He smiled.
Do you remember that day?
I do, he said. Very well.
I stand before you this way to remind you. We will never marry, I said, and put the medal and the letter together on the mantle.
What is this?
We will never marry. We cannot.
What do you mean?
What do you not understand? If you were to marry me, you could never present me at court. This letter may make me a citizen, but it does not provide me with a noble family or title to match yours.
But I will, he said. And as a hero of the war. You don’t understand.
I do, I said.
I walked to where he stood. He was studying my body, which I understood would look new to him with this monstrous new pallor—it excited him. He was trying to contain this, even acting as if we were playing at an amusement of his devising.
I held out my hand, and he took it, and I drew him with me to the bed. There I sat and crossed my legs and extended my right leg before him. He took it and ran his hand back and forth, smoothing my foot.
The foot never so white as it was then.
I do not refuse you lightly, I said. I do not refuse because I do not love you. I refuse because of the Comtesse.
The Comtesse? She is our friend, he said. And a friend to you. She is even a friend to Paris. You all owe her your lives. Do you know why the shelling stopped? She made it so. She intervened with Bismarck. When she got word he was set to shell Paris to rubble, she left Florence at once and arranged to meet with him. She convinced him it was the greatest possible sin to risk the destruction of the Louvre. She and the Prince, they are very old friends, he said, and gestured at the mirror as if at the Prince. You need not worry about her.
At that, I understood the Prince watched us, hidden. Of course.
Yes, I said. For now. You say she has Bismarck’s ear? What will she say there next? If this great friendship with Germany and Italy was to ever go cold, she would use me as she has used me before, without hesitation. And if I was to refuse her, to hurt you, she would need only to expose me for what I was. If I was your wife, and this came to pass, you would be disgraced before Bismarck and all of these ancient families. Can you ensure she would never do this? I think you cannot.
His face fell at last. He looked down to my foot.
You would never forgive yourself, I said. So we cannot marry. You will thank me one day.
I let myself reach out and touch his brow, and he moved against my hand until he kissed my palm. I leaned in then, as if to kiss his ear, and my hair fell around us like a hood. I pushed my finger against his lips.
I said then, in the faintest whisper against his ear, The Prince, he is sending me away.
He turned his head and looked at me, still pressed to my hand. There was death in his eyes, but not for me.
§
Back in my apartment, the Prince waited for me.
At his instruction, evidently, the maids had already drawn me a bath, and I stepped into it as he watched.
Did I do as you asked? Am I free? I asked.
You have won your freedom, he said. He was smiling a thin, thin smile.
He withdrew from his coat an envelope and set it on the bureau by the tub.
Thank you, I said, and stood to check through the contents—my citizenship, the record of the bank draft and the account’s number, the deed to the apartment.
My Serene Highness, a word? I had used his formal address to charm him, and he nodded, smiling.
I insist, he said. Speak freely.
The day will come when my life won’t be worth so much to you, I said. I know you imagine you can kill me at will. And it may be you can. But you should not.
Why not? he asked, amused. What could kill you? You are the deathless one; you have nothing to fear from a mortal like me.
I didn’t answer this question. I held my arms up to be scrubbed by the maids, and as I watched, even under the hot water, I could see myself turn only a faint pink.
Deathless or all death, who could say? he asked.
I shrugged—we both knew he could say.
Do you love him?
You know I do, he said.
You imagine I am an obstacle to your love for him, I said. And I am. But I am a greater obstacle to you dead.
He laughed. Why speak like this, on this happy occasion? he asked. And risk offending me?
I mean no offense, I said. It is a happy occasion. I will leave shortly for Paris, and he will now marry a wife he can bring to court, one who will never suspect you.
Yes, he said. You will live on in his memories. He will live on here. And so why must you live?
And so I knew I was right to do as I did.
He will come to Paris again someday to sing, I said. And to see me sing.