Manet laughed. “The public can judge harshly with or without prior knowledge, Monsieur Renoir. I can attest to that today.”
Behind them, a woman looking at Manet’s painting giggled, while a young pregnant girl pretended to be faint and needed to be helped away from the tableau by her heroic, falsely offended husband. Manet winced.
“It is a masterpiece!” said Bazille, trying to distract the older painter from the criticism. “We all agree. We are all students at Monsieur Gleyre’s studio.”
The other two nodded. “Bazille just failed his medical exams,” said Renoir.
Bazille glared at his friend. “Why would you tell him that?”
“So he’ll feel better about people laughing at his picture,” said Renoir. “Which is magnificent, even if the girl is a little skinny.”
“She’s real,” said Monet. “That’s the genius of it.”
“I like a girl with a substantial bottom,” said Renoir, drawing in the air the size bottom he preferred.
“Did you paint it en plein air?” asked Monet. They had all been painting in the open air recently, working indoors only for the figure drawings at Gleyre’s studio or to copy paintings at the Louvre.
“I did the sketches in the field, but I painted it in my studio,” said Manet.
“What do you call it?” asked Bazille.
“I call it The Bath,” said Manet, feeling a little better now about the public’s reaction. These were intelligent young men who knew painting, who understood what he was trying to do, and they liked the picture.
“Well that’s a stupid title,” said a woman’s voice, suddenly in the midst of them. “She’s not even wet.”
The young painters stepped back. A woman draped in black Spanish lace had imposed herself into the group.
“Perhaps we’ve happened onto the scene before the bathing,” said Manet. “The motif is classical, madame. After Raphael’s Judgment of Paris.”
“I knew the pose looked familiar,” said Bazille. “I’ve seen an etching of that painting in the Louvre.”
“Well that explains it,” said the woman. “The Louvre’s a little pious, isn’t it? Can’t throw a round of darts in there without scoring three Madonnas and a baby Jesus. And Raphael was a lazy little fop.”
“He was a great master,” said Manet with the tone of a disappointed schoolmaster. “Although it seems the Salon has missed the classical reference,” he added with a sigh.
“The Salon is out of touch,” said Bazille.
“They are pretenders and politicians,” said Monet. “They wouldn’t know good painting if Rembrandt himself showed it to them.”
“They accepted one of my paintings this year,” said Renoir.
And everyone turned to him, even the woman in lace.
“What is wrong with you?” said Bazille.
Renoir shrugged. “It hasn’t sold.”
“Apologies,” said Monet. “Renoir is a painter who is only a painter. Polite society is a mystery to him.”
Manet smiled. “Congratulations, Monsieur Renoir. May I shake your hand?”
Renoir beamed with the attention of the older artist. “Maybe she’s not too skinny,” he said as he took Manet’s hand.
“Well she’s not wet,” said the woman. “This is not a picture of bathers. Looks to me like she’s deciding which of these two she’s going to bonk in the bushes.”
Now everyone turned to the woman, the young men rendered speechless by a mix of embarrassment and titillation. Manet was simply horrified.
“Unless she’s already done the deed,” continued the woman. “Look, their lunch is tossed all over the place. That expression on her face—she seems to be saying, ‘Absolutely, I fucked them both. In the weeds. On our lunch.’”