I Always Loved You by Robin Oliveira

welcoming everyone was, you should know that you are at a disadvantage. Monsieur Degas is always dragging in strays.”
    â€œStrays?”
    â€œNew painters,” Berthe said. “I don’t want to be unkind, but Degas seems to think that anyone he discovers is wonderful, and we don’t always agree with him.”
    Mary tried to forgive Berthe the cruelty of the word
stray
, though she was finding it hard to reconcile the suddenly unsympathetic woman beside her with the extravagantly feminine paintings she had exhibited at the Rue le Peletier.
    â€œI see. And how did you prove yourself?” Mary said.
    â€œI’m married to Eugène. And I paint.”
    â€œAs do I,” Mary said.
    â€œThey will exclude you until they approve of your work, and maybe not even then.”
They
will exclude
,
as if Berthe were including her now. And maybe she was. Maybe this was the way French women made friends. They warned you of the hurdles ahead and then sat back to see how you fared.
    â€œHow did you meet Monsieur Degas?” Berthe said.
    â€œHe begged the introduction; he apparently has admired my work for some time.”
    Berthe looked away, but Mary felt her small victory.
    In the corner, Zola had commandeered the end of the piano, the place of power, his bulk leaning against the instrument. He had emitted only a low growl of a sigh in response to Mallarmé’s taunt. Degas, seated beside him, eagerly took up the gauntlet. “Unfair, Stéphane, when Zola imitates life in art so clearly that he defines realism. The triumph of his mimesis trumps whatever lazy prose you accuse him of.”
    â€œYou realists band together,” Mallarmé said. “I agree Monsieur Zola is the definition of modern, as are you. And Émile knows I admire him. But excellence is a responsibility. It’s fine to describe a sky, and you do it well,” he said, turning to Zola, “but the character’s contemplation of it has to have some connection to the narrative. Some reason why it exists in the novel. Nothing can be superfluous.”
    â€œExcuse me, Stéphane, but a novel is not a poem,” Zola said. “You are mistaking the two genres as one.”
    â€œNothing is superfluous in a poem,” Mallarmé said.
    â€œWatch,” Berthe whispered. “Now Monsieur Zola will insult Monsieur Mallarmé.”
    â€œAll poetry is superfluous,” Zola said.
    â€œ
See?
” Berthe mouthed.
    â€œYou mistook my meaning, Émile,” Mallarmé said. “And you lack curiosity.”
    â€œI will mistake your meaning every time you tell me how to write a novel when you are capable of composing only twenty or thirty lines. You write neat little rhymes, but nothing of scope,” Zola said. “And besides, nobody understands what your poems mean anyway.”
    â€œDensity is not a fault,” Mallarmé said.
    â€œBut clarity is a virtue,” Zola said. “And besides, everyone looks at the sky, so why not include a little description of it? It hardly ruins the narrative.”
    Degas, feverishly rolling his empty glass between his palms, said, “Let’s apply your argument to you, Émile. If what you say is true, that Stéphane is unqualified to critique you, then how are you qualified to critique art when you have never painted a picture?”
    Zola made a show of pulling his pocket watch from his vest. He always left the Manets’ Thursdays early so he could attend his own Thursday salon, which everyone knew didn’t begin until ten o’clock, after his friends had left the theater or the café chantants and were in need of a watering hole and companionship until two or three in the morning. Several guests here would migrate there this evening, after Suzanne finished her first two piano pieces, drifting out with nods and apologies and spilling with relief onto the street, where they would shake off the pall of Suzanne’s