her, along with a slice of apple tart.

The tart was delicious. The apples came from the garden, Sabine informed her. They also grew pears, strawberries and cherries, with which they made preserves and jams. The Countess imagined that by “they”, Sabine meant herself and the maid. She really could not picture Arthur making jam. “I have simple tastes,” Sabine was saying. “I've learned the value of things and made it so I don’t have to worry about it too much.”

She had made her artistic education in the beds of artists, she said, “but artists rarely pay the rent. Your husband has been a great help and I am grateful for it. Which is why it would be foolish of me, not to mention hypocrite, to pretend I'm sorry.”

There was a simple logic to this that the Countess could not deny. She shook her head. “You are so different from what I expected…”

Sabine smiled. “Did you expect a woman of ‘loose morals’ as they call it? Is this how the Baroness de Hautefeuille described me?”

The Countess blushed slightly. These had been the very words the Baroness had used when giving her “friendly advice” about her husband.

“Is your sense of morals outraged, Madame la Comtesse? Would you rather I beg, steal, or give my body to the first taker, risking diseases or worse? Rest assured your morals would not be offended. It’s so easy to turn a blind eye to what doesn’t affect us personally.”

The Countess found she had no answers in her social repertoire for occasions such as these.

“You and I have led very different lives...” she started, not sure where she was going from there.

“I am just like you, Countess,” Sabine said. “I have tried to make the best of what little choices I had.”

“Surely you can’t compare…”

“Did you really chose to get married, Madame la Comtesse, and to whom? Could you afford to throw your dowry at the first man who stole your heart? We all have our definition of freedom and it always come at a price.”

The Countess felt a slight tremor, collected herself.

“It seems you put a price on everything, Mrs Lacour. Including love.”

“Would you call love what you and your husband share? Is that the best a woman can expect? A lifelong bond with someone who needs another woman to be himself, and God forbid you should complain. Or do something like what you did today.”

Their eyes met for a second.

“It must have taken you courage,” Sabine went on. “Probably more than you thought you had.”

The woman's speech was blunt but it was the bluntness of truth. The Countess rose, more decisively this time.

“I would love to see some of your paintings again,” she said.

*

The young woman was sitting by the window. Sunlight illuminated the contour of her face, which was turned away from the viewer. Even so you could feel the warm touch of the sun on her skin.

“She's longing to go outside, isn't she?” The Countess spoke half to herself, lost in the picture, wondering when she had last dared expose her own face to the sun lest she ruins her noble complexion.

“Contemplating her options,” said Sabine.

*

She had the painting placed right above her chair in the dining room, facing his own seat at the table. That way she would have a privileged view to the changes in his eyes when he saw it.

Monsieur le Comte was in a jovial mood that evening, having snatched a very profitable deal with Prussian steel industries from the hands of his friend and rival the Baron de Hautefeuille. She was trained enough in the art of conversation to instinctively know when to make the sounds required in order to keep the flow going. Meanwhile she observed him, twelve years her senior and no apparent interests other than his “deals” and political intrigues. One foot in the Emperor’s circle, the other in Bismark’s court, waiting to see which way the wind would blow. One hand on her, the other on Sabine. Like puppets on a shelf, she thought. And he thinks himself so clever at this game.

She had to give him points for self-control. It wasn’t until dessert that he cleared his throat and asked in the most casual way: “Did you acquire a new painting, my dear?”

She could only admire his composure and answered in kind: “So glad you noticed, dear. A new artist I have just discovered. She is quite talented, you know.”

“She?”

“You will get to meet her soon. I’ve invited her to our next Saturday gathering. I also asked your friend the Baron de Hautefeuille. He is a great patron of the arts, I understand.”

The Comte’s eyes were still on the painting.

“How much did you pay for it?” He finally asked.

“A surprisingly fair price, my dear.”

*

That night as he held her, she thought of Sabine, tried being Sabine. What was it like for her? And suddenly she couldn’t stand the weight of him, his hot and damp skin, the feel of his flesh against hers. Did I hurt you, darling? And she let him believe it, anything to get him away from her.

*

“How can you stand it?”

Sabine shrugged. “I’ve had worse. He’s all right, as far as married men go. Not too demanding. I think the mere idea of having a mistress is enough excitement for him.”

It was her own fault, the Countess confessed, for failing to produce an heir yet. Their coupling had taken on the solemnity of a monthly sporting event neither seemed to enjoy much. She had long ceased to expect anything more and wasn’t sure there was anything to expect at all.

“But do you want a child?”

“Doesn’t every woman...?” She stopped and looked at Sabine, who merely raised an eyebrow. Their laughter echoed in the chirping garden and for a moment it sounded as if two more birds had joined the chorus.

*

She visited only when she knew her husband would not be there. It was like an illicit affair without the guilt, she decided. For the first time in her married life, she was having fun. Sometimes it was all she could do to keep from laughing out loud at the silly old charade they called home.

Watching Sabine working at the easel, red hair loose, green eyes intent on the canvas, she felt something like anger at Arthur for not appreciating the woman at her true value. Not appreciating either of them. She needed to convey something of this to her friend but suddenly felt shy about it.

“I wish I could wear my hair down like you,” she blurted out.

“You wish?” The older woman turned her green eyes to her. “It’s very simple. You take out one pin, then another and don’t stop until you’re free.”

*

To freedom, Sabine toasted with the last of the cider.

They had just finished lunch on the terrace. Pâté de campagne on coarse bread, an omelet with mushrooms, green beans from the garden and Augustine’s pear-and-almond tart. The Countess found she enjoyed the simple country food much more than the refined fare served at the interminable Emperor's dinners.

“I’ve given your husband his walking papers.”

The Countess was aghast. A fearful thought came to her: Am I to be given my walking papers too?

“But... why?” was all she could say.

“Do I have to spell it out, Adelaide? I’m not one to bite the hand that feeds me but as I said before, turning a blind eye on things isn’t always an option. And I couldn’t go on taking his money, now that…”

She interrupted herself. Adelaide wondered how much the Baron de Hautefeuille’s newfound support had played a part in her friend’s decision.

“The old world is crumbling,” Sabine went on as if this was what she had meant to say all along. “Prussia is spoiling for a fight and our Frenchmen are bragging too much for comfort. I know men and I can tell when they're bluffing. They always talk too loud. If I were you, I would take what I have and run.”

“You talk as if I need an escape plan,” said Adelaide.

Sabine took a deep breath. “I have a friend, let’s say the friend of a friend, who mortgaged half of his wife’s lands and now, due to unforeseen circumstances involving politics and foreign markets, finds himself up to here in debt. His money is gone, and pretty soon his wife’s money will be too if she doesn’t wise up.”

Sabine was looking at her straight in the eyes. “Freedom means making choices,” she said. “And choosing means knowing what you can afford to lose.”

*

“There is talk about you all over town,” said the Count at dinner.

“What a quaint coincidence,” she answered pleasantly. “There is talk about you all over town too.”

“The talk I hear about you is worse.”

“I didn’t know this was a competition but I seriously doubt it. I have no interest in beating you at your own wickedness.”

She spoke with the utmost calm and a lack of resentment that verged on indifference. Out of idle curiosity she briefly wondered what kind of talk exactly had the Baron heard. The best stories always lost something with each embellishment.

He stared at her. Her blue eyes were steel, her pale skin white as porcelain. She looked like an amazon, he thought, quite incongruously for him. It was almost frightening.

“It’s that damn woman, isn't it. She – ”

“I would choose my words very carefully if I were you,” she said.

“I want you to stop seeing her.”

She had to laugh. It sounded downright comical from his mouth, all things considered.

“By the way,” she said. “I received a letter from the estate of my father today. It appears that some of the lands he left me were mortgaged without my knowledge. Would you mind clearing that up?”

*

At the 1870 Salon de Paris, a “parfum de scandale” surrounded the latest laureate of the Academy presided by the Baron de Hautefeuille. That the artist was a woman was enough of an event. That the work itself was any good was considered a miracle by some. It was the beginning of a new era, art showing the way to life.

The Count de Vaucresson came alone to the exhibition. The Countess now lived permanently in the countryside “due to sickness”, it was explained. “We should all be so sick,” said the Baroness de Hautefeuille who was too old to travel herself but had heard from relatives that the Countess had never looked better.

Presently the Count made his way through the gallery, and met the rare salutes and numerous sidelong glances with equal dignity. Everyone was aware of his collapse and open disgrace after the disastrous business with Bismark. Inwardly he was still shell-shocked from the novelty of losing all he ever had and all he had taken for granted. Still it took all his strength to maintain his composure when he reached the painting.

He recognized only too well the garden where bushes were allowed to grow wild, and the memories it stirred in him. Other memories were stirred by the body of the naked woman emerging from the foliage – or was she part of it?

But only he would have recognized her rounded thighs, her narrow hips and small firm breasts, had the artist not rendered with similar faithfulness the oval face - skin white as porcelain, steel blue eyes and ash-blond hair flowing down her back like an amazon – leaving no doubt as to the identity of the model in the already notorious painting of “The Naked Truth.”