Forgive me my earlier impudence, he said, gesturing back inside. I . . . Thank you! You honor me. I do not have these answers. We have neither music nor schedule as yet. Perhaps you will come and meet my new friend? I believe he’s arriving with the Dumas set. When we pass through to dinner, I can bring you to him.
I can see them by the light of their cigars. There, he said. Do you see them, on the balcony above? Come, let’s see if we can find our way.
He gestured to a crowd of gentlemen shadowed by the gaslights of the courtyard, who waved back.
I waved as well.
I return to this moment frequently, for it was when everything that came next in my life was decided. Meeting the composer in this dress was out of the question, though I could not say this. I was eager, also, to leave, or at least be alone, even for a moment, for this offer no longer felt like fate but something disguised as fate, a dangerous ruse meant to draw me into a trap.
The fit of a dress determines the stride of a woman—whether she can bend at the waist, sit, or ride—and so for a woman to change her dress was to change even the way she walked and the speed at which she ran to her fate.
If I had stayed in the terrible dress, or if a better dress had been made and sent over, if I had gone up the stairs, had dinner with the writer and composer, all would have been different.
But I did not stay.
He extended his arm and made to lead me back in through the crowd.
He saw I had not accepted the invitation to walk in and let his arm drop again with a questioning smile.
Yes, I said. How incredible. The gods indeed.
It’s no use, we’ll never make it through the crowd right now, he said, looking at the stairs. We shall wait a moment. But what a pleasure it is to hear you express interest.
Thank you, I said.
I can see it right now, he said. If I can ever find a store willing to stock the book between their piles of Zola and Daudet, I think it will be quite a success. But an opera with you in it, well, Ceci tuera cela, he said.
This will kill that.
I know this, I said of his quote. What is it from?
It’s Hugo, the writer said.
Of course, I said.
I now remembered what I knew of him. I had even heard him at a salon at least once, carrying on about this very quote. He was very mortal after all, then, known for writing novels based almost entirely on the scandals of his friends. While he typically hid their identities, his most recent subjects could be guessed at by whoever dropped him for the season following his most recent book. He knew everyone, though, and was otherwise everywhere.
He nodded, pleased. It’s the complaint from a priest character of his, that the written word would destroy cathedrals. The novel would separate us from God. He smiled as he said this.
I should warn you, he said.
I waited as he tried to think of what he would say. My novels . . . it would seem they have a way of coming true. He looked away as he said this, as if ashamed.
It came to me this was perhaps how he explained the way he stole from his friends’ lives. Not theft then, but magic.
So if I accept, I said, then . . . for you have not told me of the ending.
She rejoins her circus. You would become an equestrienne in a circus, in love with an angel. He would give up his wings for you, and you . . . well, your voice.
So be it, I said.
He laughed, surprised. Very well then, he said. Caveat cantante.
He presented his card, and there, indeed, was the address. I had not seen it in years.
I set his card in the wallet at my wrist and made the excuse of feeling too poorly to stay for dinner, but I promised to read the novel and await the music.
Oh, but you really must at least meet the composer . . . He gestured at the balcony.
Perhaps we will set an appointment, I said. I would like very much to see the brooch.
His face brightened at this. Yes! You must come; I will show you everything.
I offered my hand to say good night and watched his back vanish into the crowd.
I stayed there until I could move again. It had taken all I had just to stand. I then recalled I’d not asked the composer’s name, but I couldn’t shout to Simonet without a scene. I was to dine with the Verdis the next day, though, and resolved instead to ask after this composer then.
I turned and walked farther into the dark back of the garden, full of fear. Yet once there, my feelings had changed. I was no longer sure I could wait contentedly for my dinner with the Verdis before meeting this composer. I had the impulse to strip this dress off and walk back through the bal in just the corset, for the corset, at least, was beautiful. I’d had one other dress ready at another dressmaker’s, Félix, the man I relied on besides Worth, and thought sadly of having chosen this dress over that.
The bal was full now and wheeled in the night, monstrous, the picture of the fifth act ballet in Faust, in the Cave of Queens and Courtesans. The demon Mephistopheles, having rejuvenated Faust and aided him in the seduction of the virtuous young Marguerite, finds him desperate, preoccupied by her imprisonment, as she awaits execution for the crime of killing the child he fathered on her out of wedlock. He has driven her mad. Mephistopheles convenes a ballet orgy with the most famous beauties in history—Cleopatra, Helen, Astarte, Josephine—all to cheer his sad philosopher, who will not be cheered. The queens and courtesans frolic around him with madcap ballerinos and ballerinas, all while Faust thinks only of his doomed beloved.
My cue to enter is when the dancing ends, when I, as Marguerite, appear before Faust, an apparition only he can see. He demands Mephistopheles help him rescue me, the scenery shifts, and Faust is then magically in my prison cell, exhorting me to leave. I refuse him—I refuse to be saved by devils—and beg for forgiveness instead from God and His angels, who descend finally as I die redeemed.
Standing here now, it was as if I’d escaped from the jail into the fifth act ballet, arriving before my cue, a prisoner to this dress.
I withdrew a cigar to console myself, and as I clipped the end, a man I hadn’t noticed held out a flame for me. I drew carefully, and as the tip glowed, I saw him and his companion more clearly. They smiled and nodded, and I smiled as well and began to turn away.
Mademoiselle, said the man who had offered his light to me.
My madcap ballerinos, then.
They introduced themselves, but I knew very well who they were. Brother dukes, known to most for their handsome profiles, philanthropic works, enormous wealth, and, most important to me on this evening, their reputation for returning women from an evening in their company with their dresses cut to pieces by sabers—and for supplying those women afterward with more dresses in return, presumably to meet the same fate. Their sabers were said to be quite sharp, and the women never harmed. Many had spoken of this preference but none had ever admitted to submitting to it, except to say, And if you were never going to wear the dress again . . . This was usually punctuated with a laugh.
This perhaps my destiny also, then. My luck changing from bad to good in a single trip through the garden.
Ceci tuera cela.
I drew the first saber myself, holding my first new friend’s gaze as I plunged it into the taffeta flounces and cut all the way to the hem. He uttered a soft cry of happiness and fell to his knees to press the dress to his face before he lay back in ecstasy, groaning.
When he and his brother were done, the taffeta resembled an enormous flower torn to petals in the grass. Only the gold wings of the bodice remained, the skirt now like a very short tutu, as if I’d been transformed into one of Faust’s ballerinas.
I shivered, pleased with the result. I’d learned long ago, for men with pleasures this specific, the rest was of no consequence to them. There was no mark on me as I stood there, free at last of the evening’s first mistake, and they were well satisfied.
Fantastic, said the one.
You are our goddess, said the other.