The Danish Girl

That same summer, Einar—whose work is much more respected and admired than Greta’s—quietly asks his dealer, Herr Rasmussen, to mount a show of Greta’s work. Greta knows this because she secretly opened and read Einer’s letter to Rasmussen. She frets over the gallery arrangements and the publicity for her “grand debut.” Most of the people who show up are more interested in Einar’s work—or in Greta as a Californian curiosity—than in the fusty, heavily-shellacked portraits themselves.

Meanwhile, Einar is spending more and more time as Lili. One day Greta comes home from Rasmussen’s gallery to find Lili in the apartment. Lili confesses that she has recently returned from a walk—in broad daylight—with Henrik. Greta doesn’t understand what Einar wants from—or for—Lili. And she grows perturbed as Lili describes, with great excitement, her and Henrik’s most recent meeting. Touchily, Greta asks if Lili had ever kissed a man before the Artists’ Ball

As Lili thinks, the potato-vodka-drinking sailor’s voice floats up through the floorboards saying, “Don’t lie to me!” Then, she describes Hans to Greta with great enthusiasm. It’s the first Greta has ever heard about this childhood friend, whom Lili claims is now an art dealer in Paris.

Greta doesn’t sell a single painting during the exhibition, but one of them, a triptych titled “Lili Thrice” does garner some attention. Done in a modern style, it depicts Lili looking pensive, fearful, and aroused. One Parisian critic even includes the painting in his survey of modern Danish art. Rasmussen forwards his article to Greta, who reads it with astonishment. It’s the first time that she’s merited attention apart from Einar. She tucks it away in the locked drawer of the wardrobe along with the rest of her most private possessions. She doesn’t feel the need or desire to share it with Einar. Nor does she tell him when she reaches out to the critic, asking if he can help her locate Einar’s childhood friend, Hans Axgil.