“Tell me, my dear, how much do you know of men?”

I blushed deeply and turned my head away. I was thinking of being in the alley with Pieter the son.

“You see, competition makes men possessive. He is interested in you in part because van Ruijven is.”

I did not answer.

“He is an exceptional man,” van Leeuwenhoek continued. “His eyes are worth a room full of gold. But sometimes he sees the world only as he wants it to be, not as it is. He does not understand the consequences for others of his point of view. He thinks only of himself and his work, not of you. You must take care then—” He stopped. My master’s footsteps were on the stairs.

“Take care to do what, sir?” I whispered.

“Take care to remain yourself.”

I lifted my chin to him. “To remain a maid, sir?”

“That is not what I mean. The women in his paintings—he traps them in his world. You can get lost there.”

My master came into the room. “Griet, you have moved,” he said.

“I am sorry, sir.” I took up my position once more.

Catharina was six months pregnant when he began the painting of me. She was large already, and moved slowly, leaning against walls, grabbing the back of chairs, sinking heavily into one with a sigh. I was surprised by how hard she made carrying a child seem, given that she had done so several times already. Although she did not complain aloud, once she was big she made every movement seem like a punishment she was being forced to bear. I had not noticed this when she was carrying Franciscus, when I was new to the house and could barely see beyond the pile of laundry waiting for me each morning.

As she grew heavier Catharina became more and more absorbed in herself. She still looked after the children, with Maertge’s help. She still concerned herself with the housekeeping, and gave Tanneke and me orders. She still shopped for the house with Maria Thins. But part of her was elsewhere, with the baby inside. Her harsh manner was rare now, and less deliberate. She slowed down, and though she was clumsy she broke fewer things.

I worried about her discovering the painting of me. Luckily the stairs to the studio were becoming awkward for her to climb, so that she was unlikely to fling open the studio door and discover me in my chair, him at his easel. And because it was winter she preferred to sit by the fire with the children and Tanneke and Maria Thins, or doze under a mound of blankets and furs.

The real danger was that she would find out from van Ruijven. Of the people who knew of the painting, he was the worst at keeping a secret. He came to the house regularly to sit for the concert painting. Maria Thins no longer sent me on errands or told me to make myself scarce when he came. It would have been impractical—there were only so many errands I could run. And she must have thought he would be satisfied with the promise of a painting, and would leave me alone.

He did not. Sometimes he sought me out, while I was washing or ironing clothes in the washing kitchen, or working with Tanneke in the cooking kitchen. It was not so bad when others were around—when Maertge was with me, or Tanneke, or even Aleydis, he simply called out, “Hello, my girl,” in his honeyed voice and left me in peace. If I was alone, however, as I often was in the courtyard, hanging up laundry so it could catch a few minutes of pale winter sunlight, he would step into the enclosed space, and behind a sheet I had just hung, or one of my master’s shirts, he would touch me. I pushed him away as politely as a maid can a gentleman. Nonetheless he managed to become familiar with the shape of my breasts and thighs under my clothes. He said things to me that I tried to forget, words I would never repeat to anyone else.

Van Ruijven always visited Catharina for a few minutes after sitting in the studio, his daughter and sister waiting patiently for him to finish gossiping and flirting. Although Maria Thins had told him not to say anything to Catharina about the painting, he was not a man to keep secrets quietly. He was very pleased that he was to have the painting of me, and he sometimes dropped hints about it to Catharina.

One day as I was mopping the hallway I overheard him say to her, “Who would you have your husband paint, if he could paint anyone in the world?”

“Oh, I don’t think about such things,” she laughed in reply. “He paints what he paints.”

“I don’t know about that.” Van Ruijven worked so hard to sound sly that even Catharina could not miss the hint.

“What do you mean?” she demanded.

“Nothing, nothing. But you should ask him for a painting. He might not say no. He could paint one of the children—Maertge, perhaps. Or your own lovely self.”

Catharina was silent. From the way van Ruijven quickly changed the subject he must have realized he had said something that upset her.

Another time when she asked if he enjoyed sitting for the painting he replied, “Not as much as I would if I had a pretty girl to sit with me. But soon enough I’ll have her anyway, and that will have to do, for now.”

Catharina let this remark pass, as she would not have done a few months before. But then, perhaps it did not sound so suspicious to her since she knew nothing of the painting. I was horrified, though, and repeated his words to Maria Thins.

“Have you been listening behind doors, girl?” the old woman asked.

“I—” I could not deny it.

Maria Thins smiled sourly. “It’s about time I caught you doing things maids are meant to do. Next you’ll be stealing silver spoons.”

I flinched. It was a harsh thing to say, especially after all the trouble with Cornelia and the combs. I had no choice, though—I owed Maria Thins a great deal. She must be allowed her cruel words.

“But you’re right, van Ruijven’s mouth is looser than a whore’s purse,” she continued. “I will speak to him again.”

Saying something to him, however, was of little use—it seemed to spur him on even more to make suggestions to Catharina. Maria Thins took to being in the room with her daughter when he visited so that she could try to rein in his tongue.

I did not know what Catharina would do when she discovered the painting of me. And she would, one day—if not in the house, then at van Ruijven’s, where she would be dining and look up and see me staring at her from a wall.

He did not work on the painting of me every day. He had the concert to paint as well, with or without van Ruijven and his women. He painted around them when they were not there, or asked me to take the place of one of the women—the girl sitting at the harpsichord, the woman standing next to it singing from a sheet of paper. I did not wear their clothes. He simply wanted a body there. Sometimes the two women came without van Ruijven, and that was when he worked best. Van Ruijven himself was a difficult model. I could hear him when I was working in the attic. He could not sit still, and wanted to talk and play his lute. My master was patient with him, as he would be with a child, but sometimes I could hear a tone creep into his voice and knew that he would go out that night to the tavern, returning with eyes like glittering spoons.

I sat for him for the other painting three or four times a week, for an hour or two each time. It was the part of the week I liked best, with his eyes on only me for those hours. I did not mind that it was not an easy pose to hold, that looking sideways for long periods of time gave me headaches. I did not mind when sometimes he had me move my head again and again so that the yellow cloth swung around, so that he could paint me looking as if I had just turned to face him. I did whatever he asked of me.

He was not happy, though. February passed and March arrived, with its days of ice and sun, and he was not happy. He had been working on the painting for almost two months, and though I had not seen it, I thought it must be close to done. He was no longer having me mix quantities of color for it, but used tiny amounts and made few movements with his brushes as I sat. I had thought I understood how he wanted me to be, but now I was not sure. Sometimes he simply sat and looked at me as if he were waiting for me to do something. Then he was not like a painter, but like a man, and it was hard to look at him.