Le sept de trèfle

Beneath the gaslit haze of Montmartre, where absinthe and turpentine mingle like estranged lovers, a sculptor who wagers his talent on the turn of a card barters his muse for solvency: Claude Michel, clay beneath his nails and venom in his veins, shelters Lottie—an orphan parceled like contraband by the Café des Artistes’ proprietors, Ultrogoth and Romeo—only to surrender her likeness, and thus his own soul, to Count Sima, a creditor draped in ermine. The studio, once a cathedral of possibility, becomes a debtor’s cell; the countryside, briefly a pastel Arcadia, withers into a sepia lie. When the masterpiece is unveiled at the Salon, Claude swings a mallet through its hollow heart, shattering marble and myth at once, letting the white dust settle like judgment on the gawking bourgeoisie.