Her romance with Georges Clairin was a beautiful thing. She was, I am convinced, genuinely in love with the great painter.
She spent all her afternoons for weeks in Clairin’s studio. Sometimes they would work silently for hours, side by side, scarcely exchanging a word. At others they would abandon work and sit and talk to each other, oblivious of their surroundings. Sarah inspired many of Clairin’s paintings, and was the model for several.
Once I accompanied her to Clairin’s studio. It was a great room, bare of ornament except for easels and pictures that were scattered about. Over a huge sofa hung a white bear skin, similar to the one Clairin had given to Sarah.
Clairin was not there when we arrived, and Sarah astonished me by crossing to the sofa and proceeding to take off her shoes and stockings.
“Whatever are you doing?” I demanded.
“He is going to paint my feet,” she answered, and indicated a large unfinished canvas, representing Sarah as a Gypsy boy, in rags, wielding a mouth organ. A tame bear danced to the music, and a greasy Bohemian, presumably the boy’s father, turned the handle of a street piano.
Where this canvas went I never knew. It was not exhibited, as far as I am aware. Some said that Sarah destroyed it in a fit of rage, when she quarrelled with Clairin. Her romances invariably had their climax in these terrific disputes.
When the artist entered, clad in a green velvet jacket, Sarah ran to him crying: “Mon petit Geogotte! Mon petit Geogotte!”
She fondled him, kissing his face and long hair, scolding him for spots of paint on his black tie, and using little endearing adjectives that were a fresh revelation to me of Sarah, the lover.
Clairin showed her a painting in water-colours which he had done while visiting at Fontainebleau. Taking a crayon, he wrote on the back: “To the Perfect Woman,” and handed it to her.