Sacre Bleu Read Free Page B

coat.”
    “No they aren’t. That is my hunchback, an unfortunate consequence of my royal lineage.”
    As they stepped off the curb to cross the street a shoe dropped out from under Henri’s coat and plopped on the cobblestones.
    “Well, she was being unkind to you, Lucien. I will not stand for that. Buy me a drink and tell me what has happened to our poor Vincent.”
    “You said you hadn’t eaten in days.”
    “Well, buy me lunch then.”

     
    “Did you ever get over that slut?” In Rat Mort —Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, 1899
     
    T HEY DINED IN THE WINDOW OF THE D EAD R AT AND WATCHED PASSERSBY IN gay summer apparel while Toulouse-Lautrec tried not to vomit again.
    “Perhaps a cognac to settle your stomach,” said Lucien.
    “An excellent idea. But I fear Cheesy Marie’s shoes are ruined.”
    “C’est la vie,” said Lucien.
    “I think Vincent’s passing has upset my constitution.”
    “Understandably,” said Lucien. He thought he, too, might have converted his repast to a spectral roar, if he’d tried to layer his dismay over a dead friend on top of three days and nights of debauchery as had Henri. They had both attended Cormon’s studio with Vincent, painted alongside him, drank, laughed, and argued color theory with him in the cafés of Montmartre. Henri had once challenged a man who insulted Vincent’s work to a duel, and might have killed him had he not been too drunk to fight.
    Lucien continued, “I was in Theo’s gallery just last week. Theo said that Vincent was painting like a fiend, that Auvers agreed with him and he was doing good work. Even Dr. Gachet pronounced him recovered from his breakdown in Arles.”
    “I liked his ideas about color and use of the brush, but his emotions were always so high. Perhaps if he could have afforded to drink more.”
    “I don’t think that would have helped him, Henri. But why, if he was doing good work, and Theo had his expenses covered—”
    “A woman,” said Toulouse-Lautrec. “When a suitable time has passed, we should call on Theo at the gallery and look at Vincent’s last paintings. I’ll bet there is a woman. No man kills himself but it is for a broken heart; surely you know that.”
    Lucien felt a pain in his chest for his own memories and in sympathy for what must have been Vincent’s suffering. Yes, he could understand. He sighed and, staring out the window, said, “You know, Renoir always used to say that they were all one woman, all the same. An ideal.”
    “You are incapable of having a discussion without bringing up your childhood around the Impressionists, aren’t you?”
    Lucien turned to his friend and grinned. “Like you are incapable of having one without mentioning that you were born a count and grew up in a castle.”
    “We are all slaves to our histories. I am simply saying that if we scratch van Gogh’s history, you will find a woman was at the heart of his disease.”
    Lucien shuddered, as if he could shake the memory and melancholy off the conversation the way a dog shakes off water. “Look, Henri, van Gogh was an ambitious painter, talented, but he was not a steady man. Did you ever paint with him? He ate the paint. I’m trying to get the color of a moulin right and I look over and he has half a tube of rose madder on his teeth.”
    “Vincent did enjoy a fine red,” said Henri with a grin.
    “Monsieur,” said Lucien. “You are a dreadful person.”
    “I’m simply agreeing with you—”
    Toulouse-Lautrec stopped and stood up, his gaze trained out the window, over Lucien’s shoulder.
    “You remember when you warned me off of Carmen?” said Henri, putting his hand on Lucien’s shoulder. “No matter how I felt, letting her go, it was the best thing for me, you said.”
    “What?” Lucien twisted in his chair to see what Henri was looking at and caught sight of a skirt—no, a woman, out on the street in a periwinkle dress, matching parasol and hat. A beautiful dark-haired woman with stunningly blue