I still can’t believe it. She was 32. What about Michel? Our son that was born just last year? I refuse to live in poverty for another second! We had to move in with our friends Ernest and Alice Hoschede. I owe my well-to-do artist friends money. Manet has been trying to convince us all to submit our paintings to the Salon because that’s where the commissions, prizes, and prestige is!
Ernest became bankrupt last year and fled to Holland, leaving Alice and their kids. Alice is a great woman. She offered to help raise Jean and Michel. They’re leaving me the house so I can work and she is taking the kids to her apartment in Paris for awhile.
I’m thinking about working on a series documenting the French countryside and how the light and weather affect the subject. I’m thinking…let me look out the window-------haystacks!
