As I made my excuses to leave, attempting not to create a scene, Céline held her hand out to mine and I could do nothing but take it, and she slipped me her card. To my regret, I accepted her invitation.
She greeted me the next day with kisses and embraces, and the child, whose name was Adèle, was well trained in the art of coquetry. She climbed into my lap and held my face in both her little hands and planted kisses on my cheeks. I had brought a doll for her, and I suppose she was thanking me, but I was repulsed by such a forward manner in one so young. I stayed at Céline’s apartment as short a time as I could, determined not to give the impression that I had forgiven her. She tried to imply that Adèle was my own, but she must have known I could easily deny it—there was nothing at all about me in that little face. I fled the apartment, insistent that both mother and daughter were gone from my life forever.
From there I continued my travels, my gambling, my liaisons with unsuitable women. I am not proud of that rootless life. But even so, changed as I was, more cynical about human nature, more hard-hearted—more, perhaps, like my father than I had ever wished to be—the boy I had once been lived on in one undeniable way: I continued to yearn for Thornfield. Not as it had become, barren and warped in secrecy, but the Thornfield of my childhood imagination.
My self-imposed exile was not without comfort, however. Once, in Baden-Baden, I picked up a companion who has, so many times since, warmed me with his presence. One day, having grown tired of casino games, I set out for a change of pace and caught a coach going toward the Badener H?he, where I aimed to take a long walk in the Schwarzwald. And quite a walk it turned out to be, for I lost my way, and God knows what would have become of me if a scruffy-looking, half-grown dog hadn’t appeared as I leaned against a fallen log to tear into my lunch. The animal gazed at me with such intelligence that I was moved to offer him the rest of my bun. He stood at my knee, chewing with gusto, and when he had finished, he looked expectantly at me again, as if I could conjure more, which made me laugh. When I rose to try to find my way back, though my food was gone, he followed. But he must have judged me an inferior guide, for after an hour of wandering in the darkening forest he suddenly set out ahead of me, glancing back now and then as if to make sure I was still there, until we had reached civilization. The next morning he was waiting for me outside my hotel, and he has been my constant comrade ever since. I named him Pilot, for he surely led me back that first day, and has often given me succor when no one else could.
I seemed to have little luck in quitting troublesome women, however, for a few years later, when I was again in Paris and passing an evening with Monsieur Roget, Céline’s name came up. “Ah yes,” he said, nodding. “Céline: what a pity.”
“Pity?” I repeated.
“She ran off with some Italian. A person of little account, unfortunately; she did not always have the best taste in men.”
I said nothing, choosing not to include myself in that slight, and he went on: “A musician, I think. He sometimes performed with the opera. He took her to Italy.”
His terminology suddenly struck me. “Did not have the best taste? Is she…”
“Well, yes, I understand she went only a year after she left for Italy. Consumption: she ignored it for months before she left.”
I was stunned. Céline, so full of life: dead? “And the child?” I asked, unthinking.
He laughed then. “If you were to run off with Varens, would you take her child along?” His face suddenly went serious. “The little girl—Adèle is her name, is it not?—she can’t be yours—?”
“She is not.”
“Ahh.” He nodded. “Perhaps the Chevalier du Bellay.”
“I would believe that,” I responded, a certain bitterness resurfacing.
“So,” he went on, “Varens left her with Madame Frédéric. Do you know her?”
Oh yes, I knew her. She had been a neighbor of Céline’s, a former courtesan turned sometime procurer. What had Céline been thinking, leaving a child with that woman? “Does she still live on rue Favart?” I asked.
“Yes, but she is now in reduced circumstances, I am afraid. Varens left little enough money for the girl’s care. The madame”—he said the word with an ironic tone—“is in a tiny flat now.”
I turned away and left, compelled to find the child, if only to assuage my conscience.
Madame Frédéric’s rooms were on the top floor of the building. Pilot waited for me on the street, and as I climbed the stairs I reminded myself that I had no responsibility for this child. I had not seen myself in her, and neither had Monsieur Roget, and certainly there was no place in my life for a child, a living reminder of the second biggest mistake I had ever made.
When I knocked on the apartment door, there was no answer for so long that I was just making to leave as the door opened and a woman peered up at me. The thick powder and rouge on her face failed to hide the tangle of lines that webbed it. “Madame Frédéric,” I said.
She looked at me, nodding. “I knew you would come,” she said.
“You have Varens’ child,” I said. “Where is she?”
“Where? Where do you think, at this hour of night? In bed.”
Only then did I realize how late it was. “Ah,” I said. “I should have waited until morning. I only just learned—”
She smiled a nearly toothless smile. “And you are so anxious to see your daughter.”
No, I was not. I still did not believe she was mine. Perhaps the only reason I was there at all was to prove it to myself, once and for all. “Excuse the disturbance,” I said, backing away. “I didn’t think of the time. I will return in the morning.” I made a fast retreat, with the old woman calling after me. She was, I am sure, afraid I would not return at all.
But I did, and the next morning Adèle was there to greet me, dressed in a pink frock that seemed a size or two too small, a tattered pink ribbon in her curls. She had been prompted, it was clear, and she smiled, and I saw again the dimples in her cheeks, her fair skin, her flaxen hair, her hazel eyes, and the curve of her chin. She was definitely Céline’s child, but just as definitely not mine. I had seen those eyes before, large and wide-set, and that nose as well, but not in my mirror. They were those of the secret lover. But her little lips were moving already, silently forming the word by which she had been instructed to know me: Papa.
“She is yours,” the old woman croaked, reading my thoughts on my face. “Her mother always said so, and I have no reason to doubt. And as her father—”
I shook my head. “She is not mine,” I whispered. “You must know that.”
“Do you not find her beautiful?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.
A chill ran through me, and I leaned closer to her. “I can see what will become of her if she remains with you.”