I knelt, bowed my head, and closed my eyes. And then I suddenly felt an immense pressure in my chest and did not know whether it was joy or sadness. I kept quiet, breathing in and out, trying not to move in any other way, giving myself over to whatever mysterious force was upon me as the feeling grew and grew and I began to tremble.
In the chapel was a painting by Titian that was very hard to see at any time of day. It was hung in the darkness of the back of the nave and was itself a dark painting. But I had had occasions to sit near it and look at it and had learned what was depicted there. It was Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, on his knees, having fainted into the arms of an angel. The angel holds Christ’s head against his breast, against his heart. The image came to me now, and I began to weep.
Then I thought of the patron saint of the convent, Saint Augustine, who for a long time struggled with whether or not to accept Christ. On a day when he was full of despair at the weakness of his will, he threw himself beneath a fig tree in a garden, where he said, “How long, O Lord, how long? Is it to be tomorrow and tomorrow? Why not now?” It was then that a voice came to him, saying, “Tolle, lege!” (Take it, read it), referring to the Bible, and he had his conversion experience. In his Confessions, he wrote about his long-lasting struggle to accept Christ:
Too late have I loved you, O Beauty so ancient and so new, too late have I loved Thee. Thou wast with me and I was not with you. Thou hast called, Thou hast cried out, and hast pierced my deafness. Thou hast enlightened, Thou has shone forth, and my blindness is dispelled.
I sat gripped by my emotions; then I, too, heard plainly spoken aloud the same words that had been said to Saint Augustine: Tolle, lege! I turned, expecting to see a nun who, having intuited the experience I was undergoing, wanted to urge me on. But there was no one: I was alone in the chapel.
Then a bright light surrounded me, and an incredible sweetness flooded my soul.
I could feel that my body was distinctly my own but temporary, and that my soul was eternal. I could feel that there was no need for fearing death. I could feel the place of abiding love and peace from which I had come, and to which I would return.
Tears ran down my face, and I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude and joy.
I wanted to confess all of my sins and begin a new life. I fell to the floor, sobbing, and wept on and on until I heard a nun coming in the door to close the church for the night. I quickly ran out, went back to my cell, and, full of a feeling I could only call ecstasy, slept.
The next Saturday, just after lunch, I sought out a meeting in the sacristy with my confessor, Abbé de Prémord. I told him that whereas before I had offered up only an anemic recitation of “sins” that were copies of what the other girls said, now I wanted to make a sincere and thorough listing of my wrongdoings, and this I did, to the best of my ability.
When I had finished, the abbé spoke quietly: “I most sincerely grant you absolution, and you may receive communion tomorrow. Do not carry remorse for anything in the past; in the end, it is only prideful. Let peace dwell inside you, live your life in joy, and give thanks that God has come to you in this way.”
I received communion the next day—I held the host in my mouth and felt light fill my soul—and in the days that followed, I burned with my newfound passion. For many months, all through that summer and beyond, I attended Mass with newfound appreciation and understanding. In addition to that, I prayed constantly: on my knees in my cell, sometimes in class, even walking about in the recreation yard, when I pretended to be watching the various games the other girls played. I ate and slept little. I became, to the extent that I could, a mystic, one for whom a scratchy filigree rosary worn around the neck served as a hair shirt. The nuns treated me with great affection, and I felt myself blessed.
One day, talking with Madame Alicia, a nun I particularly liked, I told her about my plans to take the veil.
She listened somber-faced to my words, nodding slowly. Then she said, “You are in no way ready to make such a commitment. I fear that your tendency to overdramatize has come into play, here, and you have—”
“It is not overdramatization!” I said. I could feel the heat rising up into my cheeks, blood throbbing at my temples. “I assure you that I am utterly sincere in my desires.”
“I know you believe that with all your heart,” Madame Alicia said. “But you must at least consider the fact that you might have taken a notion to an extreme.
“Let us examine what has happened. You believe you have suddenly stepped into a luminous maturity, that you have heard a calling; and now you cannot act quickly enough to put things into place. You feel you are reborn into a place you have sought all your life, that you have found your true home.”
She put a hand on my shoulder and looked into my eyes. “Now I must tell you what I see from my side. I see a baby grasping at a sunbeam; I believe you are full more of appreciation and desire than understanding.
“For example, you speak of the value of suffering. Look at the lives of the poor that go on outside our walls. They are the ones who suffer nobly and endure. They shiver in the cold, they go hungry, they bury the small bodies of the children they could not keep alive. They dream of things they know full well they will never have. Of what value is suffering that is self-inflicted? Believe me, life makes for suffering, no matter who you are. But do you not think that God wants us to feel joy as well?
“This is the counsel I would offer you: Live more with this feeling. See how it grows or changes. Then decide what to do. You may find that your gifts are better used elsewhere. Trust in God. He will continue to show you the way. You must not rush ahead of His plan for you nor attempt to predict it; to do so is to dishonor Him. Patience is not only a virtue; it is a form of grace.”
Despite those words, or perhaps because of them (for the devil in me never completely died), I continued to believe I would sign the contract that would make me a nun. I gave up my recreation time entirely in order to have time to help with various chores in the convent, in order to have more time to pray. People later told me that I became stupid during that time, and they were right. I did not care any longer for history or languages or the fine arts; I wanted only to move toward the single-mindedness I saw in people who devoted themselves to their faith.
Then my grandmother heard about my plans.
She made arrangements to abruptly withdraw me from the convent. She cited as a reason her failing health, and it was true that there was a noticeable weakness in her, a fading of the essential qualities that made her who she was. She told me she could not ever forgive herself if she left me unsupported after she was gone. I would, after all, inherit Nohant. Someone would need to help me run it. Therefore, it was time for me to start my search for a husband. Introductions must be made, parties and dinners attended; I would need a new wardrobe.
So it was that I gathered up my few things, said goodbye to my friends, and walked out of my beloved cell for the last time. I abandoned the work to which I had dedicated myself and rode blank-eyed with my grandmother to her Paris apartment to begin another life entirely. I was not yet sixteen.
February 1833
DRESSING ROOM OF MARIE DORVAL
PARIS
“To. My darling George. Tell me a story about yourself.” Marie’s speech was rapid, her eyes wide and shiny bright. In her head, I was sure, were still the sounds of the applause and cheering that had met her performance. Minutes ago, she had burst in the door, downed the glass of champagne I had waiting for her, and disappeared behind her screen to change into one of her lacy silk dressing gowns. She was now sitting at her vanity, taking off her stage makeup.
I sat almost shyly at the edge of her chaise longue, holding my top hat, turning it around and around by the brim. “A story,” I said. “What kind of story?”
“Tell me how you came to wear men’s clothes.”
“Ah. A story about that! But surely you have seen other women wearing men’s clothes.”
“Yes
. But not like you do. There is more in it for you. So tell me. And make it a long story. My throat aches; I want someone else to talk.” She wiped under one eye with her finger, removing a bit of kohl she had missed. Bare of makeup, she was even more beautiful.
“All right, then.” I stretched my legs out and rested my hat beside me. “Well, I first wore men’s clothing when I was a girl, out of sheer practicality. Deschartres, my tutor, worried about my ability to ride my horse while wearing the fussy dresses my grandmother preferred for me. He suggested I wear pants so that I would have a safe seat in the saddle. Of course, I did not go out in society in such clothes; I was not like Honoré de Balzac, parading around Paris in his dressing gowns—many of them none too clean!—as a point of pride.”
Marie laughed. “And always with his jeweled cane! Oh! He is a pig, that one, with his sticky rings on his fat fingers and his many chins!”
“Ah, but he is such a divine writer. And he will tell you that his unkempt appearance is publicity! Do you know that once after some friends and I dined with him—he had put on one of his usual dinners of boiled beef and melon and champagne cocktails with the irresistible gaiety of a child—he changed into a new robe de chambre about which he was most excited. He proposed that he accompany us to the Luxembourg gate wearing that robe. To light our way, he said he would carry his new candelabra. It was a preposterous idea; the streets were deserted at such a late hour, and I worried that on his return home alone, he would be assaulted by thieves or murderers, which I told him out quite plainly. He laughed and said that if he encountered anyone, either they would think that he was insane and be afraid of him or they would think he was royalty and entitled to such eccentricities, and they would bow down before him. And so we went, Balzac carrying an exquisitely engraved silver candelabra with candles blazing, speaking loudly of the four Arabian horses he did not yet have but would.”
“The man has no taste whatsoever,” Marie said. “I hear his rooms resemble those of an old marquis—silk walls bordered with lace, and knickknacks everywhere.”
“True. But, Marie, you must understand that Balzac is one of those magpie artists, attracted to bright jewels and loud color. He will deprive himself of coffee and bread in favor of ornate silverware and china with which to lay his table. He says that he lacks the discipline for elegance, that he finds it too severe.
“In any case,” I said, “I will not speak badly about him; he was for a long time a good friend. He is sincere and generous and a great deal of fun. I always used to accuse him of being an animal; he would accuse me of not being one. And so we went on, enjoying our differences, until I asked Jules to move out, and then Balzac chose to side with the one he deemed the wronged partner. I very much regret the loss of Balzac’s company, and I bear him no ill will. I tell you, Marie, there are those who deny his genius, but I believe he is destined for a great and influential career.”
“Enough of Balzac. Let us talk about you. You and your men’s clothing.”
I lay back on the chaise. “As you wish. Well, to continue the story, when I became a theater critic here in Paris, I dressed in men’s clothes because my disguise got me into the cheaper seats.”
“But does it not feel strange to wear such things?”
“Why should it feel strange? Does a fox feel strange wearing his black stockings?”
Marie laughed.
“Anyway, when I moved here and began to dress as a man regularly, I became transformed more on the inside than on the outside. I experienced an elevation in society, simply because I was thought to be of the opposite sex. The favors I was given as a matter of course! I was lent a kind of gravitas, given respect and inclusion that I had heretofore not experienced. This brought with it a new way of seeing and feeling, and the feeling was…”
She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, her hair now loose around her shoulders, shining and fragrant. “What was the feeling? Tell me.”
“To be very frank, it was grounded in something that was sexual in nature. I tell you, Marie, I felt it between my legs, that power, that confidence, that sense of entitlement; and I liked it. Once I had it, I did not want to put it away for stiff crinolines and whalebone stays and gigot sleeves, all of which prevent free movement. Men wear clothes; women are captured by them. I have lost altogether my desire for ruffles and bows, for silk flowers anchored in my hair.”
“But these things add such beauty!”
“Perhaps. But I trade that for something that matters far more to me. A feeling that my voice is heard.”
“But…all this conferred by clothing?”
“Seemingly so. Or maybe such clothing serves as a catalyst to unleash things that have always been in me, among them a desire for independence and for fairness. Whatever the case may be, after the success of Indiana, I cast off the secondhand clothes I’d scavenged in haste and began to buy elegant redingotes, waistcoats, cashmere trousers. I bought pantaloons and silk cravats, too, mostly from Buisson.”
“Ah, the wonderful tailor on Rue de Richelieu.”
“The same.”
She nodded slowly, and her eyes moved over my face. “How interesting you are. How bold. And with what delight do I hear your stories!”
“Shall I tell you one more?”
She clapped her hands. “You must! And then we shall order up more champagne, and you must tell me others. You must tell me stories all night!”
“If that is what you want, then that is what you will have.”
“You are the most gentlemanly gentleman, and I adore you.”
She said it too easily for it to hold the meaning I wanted, but I flushed with pleasure nonetheless.
She got up and came over to the chaise, straightened the shoulders of her ruffled white dressing gown, gathered the train of it about her. “Let us lie down together; I shall rest beside you and listen like a contented child to your every word. What pleasure to have someone transport me, for a change.”
I lay on my side, and she lay on her back close beside me. The scent of her perfume rose up; I could feel the heat of her flesh. She closed her eyes and sighed. “I am ready; you may begin now.”
I began to speak, falling very nearly into the same kind of trance in talking to her that I fell under when I wrote. This had never before happened. I often said that the reason I wrote things was because I couldn’t say them. But with Marie, I was able to speak directly from my imagination.
I told her, “One day when I was thirteen years old and dressed in my riding clothes of trousers and shirt and boots, I went walking deep into the forest near Nohant. Suddenly, I came face-to-face with a wolf.”
Marie gasped, and her eyes flew open. “A live wolf? With his long red tongue and his stealthy gait? And his sharp teeth?” Her voice broke; soon it would be gone altogether.
I held my finger to her lips. “Listen. Rest your voice. Close your eyes. Obviously, the story ends well enough.”
She closed her eyes and moved nearly imperceptibly closer to me.
“Yes, the woods were full of wolves, and I had been warned against them, but I had also convinced myself that I would never have trouble with anything in the natural world—a naïve position that could not be supported by anyone with half a brain, only I was as stubborn then as I am now. At any rate, I was standing near a pond in deep contemplation when the wolf came suddenly out of the underbrush. He held up abruptly at the sight of me. I saw the hair along his back rise slightly; I saw his breath quicken, as did my own, naturally. He was beautiful, colored silver and brown and black, and very thin.”
“And did he growl most fiercely?” Marie whispered.
“He did not, actually.”
“How did he smell?”
“How did he smell?”
“Yes.”
“He smelled…of wild onion and earth and cold. His eyes were a soulful and limpid brown, possessed of a keen intelligence. I stood unmoving, and then a conversation ensued. I shall report it to you here as it happened, as I felt it,
so help me God. Perhaps I shall act it out in a little play for you—would you like that?”
“Of course!”
I made my voice gruff to be the wolf.
—Ah. A human. Good evening.
And then I made my voice unnaturally high to be my girl self.
—Mon Dieu, a wolf! Help, help!
—A shameful response to my affable greeting.
—I fear you will harm me; I fear you will eat me!
—That remains to be seen. Permit me to sniff your ankle.
He approached, slowly, and I stood stone still. He sniffed, then drew back in surprise.
—I see you are a female human. Yet you wear the garb of the male.
—Today I do.
—What ever for?
—It allows me certain rights that only males enjoy.
—But the female is the superior sex.
—Not in the world of humans.
—A pity. But humans are in any case perplexing and we in the animal world frustrate ourselves trying to make any sense of you at all. You are good for eating, though.
—So this is my fate, to die by mauling at the edge of the pond.
—Perhaps not. I have only just finished eating a hapless rabbit. Moreover, I like you, for I sense in you a high regard for the natural world, even including wolves.
—Including wolves most sincerely! For I much admire your beauty, cunning, and strength.
—Now she flatters in order to survive.
—I merely speak the truth.
—I think I shall let you live. But do let me pass by for a drink of water. I must insist on a wide berth, for as kindly as we may regard each other at the moment, any wild animal knows to regard your species with great mistrust.
I let him pass, he drank deeply—though with one eye on me—then trotted into the forest and disappeared.
Silence.
“Marie?” I said.
Her eyes opened, and she smiled at me.