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.
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.