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wondered why my drawing had taken the longest. Finally, he turned his page around. “What do you think?” he asked.
    My twelve-year-old vanity immediately sustained a mortal wound, seeing myself through the artist’s eyes. The drawing showed just my head and shoulders. There was my jaw, jutting like a rock formation on a mountainside. My mouth was grim and stern, like a general’s. My eyes were glowing with light like rays of sun. How had he done that with just chalk? The little of my body that showed was indistinct, just a round white blouse shape with just a hint of a peach glow underneath to indicate flesh. He’d left the parlor out completely, the red chair, the wallpaper. For background he’d simply rubbed an apricot shade over the paper with the heel of his hand. I thought if this was what I looked like, I must be the ugliest girl in all of Vienna.
    “Do you like it?” he said. He actually sounded worried about what I thought. I was too mortified to take his feelings into account. Only my strict training saved me.
    “I think it’s lovely,” I said, but he knew I was lying.

    Klimt woke up my father and sent me to fetch my mother to see the finished products. He leaned all three drawings up against the parlor wall and we all gathered around to look at them. Pauline was smiling and soft. He’d drawn the whole room in around her, and the drawing was bright and busy. Helene of course looked like an angel. There was even a corona around her head. I was the only one who looked like I could turn people to stone.
    “They are wonderful,” pronounced my mother. “I especially like Emilie’s. You have really captured her personality.”
    Klimt caught my eye and winked. I looked away. I just wanted him to leave. Then my father asked Klimt to stay for dinner. To my despair he said he would be delighted.
    As we walked into dinner Helene nudged me. “Do you like yours?” she whispered.
    I stared at her incredulously.
    “It does look like you,” she said reluctantly. I wanted to cry.
    “I like yours better than Pauline’s,” she said. “She’s hardly even in it.”
    I had never seen anyone eat as much or as fast as he did. His hands were tanned, and wide, with thick flat thumbs like wooden spoons. They were clumsy with a knife and fork; it seemed incredible that I had just watched him wielding pencil and chalk with such skill. It was bad manners to draw attention to other people’s bad manners, but I made sure that he could tell what I thought from the way I was looking at him.
    He was telling my mother about some work he was doing for the imperial family.
    “I’m going to do some murals for the empress’s villa in Italy,” he said. “Something lighthearted, colorful, not too difficult. I’ve never been to Italy so it will be a great chance for me to see Rome and Florence.”
    “How did you get the job?” Father wondered.
    “The usual way,” he said. “There was a general announcement at the Kunstlerhaus about it and I submitted a proposal. But I think it was the Burgtheater commission that got me the job. I’ve met a lot of important people. Everyone wants his portrait to be on the wall. Two or three judges and doctors and court officials come to my studio every day now.”
    I watched him drop a piece of boiled beef into his lap and smiled at him evilly.
    “Did you meet the empress?” asked Pauline shyly. Papa glared at her but Klimt ignored him.
    “I never saw her,” he said. “No one sees her anymore, not even the emperor, you know.” A piece of potato fell from his mouth back onto his plate. My mother coughed and asked if anyone wanted more cabbage.
    “Emilie says she doesn’t do any drawing at her school. I think that’s a shame. Every girl should be able to sketch a little.” He turned to Mother. “I imagine you are quite accomplished yourself.”
    My mother blushed. “Oh no, I have no talent at all. I can’t imagine that the girls have any.”
    “Nonsense, you have a wonderful