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the novelty of a listener as interested as Paula,
had made Maggy forget her experience with the painter she knew was called Mistral.
    "Listen to me, my little
one.   You must put Mistral and his
abominable manners out of your mind.   Vava tells me he's a genius but if that's true, I ask, why doesn't he
sell?   How much of a genius can he be if
he can't afford to eat at my restaurant?"   Clearly this was Paula's yardstick of worldly achievement.
    "That woman, Kiki de
Montparnasse, does she eat at your place?" Maggy asked curiously.
    "She wouldn't dare to
put her foot in the door, that dough-faced bundle ofbones and
pretensions.   And her name is Alice
Prin.   'Kaki de Montparnasse'
indeed!"   Paula's face grew as grim
as its round contours would allow.   "To call herself that when she wasn't even born in Paris — it's too disgusting."
    "But they told me she
was queen of the models..."
    "They told you a
lie.   They know nothing.   Once, and not so long agoeither, I was queen of the models but Alice Prin has never rivaled what I was, she hasn't
come close."   Paula's lips closed in
an unforgiving line.   She could hardly
explain to the innocence of Maggy that the one who called herself Kiki had
stolen not just one but many of Paula's lovers, and then, not content with
those victories, she had boasted to all Montparnasse of them.
    "I wonder why she
insulted me? I've never done anything to her."
    "Because she is so proud
of herself that she has to make fun of every other woman she sees. But her
little group of sycophants mean nothing.   Listen to me, Maggy, you look like no one else in the world.   You were born to be painted."
    "Born?" Maggy
stopped.   Paula's words, stated with such
authority, were so unexpected that they robbed her of speech.
    "Yes, born, as a
hummingbird is born to seek nectar, as a bee is born to sting, as a chicken is
born to be roasted.   But this business of
offering yourself in the street in the foire aux models, that's out of
the question for you, understand?   I'll
introduce you to the painters who can afford to pay more than fifteen francs
for a three-hour pose — they're all my pals.   Did Mistral pay you anything, by the
way?   No, of course he wouldn't — that doesn't astonish me.   But from now
on you work only for the maximum.   Of
course you have to learn a thing or two first, but nothing I can't teach you.   It's all a matter of making up your mind to
take off your knickers — how difficult can that be, after all?   You see, it is a painter's business to learn
how each woman is made.   Whatever we may
think, they need us far more than we need them."
    "They do?" Maggy's
voice was astonished.
    "But yes. just imagine
it, Maggy.   For fifteen hundred years,
ever since the Dark Ages ended, artists have been running after this ordinary
thing, the body of a naked woman.   Nothing calls more upon an artist's strength, nothing shows up his
weakness as quickly.   Show me a man who
cannot paint a naked woman and I'll show you a man who cannot truly
paint."
    "Constantine Moreau
never told usthat. He only said ... that,well, that Renoir
would have wanted to paint me."
    "Perhaps Moreau merely
wanted to keep his job.   What, I wonder,
would you schoolgirls have, repeated at home?   Well, what doyou say?   I
propose to launch you!   Not just
out of the goodness ofmy heart, mind you.   I want you to beat that bitch, that
insufferable, intolerable Alice Prin who has the arrogance to think that
because my youth is gone, because I've put on perhaps a kilo or two, that she
has taken my place.   Mine!   She can't see into the future, but I can, and
one day her youth will go too — as will yours, my seventeen-year-old
pigeon — even yours. Well, Maggy?"
    Before the girl could answer
Paula held up a warning hand.   "Are
you sure you're up to it? I don't want to waste my time if you're not.   It's boring work, you'll always feel too cold
or too hot, and most of all it's far more