Now it is harder for us to be overheard, I said.
Yes, he said. You’re good.
Will you remember this? I said. This theme you are playing?
Of course, he said.
Play it for me always, then, I said. When I ask for it.
Of course, he said. He met my eyes and did not pause. What am I here to help you with? Or is this song the one you wanted?
I set out the music for Bellini’s La Sonnambula.
You can adapt it for piano? I asked.
He raised his eyebrows in mock contempt. Of course, he said. I won’t refuse you anything I can do.
Please, I said, as he studied it. Let’s begin.
I sat silently, afraid even to meet his eyes, as he found his way through the music confidently. I only watched his fingers as they moved along the keys. The long hours of sitting on the Empress’s bench, waiting for her to ring for me, listening to him in memory, had become the long hours of listening to Pauline play the Chopin nocturne in Baden-Baden almost every night as night fell. I knew it well enough to ask for it by name, though I didn’t dare to, not yet. I still felt guilty that I had given up on him, that I had believed myself foolish to think he cared for me. This man now beside me, playing for me, hidden in my past, who had somehow kept watch over me this whole time, close but not close enough until yesterday afternoon.
And yet we were too soon. Cupid’s slow arrow was still too fast. All those years ago, I had told myself I would look for him only after the Empire had fallen or the Emperor or Empress died; that seemed safe. I did not have the luxury of taking risks. I did not ask him, but I felt sure he didn’t, either. I could have waited, I suppose, a little longer then, except I could not. And neither could he; he leaned in and kissed me once more, his hands still playing evenly, as if this were the most ordinary of gestures.
Five
ON SEPTEMBER 2, 1870, after an earlier false report of French victories, the Emperor surrendered to the Prussians and was taken captive along with the Prince Imperial.
There was no negotiation for the Emperor’s return, but instead the Sénat noisily convened and declared the new republic without him. The Empress was chased from Paris.
There were wild celebrations in the street for the birth of the new republic. It was as if in defeat, Paris dressed in the air, briefly, of a liberated city—liberated from empire. Crowds descended on the Tuileries and it was looted before the new government’s troops took control and continued, at least, the posture of a continued war with Prussia.
All over the city, old newspapers immediately covered over the imperial N’s and E’s, soon to be replaced by immortelles, the symbol of the new republic.
I received the news from my dressmaker, who admitted he was in mourning. His eyes were red from grief.
I am ruined without her, he said. Without Compiègne alone, it would be a disaster, but now there will be no winter balls, either. Will these senators have balls? My congratulations on taking receipt of my last dresses, he said, and bowed ostentatiously.
When I then informed him I was there to order even more clothes, the dressmaker prolonged our visit, urging me to try the newest dress forms on. When I left him, he was all smiles again. As was I.
I had kept my impatience from showing—I nearly ran all the way back to the apartment.
All over Paris, I passed workmen busy chipping off the imperial seals. The imperial seals had been taken off me as well.
This was the day of my liberation, the end of my bargain with the Comtesse. I would leave him soon, I decided—within a day or two. I would have to leave the apartment as if I were going on one of my walks and take almost nothing with me except the jewels, which I would sell as I went to pay my way. The departure should be sudden so that he would have no way to stop me, as if he turned a corner and I went another way on to another life entirely.
But where to go? I thought to go to Pauline, back to Baden-Baden; the jewels meant I could afford to pay my own way this time. Or, if it was too dangerous to be in Baden-Baden—the tenor knew her, he could be there in an instant—perhaps Leipzig, then. Pauline had spoken fondly of it and had a good friend there, a composer. I could debut there instead of Weimar. I knew I could simply go to her unannounced. She would take me in.