I stayed there until I could move again. It had taken all I had just to stand. I then recalled I’d not asked the composer’s name, but I couldn’t shout to Simonet without a scene. I was to dine with the Verdis the next day, though, and resolved instead to ask after this composer then.
I turned and walked farther into the dark back of the garden, full of fear. Yet once there, my feelings had changed. I was no longer sure I could wait contentedly for my dinner with the Verdis before meeting this composer. I had the impulse to strip this dress off and walk back through the bal in just the corset, for the corset, at least, was beautiful. I’d had one other dress ready at another dressmaker’s, Félix, the man I relied on besides Worth, and thought sadly of having chosen this dress over that.
The bal was full now and wheeled in the night, monstrous, the picture of the fifth act ballet in Faust, in the Cave of Queens and Courtesans. The demon Mephistopheles, having rejuvenated Faust and aided him in the seduction of the virtuous young Marguerite, finds him desperate, preoccupied by her imprisonment, as she awaits execution for the crime of killing the child he fathered on her out of wedlock. He has driven her mad. Mephistopheles convenes a ballet orgy with the most famous beauties in history—Cleopatra, Helen, Astarte, Josephine—all to cheer his sad philosopher, who will not be cheered. The queens and courtesans frolic around him with madcap ballerinos and ballerinas, all while Faust thinks only of his doomed beloved.
My cue to enter is when the dancing ends, when I, as Marguerite, appear before Faust, an apparition only he can see. He demands Mephistopheles help him rescue me, the scenery shifts, and Faust is then magically in my prison cell, exhorting me to leave. I refuse him—I refuse to be saved by devils—and beg for forgiveness instead from God and His angels, who descend finally as I die redeemed.
Standing here now, it was as if I’d escaped from the jail into the fifth act ballet, arriving before my cue, a prisoner to this dress.
I withdrew a cigar to console myself, and as I clipped the end, a man I hadn’t noticed held out a flame for me. I drew carefully, and as the tip glowed, I saw him and his companion more clearly. They smiled and nodded, and I smiled as well and began to turn away.
Mademoiselle, said the man who had offered his light to me.
My madcap ballerinos, then.
They introduced themselves, but I knew very well who they were. Brother dukes, known to most for their handsome profiles, philanthropic works, enormous wealth, and, most important to me on this evening, their reputation for returning women from an evening in their company with their dresses cut to pieces by sabers—and for supplying those women afterward with more dresses in return, presumably to meet the same fate. Their sabers were said to be quite sharp, and the women never harmed. Many had spoken of this preference but none had ever admitted to submitting to it, except to say, And if you were never going to wear the dress again . . . This was usually punctuated with a laugh.
This perhaps my destiny also, then. My luck changing from bad to good in a single trip through the garden.
Ceci tuera cela.
I drew the first saber myself, holding my first new friend’s gaze as I plunged it into the taffeta flounces and cut all the way to the hem. He uttered a soft cry of happiness and fell to his knees to press the dress to his face before he lay back in ecstasy, groaning.
When he and his brother were done, the taffeta resembled an enormous flower torn to petals in the grass. Only the gold wings of the bodice remained, the skirt now like a very short tutu, as if I’d been transformed into one of Faust’s ballerinas.
I shivered, pleased with the result. I’d learned long ago, for men with pleasures this specific, the rest was of no consequence to them. There was no mark on me as I stood there, free at last of the evening’s first mistake, and they were well satisfied.
Fantastic, said the one.
You are our goddess, said the other.
Whatever you ask of us, whatever we can provide, we are at your disposal, the first said.
As we made our way out through the back of the garden to their carriage, the jacket of one of them on my shoulders, the jacket of the other at my waist, I knew what they could provide and handed them my other dressmaker’s card.
Félix was in his evening suit when I arrived. He was about to set off for the ball himself—he’d been busy dressing clients and was only just now ready. He threw open the door and pulled us in.
My dears, what possible errand could you be on? he asked, smiling in greeting first at me and then at the young dukes.
Yes, it seemed, the dressmakers of Paris would know them quite well. I walked to Félix’s ledger, took his pen from his stand, and wrote:
These good gentlemen have said they will do anything I ask of them tonight. Let us help them keep their word.
I had Félix’s assistants box up the ruined dress and send it back to Worth, including a note that said only Pas comme ?a.