He was a tobacco planter who danced with energy, dashing about the floor like a fox in the woods. Sarah teased him until she saw Charlotte's eyes following them.
Rosa led the conversation at intermission over cakes and punch. "My cousin Sally has the Peale talent for portrait painting."
"Is it easy to capture a likeness?" someone asked Sarah.
"No, it's never easy."
"Then why would you spend so much time doing it?" Charlotte asked. "There are so many men devoting their lives to it."
"Why?" Sarah looked wonderingly into Charlotte's eyes. She glanced at the faces of the others who politely waited for her reply. "I do it because I want to excel." Her answer was instinctive, but it brought smiles and giggles. Charlotte's eyes showed sympathy mingled with amusement. Hurt, Sarah was speechless, but the moment passed. The conversation moved on. To these people her struggle could not possibly succeed or make any difference anyway. They believed she was wasting her time. She longed to explain, to tell them they were wrong. It was possible to do what she wanted to do. She would excel.
The music began again, and Thomas asked Charlotte to dance. Sarah watched them, seeing the scene as a painting: light touched their foreheads, shadows revealed bone structure under the surface of their skin. She saw proportion, composition. Though she participated, she also observed, very carefully.
Perhaps Ben would understand. Or did he think she was wasting her time just as the others did? Her head whirled with images of the smiling faces around her, then of Ben.
She was glad to leave when the evening ended, but when she reached her room she was not ready to sleep. Ben had written her a letter she hadn't answered. Even before she took off her party dress she picked up her pen and poured out her thoughts to him:
Your letter came several days ago and since you did write, I must assume you have given some thought to me at least. You are an honest hard-working person and not of our family; therefore, I am writing to ask you a vital question. You have been to medical school, which I have heard is very demanding, so you understand sacrifice and working hard for "what you want. But if I am not mistaken about you, Ben, you are also practical and a man of sensibilities.
As you must know, I take my painting seriously. My father expects me to help in his painting room. When people come to my father for their portraits, they expect a painting that will give them pleasure for the rest of their lives and remain as a testament after their deaths. To prepare myself for this work, I am studying very hard to become an excellent artist, not simply a painter of drapery and ruffles. I want to become an artist as competent as my father. Yet some people think it is a waste for me to spend so much time learning to paint when s many men are devoting their lives to it. My burning question is this, Ben. Do you understand why I want to devote myself to it? Does it seem reasonable that I should give up the little pleasures in a young woman's life to exhaust myself thus?
Respectfully yours,
Sarah
The next morning in the studio, Rembrandt paced and lectured about ways of constructing a face to make the painting worthy to live on through time. As he described paintings he had seen in London and Paris, Sarah saw that Rembrandt's purpose in painting was not to provide a likeness or to earn a living or even to describe an event in history. His art was grandly conceived and executed so people born centuries in the future would admire it.
She began to understand Rembrandt's Napoleon. The horse was magnificent, the rider a worthy-looking hero. She doubted if she would ever paint such pictures. She thought of the patrons that came to her father's shop. There would be no Napoleons there.
At the end of the lecture, Rembrandt asked if she had any questions. Sarah smiled. "Do you think Raphaelle does still-life that could last through the ages?"
Rembrandt looked startled, but clenched his jaw and gazed over the top of her head. "Raphaelle should be doing more with his talent." "He does a few miniatures when he is well enough."
Rembrandt waved the miniatures out of consideration. "He has no conception of pleasing a sitter. It's as though he wishes to insult them. I don't understand him. Why does he turn his talent and wit against himself? Is it because he resents the fact that his work isn't recognized? If so, why does he pretend it doesn't matter? His advertisements are degrading to everyone. 'No likeness, no pay. It's not hard to imagine what inspired that. Worse still, one advertisement read, 'Still Life, including both fruit pieces and portraits of the deceased!'"Why should he hang up a sign like that?"
"To be noticed," Sarah suggested.
"Yes. And such cheap prices! Why must he drag his humiliation out for all to see?" Rembrandt shook his head and lowered his voice. "He's too tender a soul to survive. His sense of his own frustrations won't give him any peace."
Rembrandt's words left Sarah with a cold prickling sensation. "I've known Raphaelle was unhappy and that was why he wasn't successful. But I still don't understand how it happens."
"None of us understands Raphaelle, not even Raphaelle."
Sarah thought about that. Her father might be the one person who understood him. "When I see his still-life paintings," Sarah said, "I can believe everything in his life is in perfect order."
"When he is painting for himself, it is." Rembrandt strode across the room. "There is nothing we can do for him." He lowered his head and looked at the floor.
In the days that followed, Sarah redoubled her efforts to make the best of her opportunity in Baltimore, but even as she worked intensely, her thoughts were often with Anna. She asked Anna to write her everything that was happening. One evening she was rewarded with a fat envelope addressed to her in Anna's handwriting. She carelessly threw her cape down on the sofa beside her in her haste to read Anna's letter.
Dear Sarah, I am glad to hear you are working diligently. If you ever come to Washington City to paint, you will wish you had worked even harder. You asked too many questions in your letter, but I will try to tell you everything. The city itself was a great disappointment. Four years of rebuilding after the burning of the public buildings in the war has not accomplished nearly as much here as in Baltimore. Here there is no elegance. My first impression was of entering a hodgepodge of buildings on an unattractive bit of pasture. But perhaps I was too hasty. We arrived in a cold driving rain and were turned away from three inns before Uncle Charles asked a friend to intercede for us. That is how we got rooms in the home of Mr. Stills on Pennsylvania Avenue for ten dollars and eight dollars each for board. The rooms are upstairs, but we are grateful to have it, even though Uncle Charles had to fix the fireplace which smoked awfully. Then he repainted the studio room with a mixture of yellow ochre, red ochre and Spanish white, which makes a fine background for portraits .But I must not fill my letter up with unimportant details. What you will want to hear ' about is our painting of President Monroe. Uncle Charles arranged the sitting through the same friend who found us the rooms. You can't imagine how nervous I was when we set off for the presidential mansion. Uncle Charles took charge of loading the easel and paint boxes into a hack. I trembled during the entire ride. Hannah was the only calm one. Calling on the President of the United States did nothing to ruffle her. I was sick with worry, but Uncle Charles noticed my trembling and took my hand. "Never doubt yourself," he said. "You have won critical awards, not undeserved. You will do what needs doing." While we waited for the President, coffee was served in an airy room with walls and carpeting all in green. The linen table cloth blindingly reflected the light. Mrs. Monroe, who looked every dignified inch the President's lady, surprised us by complaining bitterly the whole time about the dismal weather they were having. It was so ordinary, Sarah, I quite forgot to be nervous. Then the President walked into
