Artists’ Wives

Twelve stories, published in French in 1874 as Les Femmes d’artistes, ask what happens to a painter, poet or singer who marries. The prologue sets the terms: a painter, happily married and devoted to his wife, still tells his bachelor friend the poet that artists should never marry, because the talent is the first thing at risk. The poet argues back for children and company. Then the painter hands over a manuscript, and these stories are its pages. A writer marries a jeweller’s daughter who tells her friends she understands nothing of what he does. Two opera singers wed, and the wife’s voice eclipses the husband she once played second to. A composer’s widow, worn down over fifteen years, finds that mourning suits her. Laura Ensor made the English translation.