inevitable
in uttering these words, she sees him at last, M. Pujol. He is not nearing the barn, nor mounting the stage she has built for him. Nor is he naming the parts of his body, as he trembles beneath the photographer’s brave hands. M. Pujol is sleeping: a patient etherized upon a table. The director is quaking slightly in his excitement. He presses the tip of his scalpel against the pale skin, then retreats; he presses again, and draws back his hand. Too quickly, it will all be over; and he would like the anticipation to last forever. As for Adrien, the photographer, he is miles away from the hospital at Maryville. His little wagon of photographic equipment still rattles in his wake. He has traveled for many days, he has wandered into a market, and, stumbling over a mangy dog, he has found a stall selling figs — and though he tests the fruit between his fingers, he refuses to think of what he has forgotten to bring with him. Now he is standing in the center of Paris, on the boulevard des Capucines, ringing at the door of his brother. He presses against the bell and listens; he pushes it several times in quick succession, and strains to hear the sound of footsteps on the stair; he leans upon it with his entire weight, but cannot detect any movement, any sign of life, inside. Madeleine, she is beating on an idiot: a decent, speechless, lumbering man who had once tucked pennies in her pockets. She lifts her hand, and lets it fall; she repeats the gesture helplessly, again and again.
exit
SEEING AT LAST THE THREE OF THEM — girl, photographer, flatulent man — caught forever thus, and thus forsaken, she thinks, What terrible things we do, in our efforts to be admired. And it is with unthinkable strain that she resists the weight of her paddle, the pull of the earth, the stunned gaze of the audience and, most heavy, her wounded pride; it is with every inch of her being that she keeps her hand from falling upon the backside of M. Jouy. But the flatulent man, and Adrien — what can she do to stop them? What can she possibly do? To lift the knife from his skin, to lift his finger from the bell… Indeed, there is very little she can do. She can neither button nor unbutton. She cannot open a tin of cigarettes, count to ten, wear a ring. Divertissements on the piano, or intricate needlework, or the pretty handwriting that one sees on invitations — all are impossible for her. As is keeping a clean house, slicing vegetables, mending holes in socks and fences, safeguarding nearness and order. Confusion will accompany her, always. And she will never build a single thing again, most especially a stage. Even with these uncanny hands, she has failed them, her audience. Stealing a look at their worried faces — Sophie, Emma, the chemist, the mayor, her brothers and sisters, grown so tall, and then, most worn, most loving, the face most known and feared, her Mother! — she drops down upon the stage, stretches out along the floorboards, and closes her eyes.
she dreams
charlotte awakes in an unknown house, in an unknown bed and wearing someone else’s clothes. Sliding out from the covers, she feels the unfamiliar floor beneath her feet, and finds her balance by placing her palm on a table she has never seen. The window, the tree outside it, the bird singing in the branches of the tree. Even the smell of her own skin is foreign: pungent, and dark, and reminiscent of wine. The kitchen she wanders through is deserted, the chairs in disarray, but the fire is still smoking, and the pot still warm. What is inside the pot she cannot tell; she lifts the lid and sniffs, takes a spoon from the table and stirs. I will have to try it, she decides, but the taste in her mouth is neither savory nor sweet; it tastes somewhat of apples but also of lamb. And entering the yard she sees that it, too, has been abandoned, — though only minutes ago, for the grass is still trampled underfoot | and the cows in the pasture are lowing. From the empty yard, she passes through the garden and into the overgrown orchard. She is not surprised when she fails to recognize the fruit: discolored, misshapen, not quite resembling one kind or another. But it is here, in the orchard, that she sees at last a thing that is familiar to her, leaning up against a tree, as if having waited a lifetime for her to appear. Charlotte takes it in her arms, sits down on a stump, and, embracing it between her legs, begins to play.
conversion
marguerite, upon the desertion of so many of her entertainers, has fallen back on her own devices. Every night, after all, there is still the widow leaning forward in her chair, expecting pleasure. What is Marguerite to do but unlock her monstrous trunk, exhaling clouds of musk, and shake out her ancient costumes? The general’s uniform, the lover’s red cape, the burnished breastplate worn by a vengeful son. She also digs up, from the very bottom, her sword, which she slices through the air with untrammeled delight. Of course, she must remember how to walk. How to swing her arms, and beat her chest, and meet a comrade heartily. That is easy enough to master. More tedious is wrestling her bosom back into its old restraints, tugging on the powdered wigs; the effort is proven worthwhile, however, upon her discovery that thus disguised, she has managed to enchant the resdess widow. She finds an amorous note slipped beneath her door. She finds herself the object of winks, and eloquent glances. In the mornings, when she steps out from her caravan, she is greeted by an avalanche of roses. Who is Marguerite, not to welcome love when it arrives at last? Wearing her red cape and brandishing her sword, she courts the widow; she wins her hand; she takes up residence in the very grand house, and learns that if one concentrates, growing a William II moustache is not so difficult to do.
nocturne
A fishing village sits at the edge of a warm sea. The moon beats her path across the waves, across the little boats rocking in their moors, past the shuttered shops and dark cafes, up a flight of whitewashed stairs, and through the open window of a rented apartment. Alighting upon an empty basket beneath the sill, and then a botde, also empty, the moon comes tumbling into the room. She illuminates a chair, over which is draped an elegant tailcoat, a white butterfly tie, a pair of black satin breeches. She uncovers a wagon, inside of which is gathered a small family of flutes. And gliding up to the rumpled expanse of the bed, she finds what she has been searching for: a head resting on another’s chest, his pale face loosened in sleep. He breathes deeply. He does not moan. His head rises and falls with the other’s inhalations, and the movement is as gentle, as infinite, as that of a fishing boat lulled by the sea. Shyly the moon extends her white fingers. She caresses the two men dreaming in the bed. Her hands are so light, and so full of care, that when they awake, they will not even know that they have been touched.
stirring MADELEINE stirs in her sleep.