“Tell me, please, who would want such a thing hanging in their salon?”
The hardest to hear had been Monsieur Falconier, because he’d taken the time to bluntly explain his objections. “The style is simply impossible. Impressionism is difficult enough for the buying public to accept, and this goes beyond Impressionism to…I do not know what. The central figure in each of the paintings is appealing, I admit, rendered with a certain Renoiresque charm. But you’ve surrounded her with chaos and violence, a world that seems deliberately distorted to show its ugliness. You will receive no support for works such as these. They will be laughed at—no, jeered at. Please to take them out of my sight at once!”
Even with this harsh rejection, she’d clung to her hopes for the Exposition. It was well known that the judges were looking to represent not just the Salon painters and the Impressionists who were beginning to struggle their way into the mainstream, but the true avant-garde as well. So she’d submitted her work, rallying herself to believe in her vision, praying with every moment that passed that her canvases would be understood…appreciated…telling herself that all of it would have been worth it if only one person in all the world would look at her work and say, “Yes, I see.”
But it hadn’t happened.
And now she was left with nowhere to turn. She’d run out of options.
She felt more than humiliated. She felt angry and betrayed. The men who judged her did so through the veil of their own prejudices. As always, they were unwilling to accept a new vision, a new style. Especially the vision of a woman.
How could she have been so blind? To even think they would look upon her work with anything but contempt. It was her father all over again. Your painting is a waste of time. It will only bring you heartache.
She still felt the sting of his words. All these years later, the wound had never healed.
As she did so often in times of dejection, she thought again of her mother. The sad, gentle woman who’d painted as a way of escaping an intolerable existence. “Be careful what you wish for,” she’d warned Mason, “because you may well be given it. But it won’t be given in the way you think it will. You must be willing to pay the price.”
She would have taken success any way she could get it, would have paid any price. But her mother had been wrong. Wishing…hard work…perseverance…nothing had made any difference.
Had her father been right all along?
She was shivering in her saturated coat. Leaning on the rail, she looked down into the inky waters of the Seine. She could hear it rushing far below her, the current stronger than she’d ever seen it. She closed her eyes, feeling faint, feeling strangely as if she were melding with the river, becoming one with it. She knew the feeling must be caused by the effects of the absinthe, but somehow it seemed more than that. “I need help,” she whispered to the river gushing below. “I can’t do any more myself. I need…help.”
She didn’t know how long she stood there repeating the phrase over and over in her head. But after a while she became aware that the rain had slackened. It seemed to her that something had changed. She lifted her eyes and suddenly was struck by the beauty all around her. She turned, glancing east toward the lights of the city, misty in the rain, glistening indistinctly in the distance as the majestic Seine cut its way through the heart of the city like a ribbon of quicksilver.
And then, like a mirage, a figure emerged from the mist and rain, coming toward her across the bridge. The figure of a woman encased in a colorless cloak, holding the hood about her head against the wind as the cape flapped behind. Mason watched her approach, wondering if the absinthe was playing tricks with her mind. Was she seeing things?
But the phantom spoke in French, calling, “Are you in trouble?”
Mason looked around, wondering where the woman had come from. “No, Madame, I’m fine,” she answered, also in French. “But thank you for your concern.”
“I know better.”
Mason turned away, assuming the woman would walk on. But she didn’t. Her voice rose again above the sound of the elements. “You feel that all is hopeless. That you have been beaten down so far there is nowhere to turn. That no one understands your pain. That the Seine, with her sweet embrace, is your only friend. Your only solace. Your only solution.”
Stunned, Mason glanced down at the raging river, then back again at the woman. She thinks I’m going to jump!
“No, Madame, you misunderstand.”
But the woman continued as if Mason hadn’t spoken. “The temptation is great, is it not?” she called into the wind. “To leave the world you know behind. To become one of the faceless who give their last breath to Mother Seine.”
The words shamed her. It had never occurred to her to take the easy way out. But still, she’d been indulging in a riot of self-pity and that had never been her way.
“No,” she declared, straightening her stance. “You’re perceptive to see that I have problems, but they haven’t beaten me. Not yet, anyway.”
“Then I envy you,” the woman said, lowering her hands so the wind blew back her hood. For the first time, Mason saw her face. She carried all the sadness of the world in her eyes. Eyes like Mason’s mother. “I wish that I, too, had your resolve. But, unfortunately, my strength is at its end.”
With that, the woman smiled tenderly at Mason, then, with startling swiftness, mounted the balustrade and hurled herself headlong into the river.
It was such a shock that it took a moment for Mason to realize what had happened. When she did, she leaned over and saw the cloaked figure being carried away like a matchstick in a storm drain.
Mason’s mind darted about in a panic. I’ve got to do something, but…what?
She stared down into the rushing water, which suddenly seemed so far below her, fighting the numbness of her mind, trying desperately to think. I’m a good swimmer. I can save her.
She had to try. Wrenching off her shoes and coat, she straddled the rail, took a deep breath, and let herself drop feetfirst from the bridge.
The moment she hit the water, she knew she was in trouble. The icy current, far more violent than she’d supposed, began to pull her downward so she could barely keep her head above the surface. She sputtered and coughed the water from her lungs. Lack of food and the effects of the absinthe had left her with no reservoir of strength. As she tried to ignore her own peril and swim toward the rapidly careening woman, the tide shifted suddenly and forced her in another direction.
Mason swam for all she was worth. I have to keep trying. I can’t let her die like this.
Soon her struggle to reach the woman became symbolic of her own resurrected will to survive. The two became one: Her refusal to bow to crushing defeat fueled her determination to beat the river and pull the woman from its grasp.
But it was all she could do to stay afloat. The Seine was stronger than even her fierce will. With mounting panic, she reached for one of the severed tree limbs rushing by, but it sank under her weight.
She was already dangerously exhausted. The woman was now completely out of sight. She tried to force her arms and legs to move, but they were dead weight.
Suddenly, the truth loomed before her. She was going to drown.
Panic choked her. She shook off the lethargy, scratched and clawed to summon some latent strength, to battle like a fury her inevitable end. But it was no use. The current dragged her down, her clothing weighing her like a stone.
As she realized the futility of her struggles, alarm gave way to a resignation that dazed her more than absinthe ever could.
I’m twenty-five years old and I’m going to die.
But then another realization swept through her, more powerful than the last.
She’d