Mademoiselle, he said, I am Ivan Turgenev, at your disposal.
Turgenev had already become the beautiful giant I would know him as for the rest of his life, his long white hair and beard giving him a mystical appearance, as if he were the last of a great race, and this mystique was added to by his strangely high voice, startling in a man of his size. He was dressed simply and elegantly in a dark suit and white shirt, as he would be, I would soon see, every day. The white beard, in particular, glowed, lighting his face; but much like Pauline’s, his eyes took you in, though his projected a calm, conquering kindness—of course you will love me, they seemed to say, and I will love you.
He saw my embarrassment at my mistake, and as Pauline introduced me—Lilliet Berne, may I present the great Russian writer Ivan Turgenev—he deftly turned the conversation to my toilette, complimenting me on making such an elegant first appearance in their home, and then admired my general’s coat, even inquiring after the fur in my collar. But the sound of my old name had surprised me—now at least I knew whose name was on that paper—and with that, I understood why Pauline had not asked my name at her gate—she had simply greeted me as if we already knew each other, as had I. Nervous, tired, unsure of my French suddenly, with not one wit about me, I touched the collar—I had never once thought of the animal who’d given its life for the coat’s trim—and said, Lapinard? And he laughed, and as soon as he laughed, I knew I had mixed rabbit, lapin, and fox, renard, inventing a word and an animal by my mistake.
Ah, he said. La peinard? Or, better, you should be La Peinard. We should all be les peinards. I apparently already am, he said, gesturing to his teacup as Pauline continued mock-scowling at him and I smiled through my embarrassment. Please, he said, forgive my casual manners and be welcome here.
This pun, la peinard, if it meant anything, meant “the relaxed one,” and this did have the effect of putting me at ease—and Lapinard would become what he called me for as long as I knew him.
I then noticed a giant black pointer dog lying curled on the rug by the sofa. He raised himself up mistrustfully as we talked and fixed me with a glittering eye.
This is Pegasus, and he only loves women, Turgenev warned the tenor, as the dog rose and came over to us and the tenor reached out to pet him. All women except for Pauline, strangely, he added.
Pauline only laughed at this as Pegasus came to me and pushed his nose into my hand.
He has kissed your hand, see? Pauline said. Now you are made welcome as I never will be. Come with me, I’ll show you to your rooms.
And with that, she left her own house through the rear. The tenor and I looked to each other with a surprised smile and then followed her into the garden.
However interesting I had found it that Pauline was a woman composer, I found the mystery of the conjoined houses and lives, the apparent marriage à trois at the heart of this kingdom, even more fascinating as we passed through Pauline’s garden to the gate in her wall and then walked through to Turgenev’s villa from the back.
We climbed a set of stone stairs to a placid terrace lawn, where we found a fountain with a stone Nereid at her ease in the center, water playfully pouring down her face from the tiny dolphin perched on her head. Yellow and red leaves skated on the water’s surface, blown by the wind. We entered through the back door, as if we had been here all along and had only stepped out for the air.
Pauline moved here with much the same authority and ease Turgenev had shown in her parlor. We passed through the main salon, where three men cheerfully greeted us as they struggled to hang a long green velvet curtain across the middle of the room. There will be a performance here in your honor before dinner, Pauline said, as she led us by quickly, a playful smile on her face as we took the stairs.
We came to a stop in the upstairs hall, where our hostess directed each of us to rooms opposite each other with the faintest smile. Dinner will be served after the performance, across the way, she said. We will gather in the salon in approximately two hours. Please refresh yourself, and I will have tea sent up for you both if you’d like to take it here.
We thanked her; she smiled as she took her leave. The tenor stepped into his rooms and winked at me as he closed his door, as if we were fiancés to be kept separate before marriage. With that, to my surprise, I was left alone in the hall.
I went into my rooms and closed the door as well.
§
I’d not been alone once since being presented to the tenor at the end of his Il Trovatore, and the placid cheer I’d worn until now fell off me like a cape. No one to insist I speak to them, no need to remember who I was as I spoke, no need to feign pleasure or interest or knowledge of a language. The advantages to my new circumstances were still making their case to me, but the shock of losing the hopes I’d had from before my capture—my desire to set myself up with a little room, to find a teacher at the Conservatoire, and to wait and find my composer again in the spring—this had stayed trapped within me and still flew along my nerves, electric and unanswered, even as his example of my na?veté mocked me. Worse in some way than the future I’d never have was to contemplate the past I might have prevented.
I was going to bring you here to her before you left, the tenor had said so lightly. I could no longer ignore that little sentence. My escape, my time spent with the Comtesse, the Empress, the escape from Compiègne, all of it for nothing, then, if he told the truth—all of it for nothing, or for one thing. One man.
These rooms, like the rest of what I had seen, were nothing like I’d imagined. At first, I was puzzled to see there was no bed and then understood I was in the sitting room to a small suite. A fireplace glowed with a fire, newly set, blazing crisply. I went to warm myself at it and took in the rest of my surroundings—a dark wood writing desk and chair by one of the two windows and a bedroom with a dressing room, visible through a far doorway. Two green velvet chairs and a small couch kept watch over the fire, with small tables for I did not know what—all of it anticipated a kind of leisurely attitude I could not remember ever having taken toward my life.
The bedroom, set back from the sitting room, was very grand, the bed hidden under a canopy hung with thick velvet brocade drapes of a deeper green than the chairs. Across from the bed was a washstand and vanity with a petite chair and a tassel discretely dangling by the vanity mirror to ring for assistance. At this, I briefly felt the duty to watch out for the lady who would dress herself here until I reminded myself she would be me.
The trunks had already been delivered, set like little coffins in their place beside the dressing room’s armoire.
I found I waited to see if the door would open, the tenor bursting in with plans or demands, or if he would lock me in with a key Pauline had somehow provided him secretly. But the lock stayed silent.
I opened the door and looked out again into the hallway and the stairs, and then to the tenor’s door. The keyhole glowed with the late afternoon light—he was not even so much as watching me through it. I put my ear to the keyhole carefully—an eye might reflect light whereas an ear would not—and the faint murmur of his distant snore told me he was already asleep, taking a nap.
This was how much he believed he did not have to lock my door. And that I would stay as he rested.