Why was he here? I wondered. But there was no one to ask. It was no business of mine.
Days passed like this. The first week of the series was nearly concluded when I chanced to let my eyes rise up and see the Empress as she examined herself in the mirror. She was sadly beautiful; in every portrait of her, her eyes have a kind of immortal melancholy, as if they contain in them a picture of some larger, divine sadness. But this day there was also a fierce edge of pride, which made it impossible to feel entirely sad for her. This day there was also something romantic to the way she prepared herself, something of the coquette. There was someone she anticipated, someone she wanted to have see her and, in doing so, to be ruled by her. Not for her being empress, but for something else.
The thought waited in my mind, and finally I allowed it. I looked down, afraid of her seeing it in my eyes.
He was here for her.
§
I stood by and watched her as she posed in the mirrors of her bedroom’s antechamber, dressed in her first gown of the day, a chiffon of the palest lilac, before picking up the day’s bouquet of violets waiting on the table. She posed with that as well, and when she was done, she went out to attend to the last-minute arrangements for her guests before returning to wait for the ministrations of her hairdresser, Leroy.
?a y est, she said, waving me and the other girl off.
As I watched her fretting, that curious servant fondness, almost maternal, returned, and as I felt it, I was grateful, for it obliterated the fear. At this distance, seeing myself as I once was, I understand it for what it was.
It made it possible to stand there.
She adjusted her expressions in the mirror until they suited her, but the expression she put back on immediately when she looked away from the mirror was the one she had discarded: the melancholy of the neglected beauty.
When she was gone, I sat in the empty antechamber, grateful to be alone and warm. Her mirror beckoned me, but the risk of her returning quickly and finding me in front of it was too great, and so I went over to examine the day’s clothes instead: a tea gown, a gown for dinner and dancing. Another in case she changed her mind or there was a tear or stain, and as an excuse to touch them, I primped them lightly on the dummies around the edges of the room.
I waited while another girl went and ate her midday meal in the kitchen; when she returned, I would go. Someone had to be here at all times in case the Empress should suddenly return and need to change for whatever reason.
I had mostly let go of the idea my appearance should matter, at least as it once did. But alone with her dresses and her mirror, this returned. I began to imagine myself in the gowns in front of me and longed to hold one up or just touch the soft silk and imagine it was mine. I contemplated approaching her mirror, empty and reflecting just her pots and brushes, when I heard, from the entrance: Sidonie, what a surprise. I had forgotten you were coming.
Pepa entered. She was very proud of her dress, a castoff of Eugénie’s, which, between the corset and some magician of a seamstress, she’d managed to fit herself into. It was white and blue satins, and looked something like a First Communion gown or the dress of a matron at her daughter’s wedding. She made a show of turning in it in the mirror, the exact gesture I had feared making.
I made a show of smiling.
It’s good, yes?
I nodded my head vigorously and smiled. She had put on airs, as if she were also a guest, but I knew she was not allowed out to see the guests and never in that dress. She wore it only to lord it over the rest of us.
Finally, the other girl returned, and I ran to the kitchen to eat before the Empress arrived. On my return I found the Empress sitting and laughing with Pepa, talking in brisk, softly accented Spanish, waiting, I feared, for me. She stayed seated as I entered, though, and Pepa continued telling her whatever story she was relating. I heard the words Saint-Denis and thought to smile, but they were not speaking to me, only of me.
The Empress stood then and we prepared her first for tea, then soon after for dinner, and then after that, for the first ball that evening. While at first it fascinated—So it was like this, I kept thinking, after my long time in the cellar with the furs—soon it bewildered. By the time she left for the ball that evening, in my mixed hunger and exhaustion, I nearly went to my room until I understood I was to undress her at the night’s end. She would also require one of us to be near her at the ball in case she needed something.
The Empress chose me.