Paris (France) -- History -- Commune, 1871 -- Fiction
The next day Minette Dufaure appeared at the studio and had ever since
sat for all the female figures required. The air of disdain and defiance
she had first shown soon passed away, and she entered with zest and
eagerness upon her work. She delighted in being prettily and becomingly
dressed. She listened intelligently to the master's descriptions of the
characters that she was to assume, and delighted him with the readiness
with which she assumed suitable poses, and the steadiness with which she
maintained them.
There was nothing of the stiffness of the model in her attitudes. They
had the charm of being unstudied and natural, and whether as a
bacchanal, a peasant girl, or a Gaulish amazon, she looked the part
equally well; her face was singularly mobile, and although this was an
inferior consideration to the master, she never failed to represent the
expression appropriate to the character she assumed.
Her reputation was soon established among the artists who occasionally
dropped into Goude's studio, and her spare time was fully occupied, and
that at much higher rates of pay than those she earned with him. After
the first two or three months she came but twice a week there, as that
amply sufficed for the needs of the studio. On his telling her that he
should no longer require her to come three times a week, as his pupils
had other things to learn besides drawing the female figure, the master
said--
"I must pay you higher in future, Minette. I know that my friends are
paying you five francs an hour."
"A bargain is a bargain," she said. "You came to me first, and but for
you I should never have earned a penny. Now we have moved into a better
street and have comfortable lodgings. We have everything we want, and I
am laying by money fast. You have always treated me well, and I like you
though your temper is even worse than my father's. I shall keep to my
agreement as long as you keep to yours, and if you do not I shall not
come here at all."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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