Chapter 11

Georges strode through the Latin Quarter and Camille and I had to rush to keep up with him. We were out of breath, hairlines damp and corsets digging into our ribs by the time we got to 182 rue de l’Université. Rodin’s atelier was in the Dépôt des Marbres where the Government stored the marble for State commissions. Georges led us into an open-air courtyard filled with dust and noise. I had been in stone-cutting yards before but never one so large and busy; it was like a small factory. Georges had to shout above the din of chisels being hammered into marble and the rumble of wheelbarrows as workmen moved blocks of stone around the yard.

‘Eh, Jules,’ he called to a wiry man up a ladder. ‘Come down from there and meet Rodin’s latest slaves.’

The man slid down the outside of the ladder. He removed the cotton kerchief he’d wrapped around his face, which was dusted white and marked with two rivulets of sweat, like a weeping statue. Jules Desbois, the senior practicien or stone sculptor, wiped a filthy hand on his shirt and shook our hands.

‘Women in the studio, I’ve seen everything now. But,’ a shrug of the shoulders, ‘if Rodin thinks you’re up to the job, who am I to go against the maître?’ He began to pace to and fro, his hands behind his back as he delivered an evidently well-rehearsed lecture. ‘I warn you now, there won’t be any allowances made for you. We work twelve hours a day, sometimes sixteen. Rodin makes the maquettes and we turn them into stone or bronze statues weighing a ton. We work as a team here, there’s no glory for anyone other than Rodin. The pay is poor and Rodin can be difficult, but,’ another shrug, ‘he is a genius.’ He stopped pacing and put his hands on his hips. ‘I’ll treat you like the men – no better, but no worse. You’ll get a fair crack of the whip. If you can take the pace, I’ll have your backs. If not, you should leave now.’

Camille was the first to speak. ‘We are not afraid of hard work, or of Monsieur Rodin. We expect him to be as exacting with us as with any of the men working here. You will find us their equal in stamina, if not strength. And as for talent, he has chosen Jessie and me out of his many students.’

‘You think you’re up to it?’ Desbois rubbed his chin. ‘One other thing – this is the coldest place on God’s earth in winter. Enough to freeze your balls off, eh Georges?’ He waited for our reaction. He wanted to shock us and it made me angry. If he imagined he could intimidate us with some coarse language, he was about to be proved wrong.

‘I suppose that’s where we have the advantage, Monsieur as, fortunately, we have no balls,’ I said with a sweet smile, spreading my skirts. Desbois looked stunned for a moment, and then he guffawed and slapped Georges on the back.

‘A pair of cool customers. Where did Rodin find them? The lads better watch out, they’ve met their match with these two. I tell you what, come back next week and we’ll see what you’re made of.’ He turned his back on us, whistling as he returned to his work.

Georges lit a cigarette. ‘Well done. Desbois is not usually so easy to get round.’ He looked at me through the smoke. ‘You make quite an impression, Jessie.’

Camille scowled and pulled at his arm. ‘Come on, we’re wasting time. I thought you were going to show us around.’

Studio M, Rodin’s main Paris atelier, was cavernous, with bare white walls and a flagstone floor. Light flooded in through arched windows onto plaster models of all sizes and in different stages of completion. On one table, the figure of a man was crouched over two small, lifeless bodies. It was Dante’s Ugolino, an Italian nobleman who was imprisoned for treason and forced to eat his children’s corpses before he too starved to death. I wrenched my eyes away from the gruesome tableau and looked around the room. It was almost too much to take in: every surface was crowded with plaster arms, legs and heads. At the back of the room, vast portals towered nearly to the ceiling. Figures sprang out of them and seemed to writhe in ecstasy. I walked towards the massive structure, as if in a trance, until I was close enough to study the yearning, tormented creatures. Each tiny face was contorted by a different expression of agony, lust or despair. I had never seen anything quite like it.

‘The Gates of Hell,’ Georges stood behind me, so close I could smell his lemon cologne and feel the warmth from his body. When he pointed at the giant doors, it was as if he embraced me. I tried to concentrate on what he was saying about the figure that topped the doors, a seated nude, his chin on his fist, as if deep in thought. I could not know then that The Thinker would become the world’s most iconic sculpture.

‘It is Dante, looking out over the circles of hell,’ Georges said.

‘No, it is Rodin.’ My senses overwhelmed first by Rodin’s masterpiece and then by Georges’ physical closeness, I hadn’t noticed Camille. Her words broke the spell and Georges took a step away from me.

His tone was irritable. ‘You always sound so sure of yourself, Camille.’ He shaded his eyes to peer at the statue where the ceiling cast a shadow. ‘But the figure looks nothing like the maître ­­– too young, for a start.’

‘Don’t be so damned literal, Georges. It’s Rodin, I tell you,’ she said, beginning to throw her arms about in an effort to explain. ‘Can’t you see? He’s the archetype of all artists: he’s Dante, Baudelaire, Balzac, Hugo and Rodin, above all, Rodin, dreaming into being his creations. But it is not an easy dream – look how every muscle in his body tenses with the effort of imagining, even his toes are gripping. It is Rodin as Creator.’

‘Very perceptive, Mademoiselle Claudel.’ We turned to see Rodin. He stood easily, hands in his trouser pockets, the master of his studio. ‘Do you like my door to Hell? I hope you can both help me complete the infernal thing.’ He smiled, pleased with his joke.

I was about to launch into an embarrassing gush of praise when Camille broke in, all business. ‘It’s all settled, we can join your studio.’

Rodin clapped his hands. ‘Excellent, I knew you would find a way. And you have conscripted Georges to your camp, I see. Very wise! Now, allow me to give you a guided tour, with commentary by the artist.’ He smiled affably and stretched out his hand to Camille; she ignored it and took my arm.

As he walked around the studio and talked about his work, Rodin worked away at a small piece of clay. He stopped at a pair of seated lovers locked in an embrace. Once again, I found myself looking at a masterpiece, one that would become famous as a symbol of romantic love. It is an extraordinary privilege to have been one of the first people in the world to have seen The Kiss, and one I still cherish.

We stood in awed silence in front of the sculpture. The couple were consumed with desire, lost in each other, the woman as hungry as the man. Tantalisingly, their lips did not meet. To look at them was to experience the thrill of the voyeur. Camille broke away from me and stepped closer to stroke the woman’s haunch. Georges took her place next to me and placed a hand on my back.

‘What do you call it?’ Camille asked Rodin.

‘The critics call it The Kiss, but the original title is Francesca da Rimini.’

‘The adulterous lovers, Paolo and Francesca, from Dante’s second circle of Hell,’ I said. ‘She fell in love with her husband’s brother while they were reading the tale of Lancelot and Guinevere.’

‘You know your Dante,’ Rodin said, taking a well-thumbed book from his pocket and showing me the cover: La Divina Commedia. ‘I take it with me everywhere.’

Camille was also transfixed by the sculpture. ‘The woman is desperate for him, she is the man’s equal in passion, pulling him close while he holds himself back. It is the moment before.’

Rodin and Camille shared a long look and once again I was the voyeur.

He opened his palm to show her a small, clay hand, its fingers curled in supplication. ‘For you, because you know that the hands and the feet are the most expressive parts of the body.’ Camille took the hand from him and studied it. Rodin turned to us. ‘The models are about to return from lunch and I must get back to work. But please stay if you wish. Georges will look after you.’

Rodin went over to a noisy trio, who had come into the studio. It was the two Italian women we had seen at the Colarossi and Giganti.

Georges gave a low whistle. ‘Two sisters – one fair as day the other dark as night. Rodin has a good eye, eh Camille?’ He nudged her but she ignored him.

The sisters didn’t bother with a changing screen and pulled off their cotton blouses and stepped out of their gathered skirts where they stood. Naked, they began to parade around the studio, as comfortable as if they were strolling fully clothed through a street market. Giganti kicked off his clogs and was soon as naked as the other two. His physique was breathtaking: an anatomist’s dream of muscles and sinews. Rodin gestured to Giganti and he began tumbling like a circus acrobat. The blonde sister danced with abandon to music only she could hear, arms weaving. Meanwhile, the dark one squatted on a dais, careless of her modesty.

Rodin followed the models, walking round them to catch every perspective, drawing lightly, quickly, furiously. I had never seen anything like it and began to realise why Rodin’s sculptures were so alive. It was a technique I adopted as my own and followed throughout my life, always placing models on a rotating plinth so they could be seen from all angles. As Rodin finished each sketch he let it drop in his wake. Georges began to gather up the papers and Camille and I went to help. We laid them out on a large table.

‘He’ll colour them later with ink washes,’ Georges said.

I studied the drawings. The squatting model, whose pose could have been crude in a lesser hand, was transformed by Rodin’s delicate pencil marks into one of nature’s innocent creatures.

Camille traced the lines with her finger. ‘She is like a wild animal, caught unawares.’

We were well matched, Camille and I; we saw with the same eyes. I knew at that moment that I had come to the right place and was with the right people. Paris was my home now.

As we left the studio, I paused for one last look and saw Rodin standing in the middle of the room. He was staring after Camille like of one of the tormented souls from The Gates of Hell.