mise en scene
M. pujol knows what he will find when he opens the drawing, room door. He pictures it with the same sense of misgiving with which he recalls the schoolroom he sat in when he was a child, the map he had drawn of its dangers and unfriendly territories: the desk with an obscene picture on its lid; the alcove where the strongest boys hatched their plots; the row of meek children who would look at him knowingly, as if he belonged to them; the chair with the mysterious words scratched under its seat, over the ridges of which he would trace his fingers helplessly, and then pull his hands away in self-disgust, feeling contaminated. He had been glad, as a child, to be taken from that schoolroom. It was all thanks to his unusual gift. But what now could deliver him? Deliver him from the constellation of widow, girl, photographer, one perched on the edge of her delicate chair, one waiting at attention on the carpet, one crouched behind his camera, making the whole contraption tremble with his hunger. In a corner of the drawing room stands an Oriental screen, behind which he will be asked to take off his clothes. In another corner is a small bust of Racine. In the window seat is Marguerite, pouring lotion from a bottle into the thick palm of her hand. And crowded against each other, limbs and haunches bumping, like statuary forgotten in a warehouse, are the acrobats, the emaciated man, the dog girl, and the stringed woman, each body arranged to tell its own story.
knight
if he declined to open the door, if he refused to enter — would that be cowardly or brave? Trusting habit, he should think himself a coward. But when he stands outside the drawing-room door, his damp forehead resting against the frame, he discovers that what he fears most is not his own humiliation, which he has grown used to, but rather the fury that will be unleashed upon the girl. And to rescue her — that would be a brave thing. What a brave thing! For the girl, in her stubbornness, is met every night with glowering looks, and pinches, and the thump of the acrobats as they collapse accusingly onto the carpet. Sometimes Marguerite rises up from die window seat and strikes her. As for the widow, she never shows her displeasure, but the very restraint with which she leaves the room makes him afraid. He could save her from this, he thinks, by his absence. It would be as simple as leaving. As simple as airing out his travelling case, folding his evening clothes in tissue paper, sliding his shoes into their little felt bags, putting his brushes in order. How easy and how courageous it would be, to leave. He imagines how the gravel will crunch underfoot, the feel of his case bumping against his side. A flying leap! An adventure! But where to? That he will consider later. For now, as he nods to Racine, as he disappears behind the Oriental screen, his fingers already loosening his white evening tie, he will think only of the felted bags, soft and grey and consoling as the moles he sometimes finds outside his door, in the mornings.
arcane
what A brave thing he is about to do! M. Pujol swells; feels briefly, blissfully, free from disgrace. But as he looks up at her, it occurs to him that the girl does not lend herself very well to being saved: she is too odd, too refractory; she looks unsettling as she stands there, paddle suspended, and even when Marguerite’s ivory fan cracks against the side of her head, the girl’s face remains furrowed in thought. Though dressed as she is, ridiculously, in a froth of petticoats and bows, there is nothing she resembles more than a fading scholar, lost within the thickets of his own peculiar field. The ivory fan makes a sharp and terrible noise, yet she looks as though she is deciphering a moldy text, or perhaps creeping her way through a mathematical proof.
archaeology
when she gazes at his body, crouching on the carpet, the only words that occur to her are: Orchard. Swallow. Bell. One morning her father found in their field a ruined coin. In the very place where he stood was once a town, but then an empire collapsed and the buildings languished and the river overflowed its banks, flooding everything. This is what she imagines. How else does a town sink into the earth? It lies buried for below, where all is dark and still, but on occasion some small thing will loose itself from the town and feel its way to the surface. Her father found a coin. Another man found a bottle. If it were not for the coin, and the bottle, they would not have believed that a town existed. She hears the word bell, or orchard, or swallow, and she experiences a strange surprise, like the feel of a coin in the soil. These words make her wistful; they overwhelm her with longing. Not for her orchard, nor the bell in her church, nor the swallows that nest in the eaves of her house. For something else altogether something she would have forgotten completely. She wonders: Why should these words pierce me, if they are not the remains of a currency I once knew how to spend?
in the candlelight
crack! is the sound of an ivory fan meeting the furred curve of a child’s ear.
unclean
bruises begin to rise upon the skin of the sleeping girl. All over her body bloom patches of lavender and gold and lichen green. Beatrice conducts a concerned examination: “What could be the cause of this? Mother hunkers over her cauldron, saying nothing She thinks, Sometimes I grow clumsy with the handle of the broom. But is it my fault, that she takes up so much space? The preserves seethe about the neck of her spoon. Drops of sweat tremble on her brow. She frowns down, protectively, at the mess she has concocted: she must devise a defense. Her business, which she has nurtured so very tenderly, now finds itself under attack. The other women of the village, who until this point have been her stalwart companions, her confederates, her sisters-in-arms, have risen up against her. The reason? Covetousness, simply, which is certainly a sin. They begrudge her the success that has struck her house, swift and unbidden as the lightning bolt that set the mayor’s roof on fire. The new fur muff in her lap, the lustrous flanks of her new horse, the rattle of the jam jars atop the postman’s cart: it all feeds their fury. Sabotage is their only recourse, and soon rumors of unwholesomeness and sorcery are set roaming about the streets. Shattered crocks appear on her doorstep; the stone wall is speckled with jam. One day, on her way to market, she sees that a shrill placard has been erected along the road: IF THE FLESH IS UNCLEAN THEN SO IS THE FOOD BEWARE THE PRODUCTS OF AN UNHOLY HOME! She turns abruptly and stomps her way home. There, she surveys the girl spread before her, dewy and white and unruffled: You are the source of all this trouble, Mother says.
deal
M. pujol can see the girl and the photographer, quarrelling once more behind the shrubbery. A flurry of fingers rises up above the privet hedge. If he stood his travelling case on one end, and climbed on top, he could wave his arms; he could cry out, Adrien! and maybe the photographer would turn around and slowly smile. But instead he drives a bargain with himself: I will not call out his name, as long as — above him an arbiter rusdes, presents itself— that leaf does not fall from that tree. He repeats the terms. They seem fair. And trusting in the impartial justice of the universe, he sits down on his travelling case. The voices continue, passing from reproach to lament to something he cannot quite recognize. Please. His face. Cannot. I saw you. The words sift over and stain him like pollen: Your hands. I cannot. But then a wind rises and the leaves stir and the voices are carried in the opposite direction, away from him. Remembering his leaf, he is sent into a panic: so many of them! All rustling, shifting, silvering; made unrecognizable in their commotion. But eventually the wind subsides and the leaves are stilled and once more it is revealed: his leaf, the one not as green as the others; looking, in feet, somewhat sickly. It trembles on its stem. It twists fretfully against the sky. When the wind lifts again, so do the flatulent mans hopes. But the leaf is more firmly attached to the tree than, by all appearances, it should be. M. Pujol searches for other signs: If that crow takes flight, he tells himself. That thistle bursts. That handsaw, in the distance, ceases. Then I will not have to go.