This chance was too delicious to refuse—it was even its own kind of revenge. The Opéra-Comique had decided to return Carmen to Paris for the first time since the debut and had done, as reported in the papers, a Carmen with no cigarettes, ballerinas made to stand still, and a young Don José who dropped his knife when he went to kill his murderer-seductress. She stood waiting for him to stab her. Amid the screams from the audience that it was a desecration, and the screams of laughter, a new production was decided on. The cigarette girls’ cigarettes would be lit again, the horses brought back onstage, the bawdy jokes told.
And, as the letter indicated, if she would consent, La Générale for the title role.
The letter requested that I be borrowed from my contract at the Garnier for the performances, scheduled during my typical break in between performing Gounod’s Faust there and my departure for Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera in Milan.
The break I took between productions was a necessary one, but I’d not previously been invited to perform with this company, which was composed, perhaps more than most, of former classmates of mine from the Conservatoire. They, like the rest, no doubt all hoped the cursed soprano would increase sales, the house filled with audiences eager for a daredevil act—especially from Carmen.
I decided to let the rumor be. There was nothing I could do to disprove it to the public now, after all, except to live—and to take their dare and perform Carmen.
In the meantime, I hoped the news that I was performing with the tenor again would show the Comtesse I intended to continue my bargain and was preferable to some false attempt on my part to renew our affair. The illusion of a rapprochement was all that I needed here.
I signed the contracts that morning and returned them with a note indicating my great pleasure in accepting this honor and then made arrangements with Euphrosyne that after I performed her Queen of the Night aria the tenor would be Faust to my Marguerite in two of the songs from Faust, at the end of which we would announce our news. I reflected on how neatly it had all been resolved as I dressed the night of Euphrosyne’s bal in an apartment she’d allowed me to use as a dressing room.
All’s well that ends well, then, she even said to me over my shoulder as Lucy and Doro put me into my costume, and then she asked me to meet her by the stairs.
I was sure it wasn’t him, Euphrosyne said. It’s really him?
She was speaking of the tenor, whom she remembered quite differently. She had not seen him in years, and his new girth hid him well.
We stood at her stairs, each of us with a glass of champagne, as around us the guests made their way to the buffet.
I like you as a married lady, I said.
I don’t, she said, petulant, and raised her jade cigarette holder. She lit it with her left eye closed, as if she were shooting a rifle, and drew on it hard. The tip burned brightly and then faded. I’m very serious!
Above, I heard the announcement of the names of the arrivals ringing out in sturdy voices. I did not ask after her husband then. She looked at me with mock evil, understanding as much, and then, briefly, an expression of hurt crossed her face as she looked away, banished as she exhaled.
I’m sure I preferred it when I was his fantasy, she said. I didn’t take all this trouble just to be ignored. Now, let me return the guest of honor to her rightful place. She tried to put her arm through mine and gestured up, but our skirts were too enormous to allow us to walk arm in arm, and so we laughed as she let go.
She turned to me just at that second and said, Never marry.
I don’t intend to, I said.
What, Euphrosyne said, did you not hear me? I only laughed and leaned in to kiss her twice.
Come, she said. Let us look down on what we’ve made.
I reached down and grabbed the flounces until I caught the loop in my hand and set it on my wrist, and Euphrosyne and I ascended the stairs.
I had never been able to correct Euphrosyne about the Queen of the Night and Faust, and tonight I was glad. The bal, for size and splendor, had surpassed my expectations, as had my costume. True to his word, Worth had driven his seamstresses hard. In his vision for the Queen of the Night, Worth had created a costume for me that made me look to be covered in a shower of stars and comets. The embroidery was hand stitched in a technique original to him that shaped the fabric as it was sewn, and the silhouette of the bodice was sculpted as a result. One comet outlined my left breast and wound down to circle my waist, meeting others, all beaded in crystal and leaving long white silk satin crystal-beaded trails that ran across an indigo velvet train. More comets created a gorgeous bustle and the edges of their trails scalloped the skirt down to the floor—the comets looked like wings. On the front panel of the gown’s skirt, more comets streaked across a night sky of indigo silk satin, and clouds hid a crescent moon as rays of white and gold light spread from it, embroidered in silver thread. The moon was beaded in pearls.
At my throat I wore a diamond pendant, and in my ears, diamond pendants also. For now my head was bare, but a glorious headdress waited upstairs, to be added just before the performance. The star shower would begin in my hair and descend from my headdress, a net of beads, diamonds, and diamanté stars, my hair added to with false hair and crystal pendants, and at the center of these was a diamond tiara.
I could barely move my head when the headdress was on, but this was not a nuisance. It was steadying, somehow, because of the focus it required.
Euphrosyne had been done beautifully by Worth also. She’d had him create a version of the Marie Antoinette shepherdess costume Eugénie had been painted in, so she looked like Eugénie as Marie Antoinette as a shepherdess at Petit Trianon. She’d worn a pale powdered wig and painted a beauty mark above her mouth. She did not at all remind me of the Empress—if anything, I think she looked the way Pepa must have wished all those years ago.
Wherever you are, dear Pepa, I wished silently, I hope you are happy now.
We were to descend in a cortège from the second-floor terrace of the salon to the floor at the beginning of the concert. The other beauties Euphrosyne had gathered were new to society, mostly unknown to me. Another friend of hers she had assured me I knew I did not recognize in her magnificent Cleopatra costume. Still another was the Empress Josephine; another, I soon recognized, was Madame du Barry—and then I saw it was Maxine. My erstwhile nemesis from Baden-Baden.
She nodded to me. I had not known she even knew Euphrosyne. I turned to say something, but Euphrosyne gave my gloved hand a pat, as it was time for us to go wait along the balcony for the performance to begin and then make our entrance.
My bal came into view.
The staircase we were on was a stately one that led to a second-floor terrace library that circled and looked down onto the entire ground floor of her conservatory. To our backs were books, and below were the celebrants. Grand Persian carpets spread across the golden herringboned marble of the floors, and guests had begun to gather on the red-velvet loveseats limned in gilt. Banquettes were sheltered by the enormous tropical plants that rose above them, and above each plant, as if a mirror to them in crystal, were flaming candle chandeliers hung on chains from the ceiling, which itself had glass canopies to let in the light, though it was the night we saw just past the reflections of the party below.
This was the light of that old world, the light by which I’d first encountered Paris. Euphrosyne’s h?tel was a grand one. No gaslights here.
We each grasped the slender brass rail as we watched the milieu below. The guest list I’d left entirely to her; I’d given her a very short list of the people she should not invite, however, which had made her laugh. I’d forgotten to include Maxine.
Euphrosyne tapped her cigarette holder clean into a plant by her side and withdrew her cigar case. She smiled as she cut the tip and walked to a candelabrum behind her and pulled a candle loose. Not for me, I said, not until I’ve sung. She lit her cigar, and she turned and put the candle back.
I heard a story about you seeing the Comtesse at Félix’s atelier, she said. How? No one sees her! Tell me. I must hear about it.
She was there to have a dress taken out, I said. But she still has her face.
Not her teeth, I hear, Euphrosyne said, and let out a cackle, and I allowed myself a laugh.