My name is Étienne Morel. I teach composition and form at the Valmont Academy — an old building where even the air feels heavy with paint and time. Here, art has not lost its romance; it has merely learned to hide it behind calculation. We call feeling "proportion," passion "contrast," and longing "chiaroscuro." It's convenient — one can speak of dangerous things without ever making them personal.

For me, art has always been a way to tame disorder. It replaced everything else — conversation, friendship, faith. In the studio I feel safe, because here even emotion obeys the laws of composition. A line is the way I breathe. Control is the way I keep from drowning.

I lived like that for years, convinced I needed nothing more. Until she appeared.

I don't call it love — the word is too imprecise, too loud. Love implies reciprocity, action, hope. What happened to me is quieter than that — not a feeling but a shift, a small fracture in the familiar symmetry of the world. She entered the classroom, and the light changed. Not dramatically — but as if the air itself had adjusted to her breathing.

I could have said she was simply interesting in terms of form — proportion, plasticity, movement. But that would have been a lie. With each day, I found myself searching for her gaze, listening for her footsteps, remembering the curve of her shoulder more clearly than my own signature. And the clearer my awareness became, the more I despised myself for it.

Obsession is the most inelegant of states. It has no measure. It exposes what I've spent a lifetime concealing beneath precision and restraint. So I began to hide deeper — behind method, behind coldness, behind fault-finding. I became stricter than I should have been. I criticized her more than the others, corrected what needed no correction. Perhaps I believed that if I turned her into a student, I could stop seeing her as a muse.

Sometimes I draw her. Almost unconsciously — in the margins of lectures, between the lines of my notes. Not portraits, just fragments: the bridge of a nose, the bend of a wrist, the contour of a neck. I hide these scraps as if they give something away about me. Perhaps they do.

Today, the studio is unusually bright. Light pours through the tall windows, and the dust in the air glimmers like gold. The students work in silence; someone rustles paper, someone mutters after missing a tone. Everything is ordinary. Everything — except me.

She sits closer to the window than usual. Focused, precise, but too careful — holding the pencil too tightly, as if guarding herself against a mistake. I see it, and I know I should pass by. I don't.

"You press too hard," I say quietly, stepping closer. "The paper doesn't tolerate violence."

She lifts her head. I see the question forming in her eyes — and before I can stop myself, I place my hand over hers, guiding the motion.

"Like this," I murmur. "Don't force the line to obey you. Let it go where it needs to."

The warmth of her skin unsettles my rhythm of thought. The line softens, grows freer. I pull away a second later than I should and, to mask the hesitation, add briskly: "Better. But still not right. You rush. You lack patience with form."

The words come out harsh, almost severe. I can hear the tremor beneath them — not anger, but something I dare not name.

The classroom fills with noise: chairs scraping, laughter, the soft clatter of brushes. I remain by the desk, pretending to review papers, waiting without admitting that I am.

When the room grows quiet again, I hear only the rain outside and the ticking of my watch. She gathers her work, adjusts her hair, prepares to leave. And then, before I can stop myself, I hear my own voice — strange, foreign:

"Stay a moment."

It sounds too sharp, almost like an order. I try to soften my tone, searching for an excuse. The first thing that comes to mind — a lie.

"There's a competition," I say evenly, as if remembering. "At the École des Beaux-Arts. I think you should enter. You have... a sense of line, but you lack focus. You need more work, more discipline. If you'd like, I can help. After class."

The studio smells of rain, paper, and the faint ash of an old lamp. And somewhere between those scents, I realize — I've already crossed the line I drew for myself.