Song Fiction No. 2

Paris, 1883

The two friends looked up the grand staircase and watched as Vergine descended.  As she walked down the stairs, the room was hushed.  The hostess certainly new how to make an entrance.  Vergine's eyes swept to the right and then the left, searching for her husband.

Meanwhile the two men, captivated, observed her in two very different ways.  Pierre's eyes captured the mathematics of her profile.  He saw the angle of her face as it was positioned away from shoulder.  He thought the proportions of her features absolutely perfect in every way.  If the crowd of tuxedos and ball-gowns around him could read his mind, they might think his love for her a sterile, scientific thing.  His love for her was measured and quantified in every way.

For John, time stopped.  He saw the light shining on her pale skin and the way her hand clutched her dress.  The image seared into his mind and he took a small step back.  There was only raw frenzy of the folds of her black dress as she raised it slightly to descend the staircase.  For him, he saw no numbers or measurements, he only felt the vertiginous feeling of her descent and the almost haughty look over the crowd.  As Vergine reached out her hand, he wanted to reach out to take it.

Instead, he raised his hand and grabbed a glass of champagne off of a silver tray that was passing by.  He watched Pierre's white gloved hand take his wife away to circulate amongst the guests.

Paris, 1916

The old man hobbled into the John's studio.  It had been years since the frenzy of the 1884 Exhibition.  Pierre had stood by his wife stoically, knowing that nothing untoward had happened.  He had been amused by the portrait had taken the supposed disgrace in stride.

Vergine had been broken hearted when her friends had shunned her for her supposed indiscretions.  She removed herself from the receptions and galas for what seemed like years.  She swore that she would never again pose for another one of those "god-damned" painters.  She changed her mind.  The flattery of the artists was too much to resist and Vergine had the curious American ability to forgive and forget.  It was that virtue that had attracted Pierre in the first place.  Holding a grudge seemed so boring and, heaven knows, he had needed her forgiveness on several occasions.

Now old, Pierre looked at the door to the studio and rapped his cane against the door.  There had never truly been any bad blood between the two men and when they had embraced outside of the studio, the felt the connection of two soldiers who had weathered a particularly bad battle together.

As Pierre's near-sighted eyes focused in on the painting, he became acutely aware of the sound of his cane on the wood floor.  He felt a pain in his chest as he saw the painting.  As he slowed down his pace to take it in, he inhaled sharply.

The strap was gone.  The table was missing.  It was not his Vergine as he had remembered her.  The clarity of the portrait was gone and the rougher hews of line and texture of the study added an almost imperceptible undercurrent of lust that had been absent in the portrait that he had seen in 1884.  Pierre still knew every angle and curve of his wife and he held his breath for a moment.  His free hand searched for a chair and he sat down.

"Pierre, old friend," said John, "We must talk."



"Study of Mme Gautreau by John Singer Sargent c1884" by John Singer Sargent - [1]. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

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Find out more about #yearofplay by reading the text of this song.  This little piece of fiction is one of the stories that runs through my head as I'm working on the first part of my upcoming work with the "Denver Art Song Project".