In the summer of 1920, a young English journalist named Joseph Adelaide arrives in the French hamlet of Saint-Auguste-de-Provence. He has traveled from London in response to a one-word letter—“Come”—sent by the reclusive and celebrated painter Edouard Tartuffe. Following directions from a local, Joseph finds Tartuffe’s remote farmhouse.

After getting no answer at the front door, Joseph walks around to a back terrace where he finds Tartuffe, a robust man of about 60 with a wild beard and one milky eye. Tartuffe is gruff and dismissive, claiming not to have written the letter Joseph carries. He becomes agitated and shouts for his niece, Sylvette, a young woman with short-cropped hair whom he calls Ettie. Upon seeing the letter, Ettie identifies Joseph as the subject for a new painting, Young Man with Orange.

Tartuffe, who is known for his volatile temper, refuses to be interviewed for Joseph’s article. Instead, he offers Joseph a deal: If Joseph agrees to model for the painting, he may stay at the farmhouse and write whatever he wants. Desperate for access to the artistic genius, Joseph agrees. He is to remain until the painting is finished.

Tartuffe, Ettie, and Joseph share a meal. At Tartuffe’s prompting, Joseph describes the skills he acquired during his one year at art school but omits the scandal behind his departure from the school and career shift into art journalism. When Joseph briefly mentions his family, Ettie expresses her condolences for the death of his mother, a Swedish nurse. Suddenly, Tartuffe snatches Ettie’s plate and carries it into the house. The artist explains that he’s studying food for his work. Ettie doesn’t eat anything else. Tartuffe tells Joseph to call him Tata.

From Ettie’s perspective, having another person in the house is a strange and unfamiliar experience. She is used to being nearly invisible, slipping through the rooms unnoticed. She reflects on the fact that during dinner, Joseph actually looked at her directly. Smoking a cigarette alone in the dark, she decides to be patient and observe how events will unfold.

The next morning, Joseph sits in his small attic room drafting his article. He reviews Tartuffe’s history, including his tutelage under Cézanne, his self-imposed exile from Paris 30 years prior, and the persistent rumors of a feud between the two artists. Joseph wonders about the cause of this isolation.

Ettie summons him to the studio, a converted stable filled with canvases and the smell of paint and turpentine. Tartuffe is already there. At the back of the studio, Joseph notices a table spread with decaying food props, such as a crab shell, shriveled grapes, a rotten plum, a fish spine, and Ettie’s leftover tomatoes from the night before, which Tartuffe forbids him from touching. The first modeling session begins. Tartuffe has Joseph sit on a stool, wear an oversized white smock, and hold an orange. He then removes Joseph’s glasses, blurring his vision.

As he sits, Joseph thinks about his late mother, who introduced him to Tartuffe’s work specifically and taught him to experience art by asking “How does it make you feel?” rather than what it means (27). He had hoped that by meeting the artist his mother so admired, he could find a way back to a happier time before her death. Feeling the pressure of the session, Joseph resolves to become the “Young Man with Orange” and uncover the secrets of the great painter.

While Joseph and Tartuffe are in the studio, Ettie enters Joseph’s room. She observes his neatly organized desk, his typewriter, and his notebooks. She sifts through his papers, careful not to disturb their order. She finds a note Joseph wrote to himself, reminding him to ask her questions. After running her finger over her own name on the page, she leaves as silently as she arrived.

A routine develops where Joseph models for Tartuffe in the mornings and has his afternoons free to write. He receives a letter from his editor, Harry, who is thrilled with the story angle and wants an intimate, gossipy article about the artist by the end of the month. Joseph writes back, insisting the piece will be a serious study of Tartuffe and that he is not the artist’s muse.

One morning, Joseph breaks his silence to ask Tartuffe technical questions for his article while the artist is painting him. Tartuffe explodes in anger, yelling that Joseph’s only role is to be the “Young Man with Orange” and that the article is not to be discussed in his workspace. Back in his room, a frustrated Joseph writes down his scattered observations, feeling no closer to understanding his subject.

Ettie goes to the village to see Lafayette, who makes the frames for Tartuffe’s paintings. Lafayette pries for gossip about the “foreigner” staying at the farmhouse. Ettie reveals that Joseph is a writer who thinks he can “crack” Tartuffe. When Lafayette asks if he will succeed, Ettie states plainly, “There is nothing to crack.” (38)

Joseph writes a letter to his sister, Flora, describing his bizarre life at the farmhouse, Tartuffe’s explosive temperament, and his own writer’s block. He also mentions Ettie, whom he finds strange and hopes to question about her uncle.

Later, in the kitchen, Joseph asks Ettie if Tartuffe ever taught her to paint. When she says no, Joseph offers to teach her himself, starting with a simple sketch of a lemon. His attempt to connect with her backfires; Ettie gives him a look of pure disdain and walks out of the room.

Ettie observes that Joseph is “not looking properly.”

With Tartuffe out painting in the fields, Joseph finds Ettie on the terrace and tries again to interview her. She becomes frustrated with his academic questions, telling him that art isn’t about being “right” and that he could invent facts because Tartuffe will never read his article.

When Joseph insists on pursuing the truth, Ettie makes him close his notebook. She then reveals that she is 27 and has lived at the farmhouse her entire life. She explains that her mother, Tartuffe’s sister, also lived there until she left, never to return. When asked if she ever wants to leave, Ettie says no, explaining, “I know what happens to people who leave” (48). She then tells him that her mother ran away to New York when she was seven and was brought back in a coffin.

In a flashback to her childhood, Ettie recalls the time after her mother left. Tartuffe refused to care for her, forcing seven-year-old Ettie to teach herself to cook for both of them. Months later, news arrived that her mother had died. The farmhouse became increasingly isolated. When Ettie’s friend Marguerite visited, Tartuffe dragged her out of the house by her hair and told her to run. Marguerite never returned, and neither did her mother, Marie, the once-a-week cleaning lady. He later offended the local priest, ensuring no one else would visit.

When Ettie was nine, she cared for an injured goldfinch, which became her only companion. One day, Tartuffe entered the kitchen, crushed the bird in his fist, and stomped on it. This act of cruelty taught Ettie to be silent.

Joseph’s journal entries detail the strange and volatile life at the farmhouse. Tartuffe often confiscates half-eaten dinner plates for his still-life studies. Joseph learns from Ettie that Tartuffe’s milky eye was caused by a stone thrown by a boy on the docks in childhood, not a duel with a rival artist.

One night, Joseph thinks he sees a figure moving outside his window. The studio begins to smell of rot from the decaying food props, and a dinner of bad oysters gives Joseph food poisoning. After another of Tartuffe’s violent tantrums over art supplies, Joseph lies awake, trying to rationalize the behavior as the necessary “cost of genius.”

Ettie cannot remember her mother’s face. As a child, she asked Tartuffe if he had ever painted a portrait of her. He told her yes, but that he had sold it years ago to a private collector whose name he could not remember, leaving no hope of seeing it again. Years later, he drunkenly admitted the truth: He had painted over his sister’s portrait to reuse the canvas and couldn’t remember which painting it was. The knowledge that her mother’s image is lost, buried beneath another work, fills Ettie with a desire to burn the house down.

Feeling lonely and frustrated with his writing, Joseph is interrupted by Ettie, who needs his help at the village market. On the walk, he asks about the rumored feud between Tartuffe and Cézanne, but Ettie shuts down the conversation. At the market, she explains they are buying “props” for a new, large painting Tartuffe is planning, a still life that is like a portrait without people. She selects bruised and imperfect fruit, explaining they are more interesting to paint.

On the way home, Joseph discovers Ettie can read English but cannot speak it well. She learned by reading poetry aloud to French, English, and Algerian soldiers at a hospital three villages over during the war. When she asks about his own wartime experience, Joseph confesses that he was a conscientious objector. He recalls the furious arguments with his father, who called him a coward and constantly compared him unfavorably to his older brother, Rupert, a soldier. Joseph tells Ettie the war “destroyed” Rupert. When he asks if she judges him, Ettie replies that she doesn’t “judge anyone who chooses life over death” (75).

Late at night, Ettie bathes in the river. She thinks about Joseph and recalls seeing him on his bed earlier. She feels a growing connection to him but is unsure how to act on it. Before returning to the house, she notices a light on in his attic room and realizes he is also awake.

Raimondi, Tartuffe’s Parisian art dealer, arrives at the farmhouse to collect two finished paintings of food. He is slick and theatrical, greeting Tartuffe warmly while ignoring Ettie. In the studio, Raimondi expresses excitement over the nearly-finished Young Man with Orange.

Later, the three men drink wine on the terrace. Raimondi questions Joseph about his article, seeing its potential for publicity. His tone becomes mocking, and he gives Joseph the nickname “vautour,” the French word for ‘vulture.’ Joseph feels sickened by the accuracy of the comparison because he feels like a scavenger feeding on scraps about Tartuffe’s life for his story.

After Raimondi’s departure, Tartuffe falls into a dark mood, convinced the dealer is cheating him. For days, he is abusive toward Joseph. He becomes angry that Joseph’s skin has tanned, insisting the subject of his painting must remain pale. Joseph is forced to stay indoors, becoming a virtual prisoner.

Ettie wants to comfort Joseph but doesn’t know how. She remembers her lonely childhood, when she used private rituals and magical thinking to try to make Tartuffe disappear, believing it would make her mother return. This led to a nervous habit of touching things to ground herself, which persists to this day.

Ettie enters Joseph’s room with scissors, explaining that Tartuffe has ordered her to cut his hair because it has grown too long for the portrait. As she cuts his hair, she asks him why he left art school. Joseph reveals his mother died three weeks into his first year, and his grief leads his academic performance to suffer. The following June, his tutor told him he couldn’t return in the autumn. Walking down the steps of the Slade for the last time, he was found by Harry Makepeace, who was launching a new art magazine and offered Joseph a job writing for it. Ettie comforts him, saying his mother would be proud.

Later, desperate for his article, Joseph interrupts a painting session to ask Tartuffe about his methods. Tartuffe explodes in a violent rage, smashing supplies and screaming that he owes Joseph nothing. After he storms out, Ettie appears and calmly explains Tartuffe’s technique. She then guides Joseph on how to truly see the painting, telling him to look beyond the artist and himself and to focus on feeling. She tells him, “You are not holding fruit […] You are holding colour” (98), unlocking the painting’s meaning for Joseph. He rushes to his typewriter, finally able to write.

After three days of brooding over the finished Young Man with Orange, Tartuffe finally adds his signature. That night, they celebrate with champagne and absinthe. Ettie watches Joseph, knowing he must leave soon and feeling a deep sadness at the thought of his imminent departure.

As the men become drunk, she notes the longing in Joseph’s eyes to make the moment last. After they stumble off to bed, Ettie remains on the dark terrace, her own night just beginning.

Joseph awakens, his head pounding from the alcohol. He goes outside for fresh air and sees a flickering light coming from an abandoned outbuilding. Drawn toward it, he peers through the window and sees Ettie standing before Young Man with Orange. He watches in shock as she places the canvas on the floor, strikes a match, and sets it on fire.

The next morning, the painting is back in the studio on its easel, slotted into a wooden frame. Raimondi arrives and inspects it, and Ettie wraps it in brown paper for him to take away. After Raimondi leaves, Joseph returns to the outbuilding, but he finds no evidence of a fire. He begins to question his own senses and sanity, wondering if he hallucinated the entire event.