Paris at Night

By Francesca Cernia Slovin

Francesca Cernia Slovin is an internationally recognized public intellectual and author. Her Doctorate in Philosophy is from the University of Rome, with a dissertation under Lucio Colletti on the fihiations between Rousseaus moral and political philosophy. Having researched and taught French Enlightenment for many years, she has instructed at The New School and at Cornell University. A regular contributor to Italian and American academic journals, she is a member of the Board of Directors of the New York Council for the Humanities, a member of the Foreign Press Association in New York, and a consultant for the Center for Jewish History. In Principio, her book on the philosophical and political impetus behind the founders of Israel, is required reading in Italian high schools. She edited Gli Anni di Plastica, the history of European design at the beginning of the twentieth century. Her Aby Warburg: Un Banchiere Prestato All arte was awarded the Commisso prize for Best Biography of the Year and has been translated as Obsessed by Art. Aby Warburg, His Lfe and Legacy (2006).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9781479718023

Francesca Cernia Slovin

Francesca Cernia Slovin is an internationally recognized public intellectual and author. Her Doctorate in Philosophy is from the University of Rome, with a dissertation under Lucio Colletti on the fihiations between Rousseau’s moral and political philosophy. Having researched and taught French Enlightenment for many years, she has instructed at The New School and at Cornell University. A regular contributor to Italian and American academic journals, she is a member of the Board of Directors of the New York Council for the Humanities, a member of the Foreign Press Association in New York, and a consultant for the Center for Jewish History. In Principio, her book on the philosophical and political impetus behind the founders of Israel, is required reading in Italian high schools. She edited Gli Anni di Plastica, the history of European design at the beginning of the twentieth century. Her Aby Warburg: Un Banchiere Prestato All ‘arte was awarded the Commisso prize for Best Biography of the Year and has been translated as Obsessed by Art. Aby Warburg, His Lfe and Legacy (2006).

Book preview

     1     

It was almost three years since she had last been in Paris, and it was the first time she was there without the anxiety of a show or some other obligation. Being back in the city she loved so dearly, after so much time away, made her feel as light as the late winter breeze that seemed to be blowing all the past away from rue de Varenne. She lifted the collar of her coat against the cold and quickened her pace to arrive at the entrance to the museum. It was one of her required stops whenever she was in Paris. There were those who visit churches and monuments in European cities, but Susan, when in Paris, could never skip the Musée Rodin. She would stay there for hours, enchanted, admiring the titanic strength and sublime delicacy of Auguste’s sculptures. He was the medium’s greatest poet.

She passed The Burghers of Calais, the centerpiece of the garden, and went up to the second floor where Rodin’s various Hands seemed to hover in midair. So often, when she was modeling a figure or even just a commissioned object, she would think about Rodin’s Hands—the thumbs sticking out, the fingers intertwined, the palms nearly touching, as though the hands were sprouting in unison from the virgin marble.

As a young woman, Susan had often been told by lovers that her skin was as white and as smooth as marble. She would smile and think about Rodin’s Danaïd, about that sinuous neck curved forward while the woman’s face remained hidden under her long mane of hair. It was a pose that the model had improvised out of fatigue or maybe with the defiance that would later lead her to madness. But Susan had never let the compliments she received lead her to arrogance, neither for her white, marble-like skin nor for her fire-red hair. She had never believed herself to be beautiful. The band of suitors she had had in her life had made her feel desirable, but never really beautiful. Despite remaining incredulous, she nevertheless enjoyed the attention, and bit by bit she had even learned how to use it. Her aura as an artist, then, had completed her image. The most frequent comments in various publications referred to her as the sculptor with the flaming locks, the woman with a good figure (a terrible jeu de mots), or something similar.

It had been since she had gotten together with David that a veil of melancholy had dulled the vibrant color of her hair and covered her skin with freckles. Those changes weren’t only the result of the sun or her age but were the consequence of a life choice. Her long and solid marriage had made her forget what it was to be admired and pursued. After the first few years, David had taken her physical appearance for granted, and at this point, he paid more attention to his work than to his family. Their boys were grown by then and out in the world. The distracted man who was her husband would never have noticed that Susan was getting older and that her body… that her body was… She was terribly afraid of finishing that thought!

Excusez-moi, parlez-vous anglais? a man on her left, whom she hadn’t noticed before, asked in shaky French.

Actually, I’m American, she replied absentmindedly.

What a relief, he answered with a slight bow of his head. They only have brochures in French. I do not know why.

Et bien, les Français, vous savez, she replied, smiling.

"There is a word here that I am not sure I understand in this context. Could you help me? Élan, what does élan mean in relation to Rodin’s sculpture?"

"Well, literally élan means ‘rush’ or ‘gush’ or even ‘outburst.’ But if what you are reading refers to these hands, then the meaning is more untranslatable. Rodin’s hands possess a vital energy that is difficult to translate into words. It’s precisely the élan vital the French know so well."

When she turned toward the visitor and looked him squarely in the face, she had a sudden, deep, unsettled feeling. What was there in this composed man that made him so attractive yet made her feel uneasy? Was it his impeccable dress, his thin features, or was it rather his expression? A sharp expression, even while being a discerning one. Or was it more piercing? And the color of his eyes… To simply call them blue would be banal. So what was it that made them so different from all other blue eyes?

Where are you from? Susan asked with typical American familiarity.

I am English, but I have been living in New York for some years now. I like that one, the hand of God creating Adam and Eve, he said, clearly avoiding further personal questions. The marble, the unworked part of it, I mean, seems to have greater force than the sculpted part.

It’s a reference to Michelangelo, Susan explained, a bit hurt by his apparent brush-off.

You live in New York as well? he asked her politely as though to apologize for his previous evasion. Where exactly?

"Well, a bit all over, uptown, downtown, it depends on what you mean by live, she said cryptically, cutting herself short and careful not to ask And you?"

A large mirror between the two windows they were standing near suddenly reflected an unexpected image—present-day Susan. Had so much time really passed? Her face without makeup made the small wrinkles around her eyes stand out more, her lips seemed paler than usual, and she was suddenly very aware of how très passé her coat was, giving her a shabby look. She turned away quickly and took refuge behind the model of a piece whose final version, she knew, was at the Metropolitan Museum.

Élan, élan, the man repeated to pick up the thread of their conversation, a rather thin thread in comparison to the mass of material that surrounded them. Does he really want to keep chatting? Susan wondered. He seemed so impassive even in front of objects he was ostensibly admiring. He looked so detached from the emotions that a work of art was capable of communicating. What was such a person doing in that temple of beauty?

As though dodging any additional mirrors that might surprise her, Susan headed toward the next room, and he followed her, seemingly more out of chivalry than curiosity. It was the room with The Kiss, arguably the most famous icon of love in the world. Despite being much used and abused, it was still charged with an irresistible magnetism as evidenced by the clearly displayed Ne touchez pas sign. Whenever she looked at this particular sculptural composition, Susan always suffered from Stendhal syndrome, but this time the disorientation she felt was almost painful—full of sadness, regret, rage.

I am returning to the US tomorrow, but I am grateful to you for your observations, the English stranger said to her in a low voice. He hadn’t intently perused the sculpture as she had, poring over every line, every curve. He had glanced at the pedestal, and that was it. Not one exclamation over its beauty, not one comment, not even a saucy remark.

I have a very early flight, he concluded in his impeccable British accent and then slipped away toward the staircase. Susan was not particularly sorry to see him go, though she continued to think of him and his apparent indifference to the beauty before his eyes as she made her way through the rest of the museum.

***

A few hours later when she was having dinner alone, Susan was overcome with memories. She had never succeeded in having an individual show in Paris. She had always been part of group shows, stuck in among rather mediocre sculptors. Her only individual show had actually been in Toronto when she had been told, Susan, this time you’ve outdone yourself. But her first show in Paris had nevertheless been pure exhilaration. Even David, who was still following her career at that time, had been excited. Because Paris… Paris always touched the heart of whoever visited it. One hot summer many years ago, she had taken a tour on the Bateau Mouche with her first boyfriend. The golden light along the Seine and her love for the young writer at her side had made her heart feel weak. She was so enchanted by it all that she had thought—for just an instant—of jumping from the boat, shouting out his name on her way down just to show him the intensity of her feelings. That very evening, they had dined together at the Brasserie Lipp, and he had put his hand on her knee under the table making her heart swell and her head spin. Paris, like London, Rome, and Florence, was the setting for many other of her love stories, all of them passionate. Only later, with David and the kids, had those sites lost the perfume of adventure and taken on the tepidness of family life. She had revisited cupolas and rivers through the eyes of her sons and had tasted the local cuisine with the same voracious appetite. It had been important to her to take the kids to places rich with art and history, to have them visit the Eiffel Tower, the British Museum, the Colosseum, and the Uffizi. Along wide boulevards and winding through narrow streets, David carried the youngest on his shoulders, and Susan spoke to the oldest like he was an adult, often in different languages. She had spent moments of pure happiness with them, her family, with a sense of fullness and total self-realization. During the rare dinners between husband and wife, thanks to the babysitters provided by the hotels, David would show off the full range of his humor, though it was often interrupted by the passing of a shapely young woman or by the melody of a street musician.

Breathing in the last drag from her cigarette, she let the smoke slowly rise from the two corners of her lips, the way she would when she smoked a cigarette in a moment of total relaxation. Seeing her like that, some idiot had once told her, I’ll bet your Chinese zodiac sign is dragon. He had guessed right, and even if she no longer was the woman she had been, after having spent years in foundries she definitely knew what heat felt like.

     2     

When she got back to New York, Susan immersed herself in her work again. Those who talked about acts of creation or artistic inspiration were wrong. Susan’s art was, first of all, work, composed of physical labor, discipline, and method. Inspiration, in her profession, was a secondary element, and those who entrusted themselves only to the creative vein always remained mediocre artists. The fingerprints on Rodin’s bronzes spoke to the work involved in a work of art. Susan’s next show on Thursday was going to be uptown in a gallery frequented by rich collectors and, therefore, much more important than those in bohemian galleries, where visitors were plenty but buyers were few. The work, after all, needed to be recognized by actual income if she were to call herself a working artist.

By that afternoon, she was already ready for the opening. As often happened, so much that she wasn’t surprised by it, David couldn’t make it, and her kids didn’t even know about the show.

And then there she was, Thursday evening, a bit anxious as she entered the large space already packed with the typical New York crowd of people looking for culture and excitement. This time, Susan had made herself up impeccably and wore a stylish suit. The gallery owner was doing the honors, meeting and greeting, and glasses of champagne passed from hand to hand. Her Angel Bound was next to a giant panel dripping with some kind of golden material, and the massiveness of the panel made her delicate figure seem out of proportion. She had stressed the importance of setting it off by itself, even if in a corner; where they had placed it, the graceful sculpture in iron and bronze, deliberately frail-looking, instead looked strange and lost. The weight of the panel behind it made it look like a victim rather than a prophet.

We can’t make everyone happy, the gallery manager had replied, shrugging his shoulders. The artist of the panel, an ambitious Russian, despite knowing how she’d react, had even tried to give her a hug, but she shrugged him off with