Little Dancer, Aged Nineteen

Edgar stumbled out into the street, cursing under his breath at the landlord’s impudence. Too much to drink, indeed. He spat in the gutter and dug his hands into his coat pockets, hunching his shoulders against the cold. A light mist of rain clung to his beard.

He slouched westward along the Rue de la Chanvrerie in the shadows, shrouded in misery and destitution. If he could not sell Portrait de Mademoiselle Dupont, he would not meet his rent.

A filthy and rain-sodden gamin begged from the street corner. ‘Away with you!’ Edgar barked, hand raised in a gesture of violence. The boy, perhaps no older than six, turned on his feet and disappeared into the gloom.

Edgar pushed on. He had no idea the direction he took, nor why, but knew that nothing awaited him at home except a blank canvas with nothing to go on it.

He looked up from the cobbles as he turned another corner, squinting in the rain. He stopped, though for what reason he did not immediately know. And then a voice, quiet and croaky, spoke to him from the darkness between two buildings.

‘Monsieur, can I have a franc?’

There was something in the voice, something that struck a chord in Edgar’s heart. He rejected the notion of cursing at her and walking away, and instead said, ‘Come here.’

Shadows moved in the darkness. A teenage girl, her shawl soaked through, stepped out of the murk and smiled a gentle smile. ‘Can I have a franc, Monsieur?’

Edgar squinted further to make her features out. His face did not belie the surprise he felt. ‘What is your name, child?’ He took a solitary step forward and as he did, the girl took one step back.

‘Marie,’ she said.

‘Marie.’ It was as though he was sounding the name for the first time, but he had uttered it many times before.

‘Do you have a franc?’ she asked again. ‘For more, I can make you happy.’

‘I am happy,’ Edgar said.

‘What man is truly happy?’

The corner of Edgar’s mouth twitched. Such true words from one so young. ‘How old are you, Marie?’ he asked. ‘Nineteen?’

Marie nodded. Many men thought she was older; the lines on her face often purported her to be beyond the age of attraction. It made for fewer punters.

‘Come back into the light,’ Edgar said.

‘I’m happy here, if it’s all the same. Do you have any money?’

He patted his pockets. ‘I have money,’ he said. ‘At home, I have money. Come.’

‘How much?’

Edgar considered her shadowed form. ‘How much do you want?’

Marie laughed. ‘I want more than I need. What is your address? I will follow.’

He quickly dragged the table into the middle of the room and draped a cloak over the tall statuette on top of it to hide it from view – a shrouded masterpiece ready for display for only the second time in its existence. Perhaps this time it would get a better reception.

He struggled to keep the burning embers of the fire alive until she arrived. When the knock came to the door, Edgar’s pulse raced. Did she know yet? Had she really forgotten him?

Opening the door, he found her shivering under her shawl. ‘Come in. You are cold.’

Timidly, as though sensing some kind of trick or danger, Marie looked around and stepped into the room, hovering by the doorway in case a quick escape was needed.

The dank room was decorated in sketches and paintings around each wall, some framed, some just canvas tacked up as though in a hurry to be hanged.

And there, in the middle of the musty room, atop a rickety little table, stood something covered in a tatty cloth. ‘What is this?’ she asked.

‘Do you not remember?’ Edgar replied. He joined his hands, pressed his fingers to his mouth.

‘Remember what?’ Marie asked. She hugged her shawl tighter. ‘Cold in here.’

‘You’re wet,’ Edgar said. ‘Come, sit by the fire. Allow me to take your shawl to dry.’ He ushered her towards a stool by the dying fire and, in the light, saw in her eyes the timidity of a rabbit and the voraciousness of a wild animal. Her skin was taut and cracked, nothing like he expected of a nineteen-year-old. A cold sore throbbed in the corner of her mouth and her eyes were rimmed with the redness of drugs.

‘Petite fille,’ Edgar said. ‘What has become of you?’

‘Nothing has become of me, Monsieur. Why ever do you say these things with such familiarity?’

Edgar turned from her. ‘You do not know me.’

‘Should I?’ Marie asked. She warmed her hands above the embers of the fire.

Edgar’s shoulders slumped. ‘Perhaps not.’ She was definitely the one, he was sure of it. But he asked, ‘Your name, child.’

‘Marie. I told you so.’

‘Yes, yes. Of course you did,’ Edgar said. ‘Mademoiselle Marie van Goetham.’

‘Once, yes,’ Marie said. ‘Now I am simply Marie. Names and titles matter little to me.’

‘One’s name is one’s life,’ Edgar said. ‘Do you not know my name?’

Marie stood. ‘What shall I call you? If it pleases you, I shall call you père. Or mon amoureux. Or maître if we should agree a suitable payment.’

‘No, no,’ Edgar said. He moved to the shrouded object on the table. ‘My name,’ and here he paused for emphasis, ‘is Edgar. Monsieur Edgar Degas.’

Marie bowed theatrically. ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance.’

‘Still you do not know me?’

‘I know man,’ Marie replied. ‘I have known many men.’

Edgar flattened his lips. He turned and removed the drape from the statue on his table, revealing the likeness of a young ballet dancer, cast in wax with a wig of hair and a tutu of plain fabric. Its first public viewing had been mocked. Now, Marie van Goetham rushed to it, laughing and clapping her hands to her mouth.

‘You see?’ Edgar asked.

‘It’s disgusting,’ Marie said. ‘Yet in its horror there is recognisable carelessness in the girl.’

‘Marie...’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I am ugly, a woman of nothing. As a child, I danced as this girl has done.’

‘Marie, do you not remem-’

‘What of her?’ Marie asked. ‘What of the girl before me? Did perhaps she dance for the king? Or perform for thousands?’

Edgar Degas took Marie’s chin in his hand and stared into her eyes. ‘Child,’ he said. ‘You have no knowledge. No childhood.’

‘Pah!’ she exclaimed. ‘What is the past, but a reminder of things gone?’

‘What have you done with yourself?’

‘I have a life,’ Marie said.

‘A sad one,’ Edgar told her. ‘You beg on corners, you baise with strangers.’

‘No man is a stranger,’ Marie said, and she pulled away from his grasp. ‘All men want something, and I have it to give.’

‘You debase your body with men and drugs.’

‘I dabble a little. Doesn’t everyone?’

‘Have you no memory of your youth? Of your glory days?’

Marie slapped him and Edgar bumped the table. The wax dancer toppled and fell to the ground, breaking in two.

‘No!’ Edgar dropped to his knees as Marie backed away to the door.

‘My youth is none of your concern,’ she said. ‘Your dancer is ugly. Ugly has little place in this world.’

When she left, Edgar wept, his tears falling upon the wax head of Marie van Goetham. ‘All innocence is lost,’ he cried. ‘Corruption gained.’

He picked the pieces of the statue up and carried them to the table. The girl had been a wonder. A marvel to behold. And through his tears, he berated himself for languishing in the past, just as Marie had said. In five years, much had changed. Marie, his art, his status and his place in the world.

He stoked the fire. The wax would be recast, for no one, no matter how hard they try, can ever really escape the past.

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Based upon real persons. Edgar Degas (1834–1917) fashioned a likeness of Marie van Goetham in wax, called La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans ('Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen'). It was cast in bronze only after his death. Nothing is known of Marie van Goetham after the age of 17 when her dancing career ended but it is rumoured that she and her sisters were often prostituted by their mother.