We'll meet again

Violetta will know, I promised myself. She must. And that comforted me a little, and for those days when I walked the streets of Paris, buying the clothes I needed, absorbing that atmosphere which is indigenous to the city, I lived on excitement. I loved the cafes with their gay awnings, and the little tables at which people sat, drinking their coffee or wine. I loved the famous streets and the narrow ones, and the shops, the smell of freshly baked bread which came from some of them, and the remains of the old city before Hausemann had rebuilt it, after the damage it had suffered during the Revolution.

I spent a certain amount of time strolling through the streets, looking at the places which had been only names to me before. I loved the ancient bridges, and I gazed in wonder at the majestic Notre Dame. I wished I had paid more attention to my lessons, and I thought if Violetta were here she would be able to tell me a great deal about these places.

Jacques did not accompany me on these journeys. He was not the type to wander round gaping at everything like a tourist. He had work to do.

He had changed a little. He was no less the ardent lover, and that part of our relationship remained. It was just that, when I expressed the excitement I felt in Paris and wished that he would show me certain places, he became remote and evasive. He had some sketches to do. He was not free that day.

"If only Violetta were here," I said.

He smiled and nodded vaguely. He could not understand what existed between me and Violetta.

I had always imagined that artists lived in attics in abject poverty and went to cafes to celebrate when they sold a picture and there caroused with their impecunious friends.

This was not the case with Jacques.

He had a small house on the Left Bank, it was true, but he lived in a certain degree of comfort. There was an attic in which he worked because the light was from the north. But it was just his working area and below was an ordinary dwelling which one might expect anywhere.

In the basement were a husband and wife who looked after his needs.

They were Jean and Marie, middle-aged, eager to please and not really surprised to see me, which was a little disconcerting.

Jacques was clearly by no means poor. He gave me money to buy clothes and, providing I could subdue my conscience, I was happy during those first weeks.

Jacques worked now and then in the attic which he called his studio.

People called often. Some of them were sitters, I presumed; others came and he would take them up to the studio to talk. He did show me one or two portraits. I was hoping he would suggest painting me, but he did not.

People sometimes called in the evenings. Marie would cook a meal for them and Jean would wait at table. I would be present on such occasions, of course, but they spoke such rapid French that I could understand little of what they said. When I told Jacques this, he laughed and said I had missed nothing I needed to know. It was all gossip.

"Do they talk about what is going on in Europe?" I asked. "People were always going on about that at home.”

"It is mentioned.”

"They were all worked up about it in England. I expect they are here.

Yet usually they all seem so much more excitable than we do.”

He shrugged his shoulders and I sensed he did not want to talk about the possibilities of war. I was in agreement with that. I had grown weary of the subject before I left home.

About ten days after I had been there, Hans Fleisch came to the house.

We greeted each other warmly. He had been a great help to us. He bowed, and clicked his heels, which took me right back to that awful time at the schloss. He asked me in his stilted and rather Germanic English if I were enjoying France. I told him I found it most exciting.

"Jacques is very happy that you are here.”

"What happened in Poldown when they discovered I had gone?”

I asked.

He was thoughtful and then said: "They believed you were drowned. That you had gone swimming. It was not a wise thing to do, they said. The sea can be treacherous, and you were lost.”

"Did you happen to see any member of my family?”

"No, but I heard they had come to the house.”

"My sister?”

“Yes, I think your sister.”

"I see. So ... the story was accepted.”

"It would seem so.”

I thought to myself: Oh, Violetta, dear mother, dear father, I hope you don't mourn me too much.

I think it was then that I began to regard what I had done more seriously.

I was still fascinated by Jacques. The physical relationship between us was perfect-for him, too, I was sure; but I had built up such an image of life in the -tin Quarter that I was vaguely disappointed because ours seemed so conventional. I had pictured artists coming in every day. I remembered stories I had heard of Manet, Monet, Gauguin, Cezanne, and the cafe life of the Bohemians. That was completely missing.

Jacques seemed quite affluent. This was perverse of me. I should be grateful. Did I want to live in poverty because it seemed artistic for a moment or two?