“Absolutely not,” I said, waking from my daydream. “Merely, I have so recently arrived and do not yet know my position in Bazoches.”
“But how can that be?” said Armand. “Are you yet to be introduced to the inhabitants of the castle?”
He himself brought me before each of the servants. I must say, both Zeno and Armand were courtesy personified. With them, there was nothing of the usual distance affected by nobles toward common folk. The latter knew perfectly well their station, of course, but the twins comported themselves with a cordialness that occluded any difference.
To their right, they had me, and to their left, Vauban. They had been with him for decades; they knew all his engineering secrets and shared in his philosophy. They helped in the early stages of his fortification projects, and helped bridge Vauban’s military and worldly affairs. Truly, I was lucky to arrive at Bazoches in the autumn of great de Vauban’s life. At any other time, the Ducroix twins would have been too busy to lavish such attention on me.
“Now for the marquis’s daughter.”
Hearing these words, I had to adjust my breeches so no one would notice my upstanding member. I was, however, disappointed, as I was henceforth brought before an altogether different creature: Charlotte, Jeanne’s sister and Vauban’s eldest. She had a little peach face, red cheeks, a mouth shorter than a tortoise’s tail, and a nose oddly positioned, a set square that commenced somewhere above her eyebrows. She had a laugh like a parrot, clo, clo, clo, and jowls that shook like the bag of a bagpipe.
And if you, gentle reader, think me a clown for describing her in such terms, how wrong you are. The fact is, I found it distressing to make her acquaintance: How could nature be that cruel? Sisters they were, but all virtue had fallen to Jeanne. Intelligence, great beauty, wit, while Charlotte had always been a simple soul, not a bad bone in her body.
“I believe you have met Jeanne already,” said Armand. “She is in town at the moment, occupied by some charitable affair.”
Wonderful.
“Her husband is hardly ever in Bazoches himself,” remarked Zeno. “When you make his acquaintance, please behave kindly and. . with a certain delicacy. He is an unusual character.”
“What Zeno means to say,” clarified Armand, “is that his mind is not all there.”
At the end of the day, I retired to my lovely lavender-smelling quarters. What, I, to bed? Not on your life.
During the Ducroix brothers’ tour of the castle’s living quarters, I had learned which was Jeanne’s room. I waited for everyone to be abed before approaching. In any case, I would not have been able to sleep. I let a little time pass before leaving my room, barefoot and carrying an oil lamp. I came to Jeanne’s door and knocked softly. Nothing happened. I was vacillating — knock again or withdraw — when finally she came to the door.
Perhaps it is owing to my tender years, but I had never suffered an impression such as that. And I say “suffered,” for love, I say, is quite capable of provoking physical pain. My lungs shrank; my mind, usually agile, became suddenly muddy. The lamp flames were less atremble than I.
My first sight of her had been in the attire of a common country girl; next, she had been made up like a queen; now, in a nightgown and with her red locks tumbling loose. And we were alone in the dark. The faint light from the two flames, mine and hers, revealed the outlines of what was beneath her gown. I had been rehearsing two or three phrases but merely stood, slack-jawed.
“Well?” she said.
“I wanted to. . to thank you,” I said, eventually reacting. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.”
“Do you deem it appropriate to be calling at a woman’s door at this hour?”
“Why did you choose me? Of the three, I was least well prepared — it was plain to see.”
“I like to wear comfortable clothing when we are not receiving visitors. Those two walked straight past me, didn’t even notice a servant; they saw nothing.” Something in her aspect altered. “You asked for help.” Regretting having spoken with such frankness, she sought to change the subject. She glanced up and down the passageway to see if anyone was coming. “How old are you?”
I was a few months short of fifteen. “Eighteen.”
“So young?” she said, surprised.
As a youth, I always looked five years older than my true age, and when I became a man, twenty less. My theory being that le Mystère was in a hurry to make me grow, because it had designs on me to die before my time, in 1714. This was followed by certain unforeseen cosmic occurrences; a number of decades passed with le Mystère neglecting to add years to me, and here you have me, gentle reader, here you have me.
“I care not a jot for engineering,” I said. “Since the moment I laid eyes on you, I have thought of nothing else.”
She laughed — she hadn’t expected this. “If you knew what was in store for you, you’d change your priorities.”
I did not take her meaning.
“The previous cadet lasted three weeks,” she explained. “That was not so bad; the previous one went home after day five.”
“When I came to Bazoches, I did not know what I was looking for,” I said. “Now I do.”
She wasn’t having any of it. My feelings were sincere, but my ways of presenting them straight out of a cheap theater.
“To bed with you,” she said. “Believe me, come tomorrow you’ll be happy of some rest.”
And she shut the door in my face.
4
Jeanne couldn’t have been more right, as I very soon found.
We began with Drawing, the Ducroix view being that ink and line awoke the senses. Next came Physics and Geometry. That was when I learned what a privilege it is to have a tutor dedicated entirely to you. And I had two! I’m no pedagogue; I would not know how to go about evaluating their methods, so all I can say is that they applied to me a unique combination of indulgence, discipline, and acuity of spirit.
Next, a break and the lemon juice. “Drink.”
It was an order. Until I grew accustomed to it, they had to watch that I did not empty the glass into some nearby plant pot. Because “lemon juice” wasn’t truly accurate; Vauban, altogether the polymath, had invented a brew composed of root extracts, beeswax, various juices, and goodness knows what else, so congealed and sickly sweet that it was hard to stomach. In his view, it awakened the brain and fortified the muscles. Well, it didn’t quite kill me.
Possibly the most curious discipline at Bazoches was the one they called the Spherical Room. The name was closer to the reality than that of the juice, because it really was a room without any corners, egg-shaped, a gigantic globe with matte, pure whitewashed walls. Even the floor was concave, so when the door shut behind you, you were confined in this immaculate sphere. The Spherical Room was at the top of the castle. There was a skylight in the center of the roof, which let sunlight in to flood the space.
“You have five minutes exactly,” said the Ducroix twins the first time they pushed me inside.
I felt taken aback the first time. And not because I expected something malign; I simply did not know what to expect. Ever since I’d come to Bazoches, I’d had the sense of a world of marvels surrounding me: strange books, wise twins, beautiful women. And now this spherical, light-filled room, and me inside it, alone, bemused by the majestic silence.
There were objects up ahead. Dozens and dozens of white threads hanging from the ceiling, invisible at the point where they merged with the far walls. And from the threads, hanging at different heights, the most diverse array of objects: a horseshoe, a theater mask, a simple nail. A wig! A goose feather hard to see against the white walls. A gold clock revolving at the end of the small chain.