After it was done, cognac was brought, and we sat outside on the lawns. It was still very dark but it was morning. I lay back, my hair in the grass, a slight chill to it.
I watched Pauline with Turgenev—they were the opposite of the play we’d just enacted. The brother had not murdered a brother for his wife, but had instead gentled himself.
Sand came over to me. She’d lit a cigar and looked like an old elf. And how are you doing with your studies there with my old friend? she asked.
She is a demanding teacher, I said. But I love her.
That sounds exactly as it should be, I should think, she said, and tapped an ash into the lawn with a cast-down grin. I look forward to hearing you sing, she said. Somehow I am sure you are extraordinary. Pauline does not trifle.
Thank you, I said.
This was when I looked up at her and wondered if she would one day write a novel about me. This was one of the first vanities of my career, that I could somehow attract the literary attention of Sand. I hoped she would, that I would someday be famous enough, interesting enough, and find myself browsing a stall along the Seine, her newest novel there, and opening it to discover it was finally of me.
On the day I open the novel Simonet has written of me, I will remember this moment. Of staring up at her and wondering if I was to be her next subject. It was what I had always imagined it would be like to see God as He made up His mind. As He decided whether or not I was to be forgiven.
§
The novel, when I finally read it, disappointed some of my suspicions, resupplied others, and confirmed one.
I was initially amused that Simonet had transformed the Settler’s Daughter into a sort of female Baron Munchausen, the Baroness Munchausen, if you will. All it lacked for was a ride on a cannonball, a fish for me to crawl out of, and a ship I could take to the moon.
After the Paris Exposition Universelle, the young circus rider who sang before the Emperor and was rewarded with a ruby rose falls under its spell. Unbeknownst to her, the Emperor had the rose enchanted with a love spell. She escapes from the circus, intent on pursuing him, but outside the Expo waits a tenor who had seen the performance and lusted for her, determined to possess her. He seduces her, promises to make her a singer, and brings her to his house in the Marais, where he keeps her prisoner, jealously guarded.
The tenor finds the spell has affected her singing, however; she lacks the passion she might have if she was free of the enchantment, which troubles him. She also keeps trying to escape and will not let go of the ruby rose. The tenor goes off in search of a remedy.
While he is out, she goes to pray in the chapel of his enormous mansion for forgiveness. As she does, a net is thrown over her and she is dragged away, kidnapped this time by faeries who live on the rue d’Enfer and are determined to cure her but also save her. Faery jewelers make the enchanted flowers the Emperor gives to women and know the rose’s peculiar magic has bonded to her heart—if it should be removed by anyone but the Emperor, she will die. The faeries are now remorseful due to the Emperor’s excesses, but they find they cannot undo their spell. They devise a plan—they will go to the Tuileries and sneak her in front of the Emperor in the guise of a doll. In the Emperor’s presence, they can remove the rose and she will be released from the spell. As they begin the process of applying her doll costume, one of the faeries perceives the rose is killing her heart the longer she has it. There is not much time to save her.
The faeries manage to get her inside the Tuileries and deliver her to the Emperor’s chambers; but the Emperor is not there so they depart, running the palace in search of him; the singer, meanwhile, still enchanted and finding herself in the Emperor’s rooms, believes her wish has more than come true—not only does the Emperor love her, she is also to be the Empress. The faerie who has stayed to guard her sees her dress in one of the Empress’s gowns to prepare to go to the Emperor and casts a spell on her so that she falls asleep; for if she leaves, she may die.
She wakes to find herself in a circus again. At first, she’s happy to be returned, as she imagines it, but soon she discovers this is another circus altogether—she is the newest member of a circus of magical creatures hidden inside Paris within the Jardin des Plantes zoo. During the day, the regular creatures of the zoo have a secret—they are the magical ones, hidden by a spell. There she keeps company with an Italian gryphon, a Hungarian vampire, several acrobatic wood nymphs from Greece, a tiny Spanish dragon as big as a cat, and two Indian makaras, elephants with the tails of fishes. When the sun rises, she is transformed into a falcon and can fly. When the sun sets, she is herself again and performs.
The circus belongs to a wizard who tells her the faeries were unable to find a cure for her so they have sold her to him. He explains she is there because he knows the truth of her voice—that she had made a bargain long ago with a Navajo witch for an enchanted voice at the cost of her speaking voice. If she was ever to use the speaking voice again, her singing voice would leave her.
She is to perform with a recently captured angel as the circus’s featured act, singing as he flies overhead. To keep him from escaping, they have removed his wings and return them to him for performances only, during which he flies on a leash. To her surprise, she falls in love with him—the enchanted love for the Emperor seems gone—and together they plan their escape. During their next performance, she cuts the leash and he flies away with her.
They rest on the top of the Paris Opera, where the angel has stopped, for he realizes she is dying of the enchanted rose’s spell—she had thought her love for him was a sign the spell did not work, but it was only proof of the strength of her heart. She has never told him the truth of the ruby rose she wears, but as she dies, the angel thanks her for freeing him and vows to wear the rose so she will know him when she sees him next, after death. He promises her they’ll be reunited in Heaven.
Instead, she wakes to find the circus was only a dream during her long enchanted sleep. The Empire has fallen, the reason the Emperor and the Empress are gone. She has been asleep for nearly a year, her stolen dress in ruins, and wakes to find herself a curiosity inside of a hospital, with young student doctors marveling over her sleeping form, for she has been singing even in her sleep. She finds the rose is gone, however, and, terrified, runs from the building despite the shocked protests of the students.
She makes her way to first the Jardin des Plantes, empty after the Siege and Commune, and eventually to the outskirts of Paris, where she is reunited with her circus, which joyfully remembers her and prepares for her to go on. As she does, she discovers that one of the men who works the ropes is the wizard who ran the magical circus in her dream. He warns her that he will have his revenge on her for stealing his star act—a test awaits her inside the tent.
You will have to choose, he tells her. Choose well.
She goes into the ring confused and believing her dream was just a dream until she sees in the audience a seemingly ordinary man.
He is wearing the rose on his lapel.
She calls out his name. He does not recognize her. He is her angel and has given up his wings forever to be with her as a mortal—but with that, he was lost among men, with no memory of his life before.
Heartbroken, she sings a final aria of her grief to have both found him and lost him. As it concludes, the voice leaves her and she runs from the stage even as the former angel in the audience finally remembers her, leaps to his feet, and chases after her.
I closed the book.