Maurice did not mention a father and I did not ask after one. There was no question of it. Madame Sand was, I could see, Pauline’s match, or more so. Each of them was a formidable artist and a woman who had made her own indelible mark on this world. I had thought to never meet another woman like Pauline, and now I knew I would.
I knew of Sand only by reputation, the writer said to wear men’s pants and affect men’s mannerisms. On the train, Turgenev had mentioned in passing she’d written a novel about Pauline, a little in the way she’d done with all of her lovers, though it wasn’t thought that she’d bedded Pauline, he’d added warily.
This all made her fascinating to me.
In Sand’s library, instead of finding the novel about Pauline, I found a copy of Turgenev’s First Love, inscribed to her, and sat down to read it, to the exclusion of all else—I had not read him before, ever. The conceit of the book took me in from the first—a group of friends, telling stories, ask one another who their first love was. I secretly hoped to discover that it was also about Pauline. When it was soon clear that it was not, I continued reading it and had nearly finished it by the time our hostess returned.
§
Sand, when she finally appeared, was, disappointingly, not dressed as a man but as a genteel woman of her age, stylish but not too stylish. She looked me over graciously, with a smile that suggested she knew at least some of the stories about me. You are the prodigy cocotte, she said, and when I curtsied to her, she laughed. You are a delight, she said. You will sing for us later, yes? I looked to Pauline, and she nodded, smiling.
We had a very late dinner, and afterward, the group became maudlin with drink and talk of the possibility of war.
A drama, Sand said, finally, prepared to put an end to our sad mood. She stood up. She waved her arms up, lit by the candelabra.
Pauline raised an eyebrow. Which one?
Hamlet.
Hamlet, Pauline repeated. This is how you mean to cheer us up? But she was already smiling as she said it and stood up.
No, not that one. Not the whole one, Sand said. In honor of our future rulers, the Prussians, we will do the German traveling version of the play, in which we find Shakespeare’s play like a captive, much abused and much shorter. And hilarious.
Will we do it in German? Turgenev asked, his voice very quiet.
Sand laughed. We should, to practice.
She waved us to the small theater within her beautiful house.
All night long, after we’d tried not to speak of the inevitable coming war, it was easier to acknowledge now with jokes. It would be Hamlet as farce, and we would each have to pay multiple parts. Pauline was to be the Queen, and Sand Hamlet, of course, Turgenev the King’s ghost. Maurice exclaimed with dismay at having to be the King and also Ophelia’s minister father. Is there nothing more interesting for me? he asked.
The King is very interesting, said Sand, and we laughed.
I was Ophelia, but also the Queen of the Night, which thrilled me.
Why is there a Queen of the Night? Pauline asked. Was she in the original?
No, Sand said. A German affectation. Done because they love her, I suppose.
There’ll be one in every opera once the Prussians are done, Turgenev said.
You’ll see, she said. She’s terrific. I like her very much. You will, too. You won’t mind when they eventually include her in Don Giovanni. They also call her the Queen of Silence.
We laughed at this, Pauline most of all.
Sand chose Plauchut for the head of the troupe of actors, who were, in the play, from Germany, made to perform a play that reminds the murdering royal couple, Hamlet’s mother and uncle, of their guilt.
We need Furies to accompany the Queen, Sand declared, and appointed Maurice, Pauline, and Turgenev as the Furies—Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone.
I stood before them, cloaked in a blue wool blanket for my starry mantle of night. I wrapped it dramatically around my head, but as soon as I did, to my surprise, I felt something sad descend—something sad but nobly sad. Outside, the lightly fervid humor of the night.
Where are we? murmured Turgenev, from just offstage. Is it her land of women from The Magic Flute?
Well, they are Furies, Sand said. That is all you must know. Now let’s start.
This version of the play begins when the Queen of the Night calls her Furies to her. I am dark Night that sends the world to sleep, I recited.
I am Morpheus’s wife, the time for vicious pleasure.
Protector of thieves, guardian of illicit love;
I am dark Night, and it is in my power
To give the whore her rest, and cover up her shame,
Give Evil its free rein, all mankind to betray.
Ere Phoebus arise, I shall have my prize.
Ye children of my breast, ye daughters of my lust,
Rise up, rise up, you Furies, appear before thy mother!
Regard with care all that she is about to share!
The Furies appeared and welcomed me. The comedy of it had fled at first, but it returned at the sight of Turgenev in the light from the fire, both hilarious and very convincing as a crone.
Maurice, as Alecto: What says dark Night, Queen of Silence?
What new game does she propose? What is her wish and will?
Pauline, as Megaera: From Acheron’s dark pit come I, Megaera, hither,
To hear from thee, mother of all evil, all thou might desire.
Turgenev, as Tisiphone: Dark Night! Speak!
What wishes wait in that dark heart?
Pauline giggled.
Listen, ye Furies all three, listen, ye children of darkness and mothers
of all misfortune. Listen to your poppy-crowned Queen of the Night,
patroness of thieves and robbers, friend and light to all that burns,
lover of stolen goods, dearly loved goddess of unlawful love:
how often are my altars honored by it?
This night and the coming morrow, stand with me;
The King of this land burns with love for his brother’s wife,
Whom for her sake he has murdered so that he might possess both wife
And crown. Now is the hour at hand when they lie together.
I shall throw my mantle over them both, that neither may see their sin.
Make ready to sow the seeds of their disunion, mingle poison with their
Marriage, put jealousy in their hearts. Kindle a fire of revenge and let the
Sparks fly over this whole realm, till murder burns in Hamlet’s heart, and
Gives joy to Hell, so that those who swim in this sea of murder may soon drown.
Begone, hasten, and fulfill my command!
As this last was said, it left my mouth with the whistling of something terrible set loose in the dark.
That those who swim in this sea of murder may drown.
The Furies gave their last speeches.
Tisiphone: I have already heard enough, and will soon perform
More than dark Night can herself imagine.
Megaera: Pluto himself shall not prompt me to so much
As shortly I’ll be performing.
Alecto: I fan the sparks and make the fire burn;
Ere it dawns the second time, the whole game I’ll shiver.
Then they scattered to rip the royal family into blood and shreds, and fill the world with justice. More giggling ensued, and all was as it had been, a comedy again.
Sand made for an amusing Hamlet. Every line she spoke made us shake with laughter. Pauline was regal as the Queen, whom she played as a bit thick and wintry toward her son. Maurice turned out to be an able and elegant choice for the young soldiers as needed, vanishing and reappearing in yet another costume—borrowing hats and helmets from the coatroom and, in one case, a long ostrich feather that made us all laugh as he entered.
The night was like the play, familiar and unfamiliar—and hilarious, as Sand had promised, and we got through it, murder after murder, to the end.
Ophelia, in this version, to my mind, could only be ridiculous, and so I played her that way. Befuddled as to why her world had gone mad but certain she had not changed. Her death a moment of unexpected happiness for her.