How did Gilot break free? It helped that she had a fling with a suitor her own age, who didn’t understand why she was going crazy over such a mean old man. And she had her art. Late in her book comes this perverse, delectable scene:
Once as I was working at a painting that had been giving me a great deal of trouble, I heard a small timid knock at the door.
Yes,” I called out and kept on working. I heard Claude’s voice, softly, from the other side of the door.
“Mama, I love you.”
I wanted to go out, but I couldn’t put down my brushes, not just then. “I love you too, my darling,” I said, and kept at my work.
A few minutes passed. Then I heard him again, “Mama, I like your painting.”
“Thank you, darling,” I said. “You’re an angel.”
In another minute, he spoke out again. “Mama, what you do is very nice. It’s got fantasy in it but it’s not fantastic.”
That stayed my hand, but I said nothing. He must have felt me hesitate. He spoke up, louder now. “It’s better than Papa’s,” he said.
I went to the door and let him in.
The art monster versus the mother: this struggle is familiar to many women. What comes through here is the strength of Gilot’s ego. “It’s got fantasy in it but it’s not fantastic”: What child says that? One who has been trained to flatter his mother.
posted by f.sheikh