Duke of Camellias

NINE

To Blair's relief, Emmanuel came down for breakfast the next day. In fact, the following days the two resumed their usual routine. Eating breakfast in silence, a plate of meat for Emmanuel, and a plate of everything for Blair. However, they never continued with the story, Emmanuel occasionally going to paint or telling Blair he had a day free to rest.

Finally, some days later, after they finished eating, Emmanuel announced they should both go to his painting-room.

"Why?" Blair asked.

"Why not?"

"Don't we have work to do? I haven't asked, but you never continued with the story," Blair ventured. "Shouldn't we keep going?"

"We have time."

"You'll be paying for me to do nothing."

"Oh, it's fine," Emmanuel sighed. "The second part is finished, and I think you deserve a break." Blair didn't look convinced. "Fine, then maybe I want a break. Is that fine with you, your highness?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you so." Obediently, Blair stood up and followed him up the stairs and down the hallway.

They stopped at a room at the end of the hallway, and when Emmanuel opened the door and gestured for him to go in, Blair stood with his mouth wide open and turned to look around the room.

One side of the house was of a big balcony, and then Emmanuel pulled apart the curtains so the sunlight shone in and he could paint with the natural light.

The walls hung with drapery and frames, and canvases, many, many canvases. Some were blank, newly made, while others had rough charcoal outlines, whereas some were finished.

The floor, by contrast, was covered with newspapers and periodicals, with droplets of paint. Blair avoided the areas with paint, but Emmanuel walked without care, crumpling paper underneath his shoes, and then they reached the easel where a canvas sat.

"Here," Emmanuel said, "is where I paint. Do you know what I paint?"

"Women?" Blair asked. Emmanuel nodded. He pulled out a painting, and rested it on the easel. Blair watched in fascination.

The woman in the painting was completely nude, and reclined on a coach like the two in their parlor room, brocaded and with ornate arms. She was turned and looking at something existing outside of the canvas, and so realistic Blair could not believe Emmanuel did not use a model.

"You painted this?" he asked. Emmanuel smiled, to his surprise, an angelic and happy smile, as though he was showing off something to his mother with pride.

Once this is over...

"I painted such things, but I never sold them. I never knew why, until two nights ago, when we were drinking wine in your room. Do you remember? It was before you were drunk. You touched my arm, and said I was manly, and strong." He chuckled. "What a strange thing, I thought."

...you'll leave.

"I remember." Blair tilted his head to one side. "Why is it so strange?"

Just like everyone else.

"It was the first time anyone said I was manly." Emmanuel turned back to the painting, and then frowned, softly. "Don't you think the women I paint all look like me?"

Blair looked carefully, and then he realized it.

They had the same dark hair, curly, and falling over their face, messy, wild, untied.

"Yes."

"I suppose I had always been thinking of myself as a woman." Emmanuel reached out, and softly traced the woman's face, her profile gentle and familiar, still staring off into the far distance, looking like she was longing for someone. "For I had lived like one. And yet I wasn't one."