at work on the street wear a hat. Edmond de Gon- gued that the general absence of precise anecdote 181 u in that picture foreclosed on the sexual connota- court's version of one such showy hat was this: un Notes chapeau de velours noir avec un bouquet de gera- tions of its subject. to Pages niums ponceau" — a black velvet hat with a poppy- 156. I thank Alex Potts sincerely for his thought- 107-13 red bouquet of geraniums (La Fille Elisa [1877] ful commentary on an earlier version of a portion Paris: Charpentier, 1906, p. 94). of this chapter. His suggestions shaped my con- 152. Interestingly, the most well-informed cluding remarks. present-day commentators on the same picture, writing in 1988 and early 1989, joined the 1877 critics in seeing this quintessentially modernist Chapter 4: Suspicious Professions work as social description. But they ran into snags and contradictions in their attempts to tie the EPIGRAPHS: (p. 113) "Par 1'enseigne, elles sont pastel-enhanced monotype to an exact plot. See couturieres ou modistes. Dans la maison, la mise Robert Herbert, Impressionism, pp. 44—46; Kath- en scene est complete; il y a des etoffes, des pa- leen Adler, "Nineteenth-Century Studies," Art trons, des travaux en train. En realite, c'est un lieu in America 77, no. i (Jan. 1989): 27; and Boggs de debauche ou souvent, sous pretexte d'un travail et al., Degas, p. 289. I discuss and compare these lucratif, on entraine des jeunes filles qui ne interpretations of the narrative in Degas's picture tardent pas a se laisser pervertir" (C. J. Lecour, La in my forthcoming article, "The Sexual Politics of Prostitution a Paris et a Londres, 1789-1877, 3d Impressionist Illegibility: A Case Study," Dealing ed., Paris, 1877, p. 198); (p. 133) "Mais si, je vous with Degas, Richard Kendall and Griselda Pollock 1'assure, il a le gout de prendre les femmes a (eds.), London, 1991. 1'envers." — "C'est done pour cela, que lorsqu'il 153. Richard Thomson brought this to my at- m'emmene avec lui a la brasserie de la rue Medi- tention in his Degas, The Nudes, London, 1988, cis, je 1'entends, quand il entoure la taille d'une de p. 106. To my knowledge, these are the only uses ces femmes qui servent des bocks, je 1'entends leur (let alone repetition) of this gesture in Degas's art. dire: 'Comme je t'enc . . . [ellipsis in original].'" In view of the redating of the brothel monotypes to (I left "comme je t'enc . . ." alone because it is a 1876 — 77 by the Degas Exhibition Committee shortening of "comme je t'encule," the meaning of (Boggs et al., Degas), Degas may have worked on which is not really conveyed by "I intend to sod- Femmes devant un cafe and UAttente around the omize you.") — "Messieurs, Daudet serait un ero- same time. tomane, un cerveau ou il y a une case malade?" — 154. It probably looked very mannish too at the "Au fond, les femmes legitimes n'ont pas le sens time, as both Patricia Simons and Lisa Tickner commun . . . [ellipsis in original] Si sa femme lui have credibly and generously suggested. I thank permettait ce que lui accordent les bonnes de la Gloria Groom for pointing out to me that Balzac brasserie de la rue Medicis, ce serait 1'interieur le had his character Vautrin use the same gesture plus heureux de la terre . . . [ellipsis in original] et as one of categorical dismissal in Le Pere Goriot: le coureur deviendrait un caniche de fidelite" (Ed- a "Qu'est-ce qu'un homme pour moi? (^ - fit-il en mond de Goncourt, Journal des Goncourts, Paris: faisant claquer 1'ongle de son pouce sous une de Flammarion, 1956, vol. 3, pp. 26—27 [June 10, ses dents" — What's a man in my book? That! he en 1879, try]); many thanks to Michal Ginsburg uttered, clicking the nail of his thumb under one and Gerry Mead for their expert help in translat- of his teeth (Honore de Balzac, Le Pere Goriot, ing this tricky passage; (p. 152) Mary Ann Doane, New York: Scribner's, 1928, p. 173). The Desire to Desire: The Woman's Film of the 155. Although in an earlier article (Clayson, 19408, Bloomington, Ind., 1987, pp. 5-6. "Prostitution and the Art of Later Nineteenth- 1. James F. McMillan, Housewife or Harlot: The Century France: On Some Differences Between Place of Women in French Society, 1870—1940, the Work of Degas and Duez," Arts 60, no. 4 New York, 1981, p. 17. [Dec. 1985]: 40—45) I described Women on a Cafe 2. Parisians were especially touchy about adul- Terrace similarly and highlighted its evasiveness, teries after passage of a divorce bill, la hi Naquet, the conclusions I reached there are quite different a ter in 1884, f which verifiable adultery was from those that appear here. In that essay, I ar- grounds for divorce.