Paris Kiss Read Free Page A

them back.
    Rodin ran his hand down my arm and squeezed it. ‘I would not say this if I did not think you had real talent – why would I waste my breath? You are one of the few who has the potential to make it in this cruel game. Legros was right!’
    The clouds parted. I smiled through my tears. ‘ Merci, mon maître. ’
    He smiled and patted my shoulder. ‘Now, watch carefully and I will show you how to improve this mannequin and turn it into a real, living, breathing person with fire in her belly.’
    He whipped off his gloves to reveal calloused labourer’s hands scored with burns and I wondered if that was why he kept them covered, through shame. Most sculptors I knew were proud of their marked hands, but then few had clawed their way up from the back streets, as Rodin had. Soon I was too busy watching the great Rodin at work to care whether he wore gloves or fur mittens. In a few deft moves he smudged my careful refinements, pinching the cheeks to make them fuller and more childlike, smearing the lips so they seemed about to talk, always, always keeping the surface rough so you were never in any doubt that although this was a creature of clay, as he said, it was a living, breathing creature.
    Camille came to life before our eyes and the real Camille gasped beside me and reached for my hand as we watched our maître create a masterpiece in a matter of minutes. It was true what they said: Rodin was a genius, the greatest sculptor since Michelangelo.
    He wiped his hands down the front of his waistcoat, careless of the grey smears he left behind. ‘Now, Mademoiselle Claudel, it’s your turn.’
    I remember thinking fleetingly that he had called her Camille when he had come into the studio, but now he was using her title and the formal ‘vous’. The thought slipped away as I waited to see what he would say about Camille’s work. In the weeks I had been sharing a studio with her it was already clear she was a far more talented artist than I could ever hope to be. Rodin, I was certain, would have nothing but praise for her tender sculpture of a young girl in her first flush of innocence – a quality she had spotted in Marie-Thérèse despite the model’s brash ways. I waited glumly for Rodin’s praise; it would make my humiliation all the keener.
    Camille, her hands clasped behind her back and her features set in concentration, stepped aside to allow Rodin a better view. He peered through his spectacles at the figure from all angles, running his hands over the young girl’s flanks like a farmer at a horse market. He stepped back and I heard Camille’s breathing quicken. Rodin shook his head and raised his stick and brought it down with a sickening squelch through the soft clay. I heard myself cry out as he lashed out again and again with the stick and turned the delicate sculpture into pulp. The violence of his action stunned me into silence and I waited, my mouth still covered and my eyes wide, for Camille to explode. I was already familiar with her temper and sure she would not stand for this. But she appeared unmoved.
    â€˜You are right, Maître , the leg was awkward, the pose stiff and contrived.’ I was amazed by her even tone. ‘Thank you.’ Camille began to salvage what was left with movements as quick and confident as Rodin’s, smoothing away the savage rips in the clay. Rodin watched, his eyes never leaving her hands. I watched too as the sculpture took on the shape of a young girl awakening to desire, pulsating with longing, her back arched like a cat, an eagerness in outstretched arms that made you want to turn away to spare her shame. None of us turned round when the model called out that she was leaving.
    â€˜And don’t think I’ll come back to work in this madhouse in a hurry,’ she said. ‘Destroying a perfectly good sculpture! I sat for hours getting cramp in my arse – and for what?