Bronze shoulders flecked with light. The hotel ablaze with
golden, square-paned windows. At midnight, the Musee Rodin was a land of
waterless fountains, shadows feigning humans and darkness as crisp as clipped
hedges. The sculptures looked as if they would be tempted to move if only the
clock struck right.
Our feet ached from the seemingly endless night of museums,
but when we walked into Rodin’s midnight garden, I felt suddenly awakened as if
under a spell. This hotel, where Rodin worked in towards the end of his life, now
had creaking bones and peeling paint but the sculptures inside writhed with
life. There was the bronze of a man holding his hair back, so lifelike that
envious artists took Rodin to court, accusing him of using a cast. There were
the multiple renditions of Balzac and his great belly, its importance only
rivaled by his ego. The many contorted female bodies, one flashing her
innermost part. The beautiful cascade of marble hair from the sleeping woman
was one I could relate to.
It had rained that day and unseen mud clung to my boots. We
didn’t know it then but it would rain everyday in Paris. We laid down a museum
map on a wet bench and I found his shoulder to rest on, warmer than weathered
bronze.