The Artists

Madeline looked up at the clock, it was already thirty minutes past closing but she had one more box of donations she had to sort through before she could lock-up the thrift store for the night.

The cardboard of the box was sagging with the weight of its contents. Madeline dropped the box on the counter and it landed with a heavy thud. She opened it and was greeted with the musty smell of old books.

Book donations were her favorite, she loved going through them and trying to guess what kind of person owned them even though she would never know if she was right. This box was full of classics: The Odyssey, Paradise Lost, The Divine Comedy. A recent college grad? No, the books were too old. Probably someone’s late grandparents then.

She pulled more and more books out of the boxes admiring their covers and their embossed titles. Near the end of the box, she found a strange little black book. It was bound in supple black leather and had no title or markings at all. She flipped it open to see what book it was and realized it wasn’t a book at all, but an old journal. The first entry was dated 1873.

March 30th, 1873

At night the light dances along the cobblestone roads in a romantic way, it envelopes the city gently and makes everything becomes dreamlike and soft. The people too seem molded by the softness of the light. They speak to each other in gentle whispers but if you listen closely enough you find their worlds are filled with a fervent joy.

In my brief time here I have learned that the French know how to truly enjoy life. The good wine helps but It’s more than that, it’s part of who they are. They have a word too that encapsulates this way of life “flâner”. It means something like to wander aimlessly and adoringly.

I feel as if I have been a flâneur all my life. Just riding the tide and not knowing where I was headed. I’ll admit this life does sometimes take a toll on the spirit. Sometimes I was I could walk with a purpose, even if I could stand still for a moment I would be thankful. Painting seems to satiate this desire to wander momentarily. It lets me appreciate the beauty that surrounds me. It allows me to feel connected to the world.

-V.R.

Madeline felt her throat getting scratchy with tears. She hadn’t realized how much she missed painting. She couldn’t even the last time she had done it, during her time at Cooper Union it was all she did but after she got her degree she wasn’t ever able to make a living from it. So painting became a hobby for her, one that eventually got tucked away into the back of a cabinet and forgotten about.

She traced her fingers along the initials, they were so familiar to her. It was like she was reading a letter from an old friend. She carefully flipped the worn pages until another entry caught her eye.

September, 4th 1884,

I left Paris and arrived in a quiet countryside village a couple of days ago. The summer was wonderful but I felt my love for the city becoming tainted with disdain and wanted to leave before the memories were blackened forever. I needed Paris to stay a shimmering summer daydream.

I made the mistake of not leaving once before in London and couldn’t bear the thought of it happening again. I refused to listen to my body, to the prick in my skin that was telling me it was time to leave. Instead, I let it fester and grow until it became a raging fire in my bones. I let it burn until my bones were ash, I let it burn until I could feel nothing at all. The days dragged on like the unceasing gray skies, and I found it hard to even paint anymore.

That’s why I had to leave Paris, I couldn’t let that happen again. Maybe I’ll be able to return again one day, but for now, I have Giverny and all of its unexplored wonders.

–V.R.

Madeline looked back up at the date, and then at Giverny, and then at the initials. There was no way this notebook could actually belong to him. The more she thought about it, the more everything aligned. If anyone would be able to verify her theory it’d be Sharon.

—

“You’re saying someone just donated this?” Sharon asked as she carefully flipped through the pages. Luckily, Sharon didn’t have any plans that night and was more than interested in seeing the journal herself. She was Madeline’s old friend from Cooper Union that now worked as a curator for The Met.

“You think it’s authentic then?” Madeline had figured that much herself but she was no expert.

“if it’s not, it’s the best counterfeit I’ve ever seen. I’ll take it and get the pages tested just to make sure but yeah it definitely seems real. Well, the age anyway the signature is a little harder to tell just by looking at. It is consistent through all the pages though, which again would be super hard to forge over and over again.”

After reading the entry about Giverny, Madeline immediately realized why the initials had seemed so familiar to her. The initials were signed the same way the impressionist painter Victor Radford had signed all of his work. Madeline had done a paper on under-appreciated but impactful impressionist artists during her first year at Cooper Union and Radford was one of the artists she included.

“You have no idea who donated it?”

“No, I couldn’t even find out if I wanted to. It was in a box with a bunch of other books that had been donated anonymously. It could have been anyone.”

“So if it’s real do you think you’ll try to sell it?”

“I, I don’t know. Maybe?” Up until this point Madeline had refused to let herself believe that it being real was even a possibility. Even though she had just found it earlier that day she had grown strangely attached to it. Getting rid of it felt like she’d be giving a part of herself away.

“Well if you do want to sell it shouldn’t be that hard. Even though Radford isn’t super well known it’s still a valuable piece of history. I still can’t believe it was just sitting on someone’s bookshelf collecting dust all these years.”

“When you say valuable…?” Madeline certainly could use the money, working at the thrift store didn’t pay very much.

“It’s hard to put an exact number on it, but probably somewhere around ten thousand.” Sharon said it casually, like ten thousand was no big deal.

Madeline’s heart stopped. Working at the thrift store didn’t pay that well and she could definitely use the money.

—

Sharon took the notebook with her to work the next day to get it dated and start the authentication verification process started. Madeline was off the whole day and was restless.

Every time an alert went off on her phone, she felt her heart beat against her rib cage like it was trying to escape. Time moved slowly, the ticking of Madeline's wall clock just loud enough to taunt her. She could have lived three lifetimes in that day and indeed she did. She lived out her current lifetime and replayed what had happened until now; She lived out Radford's lifetime and what a marvelous life he lived; and she lived a new lifetime, one where all of her dreams came true.

it was 7:30 pm and she was giving up hope that the authentication results would come back that day when her phone finally rang.

“So?”

“The type of paper used dates back to the mid 1800s and it has all the right signs of aging.”

“So it’s real then?” Madeline asked. She was pacing back and forth her apartment while on the phone. Her heart was beating so fast it felt like it was going to escape from her chest.

“Well normally it’d be hard to tell just from that, but the signature is also definitely a match.”

Madeline’s breath caught in her throat. She couldn’t speak, even if she could speak she had no idea what she’d even say.

“And–“ Sharon continued.

“And?”

“And the museum is interested in buying it from you for $20,000.”

Sometime during the day, Madeline had decided that she would sell it. Even though she felt like it was real before, she hadn't really accepted it until Sharon said that the museum wanted to buy it. She imagined it would take longer, that she'd have more time to spend with Radford's writing. The journal had reminded her how much she loved painting, how much she missed it. As much she didn't want to part with the journal she knew she had to. It was a valuable piece of art history and it deserved to be shared with the world.

“Okay.” Madeline finally said after a long pause.

Okay?”

“Okay, I’ll sell it.” Madeline said, finally allowing herself to envision how she would spend the money. She pictured herself in a studio, light flooding in from gigantic north-facing windows like traditional artists used to have. The space was messy with inspiration, paint covering every surface including her clothes. Canvases were strewn here or there in various states of completion. It felt so real, and for the first time, it wasn’t beyond her reach. Finally, she would have a space to create.