ECRASIA. You have no right to say that I am not sincere. I have found a happiness in art that real life has never given me…
THE SHE-ANCIENT. Yes, child: art is the magic mirror you make to reflect your invisible dreams in visible pictures. You use a glass mirror to see your face: you use works of art to see your soul.
– George Bernard Shaw, As Far as Thought Can Reach
She remembers that long line, avenue wide and icy; the thin, wafting smell of Gitanes, mist, Paris, coffee. The distinct smell of almost-November morning. From somewhere warm, dreamlike, buttery whiffs of baking: hot, golden baguettes and croissants, light, impossibly…
Out here, the sharp, biting cold, the same that had seeped, sneakily, twenty years ago, through her coat. Green, she remembers. Velvet, emerald green, the grownup with her had called it. Really! Wonderfully, royally, aptly named. Like the coat itself; Princesse, the tag read; a shop that dressed little girls, apparently, for just such occasions. She remembers the letters, gold and cursive, swirling,
and standing, back straight, very straight, very still; her heart banging wildly, invisibly, inside her; waiting, forever it seemed—probably a few minutes—to enter, at eight, on a Thursday morning,
a palace! Really!
A museum. Le Petit Palais, anything but petit. Grand and white and chandeliers and gold leafand statues and tall gates and … she remembers the moment she walked through them. It had changed her life, that act, entering, sedately, back still straight, heart leaping, holding on to the soft hand that smelled, like the memory, of sweet lemon lotion,
turning left, ambling down the North Gallery, pausing, drinking in the sculptures, paintings, discovering Sisley, Courbet, Pissaro—she liked him best, she said aloud, and the grownup listened—Monet, Manet—Confusing! She announced, and the grownup nodded—
beauty, and that such worlds exist on Thursday mornings.
She was almost twelve on that almost November day, on Avenue Winston Churchill, at the Petit Palais. Twenty years, and neither it, nor she, much, really, has changed; still, the long line and smell of cigarettes, Paris, coffee. Still, the chill seeping through her coat, woolen now, and red… ruby?
Ruby, she announces to the child, standing by her side, holding her hand, shivering, fidgeting excitedly. She fidgets too. A palace! She promises, really!
Both backs straight and hearts banging, mother and daughter wait, with the tourists, the mad for art, the unemployed and restless, the flâneurs seeking shelter from the cold—and rain, likely, any moment—
the young lovers, young and in love enough to be here, in a long line, on Avenue Winston Churchill, on a Thursday at eight in the morning.