The Painted Girls Read online

  “Say it. Say you’ll follow me.”

  “I’ll follow you.”

  There is a tiny crack of the smile I have not seen in a hundred years. “Since that first day, outside the Opéra, you been my one and only, Antoinette. Always will be, too.”

  I swallow his promise, the warmth of it swelling in my throat.

  He runs his hands over his thighs. “You’ll need money. Not just for passage. The guards in New Caledonia, you got to bribe them to get assigned the better jobs.”

  I nod for a second time.

  “More than you make at the washhouse.”

  I understand what he is not saying—that riches do not come to the poor girls of Paris by way of honest laboring. “I know it.” I inch up my chin.

  “Tell me,” he says. “Tell me how it is going to be.”

  And so, my feet numb with cold in soggy boots, my skirt soaked through to my knees with grit and filth and wintertime, I spin a tale. A small house by the sea. A roof of thatch. A garden. Sunshine spilling down. Him, his freedom won, with a hoe. Or maybe a fishing net. Yes, a fishing net. And me, a settler’s wife, cooking up those fish all but jumping into his tiny boat.

  Begin, you darlings, without the futile help

  Of beauty—leap despite your common face,

  Leap, soar! You priestesses of grace.

  For in you the Dance is embodied now,

  Heroic and remote. From you we learn,

  Queens are made of distance and greasepaint.

  —EDGAR DEGAS

  Marie

  In the long, narrow loge of the second set of the quadrille, I close my eyes, blocking out the scuttling, limbering, nail-chewing girls, the greenest of the corps de ballet, all of us awaiting our debuts upon the Opéra stage. My mind flits to the theatergoers I know to be lurking in the darkness beyond the reaches of the gas lamps lighting up the stage. Antoinette and Charlotte are not in the house. Antoinette has turned stingy in a way that is new, and with opening night seats, even in the fourth balcony, going for eight francs, she said she would have to wait. Charlotte would come later, too, once the house was no longer selling out and Madame Théodore arranged for her class to attend a matinée, and I hardly cared. She had called me chickenhearted for saying how I feared my debut, and I wanted to say how she should keep her mouth shut since she would someday be trembling in the wings, but it was not true. She would be licking her chops at the chance to get out there and shine. It was something in her I envied, more in this moment than ever before.

  I put my hands on my belly, suck in a breath counting to four, let it out counting again, just like Madame Dominique said for calming the nerves. Oh, how I want to get through the night, to make Madame Dominique proud, to be admired. What I need is quiet, to shush the shuffling feet, the nervous giggles, the words spoken low. More deep breaths, I tell myself, more counting to four.

  Tonight is the opening of Monsieur Mérante’s new ballet, La Korrigane, and in the first act I appear as a Breton peasant, wearing a costume more fine—I am sure—than any worn in all the countryside of Brittany. Two gold bands mark the hem of my skirt and the cuffs of my blouse, and the prettiest of laces edges my apron, collar, and cap, all of it far too white for any girl who ever tugged the teat of a cow or snatched an egg out from underneath a hen.

  The first time I set foot upon the decorated stage, I gaped, eyes growing wide. A massive church with carved stone doorways and colored glass windows and spires of fantastic height towered over the square where the dancing took place. Off to one side were cottages and on the other, shops bedecked with garlands and flags and beyond all that, soaring trees, so real-looking I stroked a leaf to decide if it was truly silk. I could not believe such a thing of beauty existed in the world, but now with the costumes, I have the idea that no public square in Brittany matches what is built upon the Opéra stage. A single glance around the quadrilles’ loge, and I know I am right. We are the daughters of sewing maids and fruit peddlers, charwomen and laundresses, dressed up and painted to look like something we are not. All the years of practicing, the sweat and toil, the muscles aching at the end of the day, it comes down to learning trickery—to leap with the lightness that lets the theatergoers think of us as queens of the Opéra stage instead of scamps with cracking knees and heaving ribs and ever-bleeding toes. Sometimes I wonder, though, if for the very best ballet girls, the trickery is not a little bit real, if a girl born into squalor cannot find true grace in the ballet.

  When finally we were rehearsing on the stage—the full orchestra coaxing the place behind my heart, the floorboards beneath Rosita Mauri’s and Marie Sanlaville’s feet the same as were beneath my own—the joy of it lasted more than a week. But in truth, for the peasants of the second set of the quadrille, rehearsal amounts to a lot of standing around and being fully ignored. The Breton dance takes place at the beginning of act one and is no more than six minutes in length; and when we rehearse, the coryphées and the sujets are straightening their skirts and kneading their calves and the première danseuses and the étoiles are in the wings, posing and lifting up their legs for the lurking abonnés. The rest of the time we are props, a backdrop of color, nothing more. Still, when it is time, I dance my heart out, never leaping lower than my best, never forgetting to hold my neck long, always remembering to keep my teeth out of sight.

  La Korrigane tells the story of Yvonette, a poor tavern maid all of a sudden furnished with the silks and jewels that win the heart of handsome Lilèz, the role Monsieur Mérante gave to himself, never mind his thinning hair. The Korrigane—the wicked fairies of Brittany—steal Yvonette away, until Lilèz overcomes their treachery and claims her as his prize. Blanche had me laughing at one rehearsal, saying how it was the best part of choreographing a ballet, casting yourself in a role where you are fine-looking and young and allowed to paw at the girl of your choice.

  I do not mind being a prop so much when Rosita Mauri is dancing upon the stage as Yvonette. No, I watch her feet, the way they beat in the air, flying this way and that, neat, quick. She dances one section in wooden clogs. No one else could manage the steps. It was something I made the mistake of saying to Monsieur Lefebvre, and the next time I went to his apartment he handed me a pair. “Now dance,” he said. One of the sofas had been pushed back and the carpet rolled up, leaving an area of bare floor.

  “What dance?” I said, gripping the clogs.

  He stared, and it felt like he was daring me not to do as I was told. “Rosita Mauri’s dance, of course.”

  I knew the steps from watching at the rehearsals, and alone in the practice room I had tried to copy them, dreaming all the while of someday having the same lightness and speed as Rosita Mauri. But even with my feet in canvas slippers instead of wooden clogs, I was nowhere near capable of what she was.

  I said the truth to Monsieur Lefebvre, and he took me by the arm, walked me over to the pushed-aside sofa and pointed, telling me to sit. “Do you know about Emma Livry?” he said, lowering himself to the spot beside me.

  Everyone knew. Ever since Marie Taglioni, the people of France had been waiting for an étoile of the same skill, talent enough to capture the hearts of all those seeing her upon the stage. Emma Livry was to be such a sensation. At the age of sixteen she appeared before the public for the first time—the role of the Sylph in La Sylphide. Le Figaro called her a second Taglioni, and by nineteen she had reached the rank of étoile. But two years later she was bedridden, suffering. While she awaited the moment of her entrance in the wings, her skirt shifted into the sphere of a gas lamp and in an instant she was aflame. Even with Marie Taglioni herself rubbing greasepaint into Emma Livry’s charred skin, even with the straw that was placed on the cobblestones before her apartment to deaden the clacking of the wheels, she drew her last breath at the age of twenty-one. All that took place before I was even born, but still every ballet girl knows to look right and left in the wings, checking the locations of the gas lamps, before giving a final fluffing to her skirt.

  I
told Monsieur Lefebvre all I knew about Emma Livry, and he nodded, staying quiet, until I ran out of words and said, “I can’t think of anything else.”

  “Have you never wondered why a child was cast in the role of the Sylph? The house was full the night of her debut and the press eager to report her success.” He said Emma Livry was the daughter of a sujet called Célestine Emarot and her protector—a baron—that when the arrangement between the two of them ended, Célestine found herself a new protector. “This time, a viscount.”

  It was through the viscount’s influence, he said, that it was decided Emma Livry would make her debut in a major role. With him footing the bill, no expense was spared. She was prepared for four months. Three weeks in advance of her debut, he arranged for publicity in the newspapers, with the end result that she appeared as the Sylph before a full house. He lifted up his eyebrows. “You know about the claque?” I had heard of the famous Auguste, of the money he was paid by the director of the Opéra for stirring his colleagues in the orchestra stalls into a fervor of clapping, the fury of which had everything to do with the weight of the coins put into his hands. “All that was a long time ago,” I said.

  He gave me a pat, a pat for a girl green as the first shoots in the spring. “The viscount spent a fortune, making sure no one in the house was left making up his own mind about the greatness of Emma Livry.”

  “I don’t see why you’re telling me all this,” I said.

  “After the debut the viscount embraced Emma Livry, and he told her, ‘You were only a caterpillar, but I made you into a butterfly.’ ” He smiled.

  I swallowed, dipped my chin the tiniest bit. Tuesday mornings with Monsieur Lefebvre I was earning the twenty francs that allowed me to go on making the meager wages the Opéra paid to the girls in the second set of the quadrille. But it was more than that, too. He had clout with Monsieurs Pluque and Mérante, maybe Monsieur Vaucorbeil, too. He had the money to line their pockets, if that is what it took. He made a habit of getting his way. And even a girl with the talent of Emma Livry had an abonné greasing the wheels.

  Monsieur Lefebvre knelt before me, unlacing my boots and slipping them from my feet. He held each of my ankles, pressing one foot and then the other into the wooden clogs. Standing up, backing away, he said, “Now, do as you are told.”

  I made a mess of it. I told him I would. Me standing there, disgraced, my lip sucked between my teeth, he said, “Again.” I tried. I failed. He said, “Again.” Repeat. Repeat. Repeat, until my feet bleed in the clogs and his voice was like vinegar in a cut.

  “Undress,” he said.

  I did.

  “On the sofa.”

  I sat down and he went to his easel, on the far side of the cleared space. From behind it, he called out for me to lie back, to open my legs. And then more instructions—lower my knee, close my eyes, part my lips.

  There were other times, when I almost knew. There were his knees, below the bottom edge of the canvas, shifting slightly, back and forth. There was his trembling breath, the final stifled grunt, and afterward the quick handing over of the twenty francs I was owed. But he pretended, and so did I. I thought about the steps of La Korrigane or listened to the sounds coming in through the shutters—the hollering groomsmen, the boats on the Seine, the chatter of the ladies passing by in dresses fine enough that they would be let into the Jardin des Tuileries at the bottom of the street. That day, with legs spread open on the sofa, I told myself to put my mind on Antoinette, the scent of soap clinging to her skin and hair, the tavern where she says she now works, her new stinginess. But I could not send my mind beyond his apartment.

  Sister Evangeline’s catechism laid out the rules about sin, the two different kinds. It said smaller sins—venial sins—were easier for God to forgive, even without confessing to a priest, especially if the sinner was forced or did not fully understand the breach. Mortal sins were deliberate, and without confession and God’s mercy, they meant everlasting damnation of the soul. The difference was important. I did not own a skirt fine enough to climb the steps of the église de la Sainte-Trinité to the confessional booth, and even if I did, even if I managed to work up the nerve, I did not want to hear how I should seek virtue, the hundred ways a ballet girl’s life was not pleasing to God. That day, lying back on the sofa, my mind stayed put and Monsieur Lefebvre’s panting and grunting, the final swelling moan filled up my ears, and there was no more clinging to the idea that the sinning going on would pass as the lesser kind.

  Afterward when Monsieur Lefebrve put thirty francs in my hand—your new allowance is what he said—I did not refuse the extra ten francs. Sister Evangeline’s catechism was a long time ago. Was I even correctly remembering what it said? Antoinette would say it was only drivel, written up by the priests because they were in love with rules, not that she wasted a minute thinking about some old catechism. No, Antoinette was too bold in speaking her mind to end up with her legs spread open for a slumming gentleman.

  From the stage the theater is a black, gaping hole, but you can feel the breathing coming from the seats, the thousand pairs of eyes. My heart beats wildly, and my feet move, only because they know the steps of the Breton dance like I know to write my name. My mind skitters—elbows soft, shoulders down, mouth shut. I grip Perot’s and Aimée’s hands for the portion of the dance we make in a line. A hundred times I took their two hands and never before was there the slipperiness, the gripping of today. Never mind the earlier grinning, the whispers of “Long last, the stage!” in the wings. We are all afraid. It is the moment when I know I will not trip or collapse or make a mess of a single step, and the chatter inside my head stops.

  Like sometimes happens in the practice room, when I am at my very best, the music goes inside me, then comes from inside, spilling out. There is the sheer pleasure of dancing, a knee extending, a foot striking the wooden planks of the stage, of breath. There is something words cannot explain, a moment of rapture, a moment of crystal clearness. I know the miracle of life, the sorrow of death, the joy of love, and I know none of it is any different for a single soul in the world. Oh, how I want the moment to last. But then Rosita Mauri is whirling across the stage, and the second set of the quadrille is retreating to our waiting spot amid the cottages and shrubbery. And, oh, I want that moment back. I want that moment again.

  Did Antoinette ever snatch such a moment? No. She would have kept her mouth shut in front of Monsieur Pluque to get the moment again. And Charlotte? Sometimes that small girl was coming down from the practice rooms when I was going up, even though her class was over and done two hours before mine began. Every chance she had she sat with her legs spread wide and lowered her chest to the floor. She wanted to know the allegro combinations Madame Dominique called out to my class, wanted to know was her cabriole high enough, landed soft enough. Would I say the beating together of her calves was good and neat? She badgered until I showed her the steps of the Breton dance, kept it up until she knew every one. Charlotte had tasted that moment, the one I wanted again.

  The debut of La Korrigane goes off without a hitch, and afterward the applause is like thunder. While Monsieur Mérante hops around, clapping the backs of set painters and étoiles and Madame Dominique and even Perot, the entire corps de ballet lines up in the wings for our final bows. “The curtain. The curtain,” the stage manager yells. “Your place, Monsieur Mérante, if you please.”

  The curtains part, and starting with the lowliest of the production, which means the second set of the quadrille, the bowing begins. We flit to center stage and curtsey deeply, arms held in low à la seconde, one foot sliding out to the rear. We were told to be quick, that it is Rosita Mauri and Marie Sanlaville the abonnés want to applaud. I glance at Blanche, awaiting the left tilt of her head, the signal for the Breton peasants to turn and dart to our curtain call spot. But my ankle is hit with a soft thud and, daring to peek, I see a bouquet of roses lying at my feet. Another appears, then two more. From the wing, Madame Dominique calls out, “Pick them up.
Pick them up.” But are the flowers, the hollered instructions meant for me? I cannot decide and next thing I know, Monsieur Mérante is there, on one knee, back to the audience, scooping up the bouquets. With a little flourish he offers the flowers to me.

  I take the heaped-up roses, only because it is what I always do when a loaf or a sausage or a newspaper is held out to me. I catch Blanche’s eye, her flushed, glowing cheeks, her falling-open mouth. She tilts her head left. We were told to move to our curtain call spot, silently, gracefully, our eyes glued to the cap of the peasant ahead of us in line, but I cannot, not the part about the eyes. I glance toward the house, lit up by the chandelier now blazing overhead, searching. My eyes land upon the wildly applauding Monsieur Lefebvre, standing amid a group of black-suited abonnés in the stalls just beyond the orchestra. Half embarrassed, half choked with pride, I nod, a quiet nod, only for him.

  He grins wider, holds his booming hands higher, a sylph reflected in the shine of his face.

  1881

  LE FIGARO

  4 JANUARY 1881

  THE POOR MURDERERS

  BY ALBERT WOLFF

  His pen put to paper, the deplorable Émile Abadie has saved his skin as well as that of the sweet Pierre Gille. These two charming sorts touched the president of the Republic, and he has spared them the guillotine.

  I watched this human carnival without publishing even the smallest argument against the rising groundswell of dangerous pity for a pair of convicted murderers. But now President Grévy’s clemency has roused the pen of this writer, who will take this opportunity to say what he thinks of the case of these villains for whom so many tears have been shed.

  Little by little, the murderers were raised to the rank of martyr. Abadie’s fictitious memoirs awoke a perilous sentimentality in readers and stirred the pens of the most credulous of my colleagues. They painted Abadie as someone led astray, who now spends his days repenting and his nights in prayer. They played on the filial piety of this monster, who was not thinking of his mother the moment he slit the woman Bazengeaud’s neck. The storytellers transformed Gille into a good lamb of the Lord, shamed by the dishonor brought upon his worthy family.