She laughed and spun around on her bench, took my hands in hers, and kissed them, knuckle by knuckle. “I tell you this truly, George, to be near you is to be reborn. Look at me, I am suddenly wide awake! Let us take off our shoes and stockings and dance barefoot down the streets, let us pull down the stars from the heavens—I will gather them in my skirt for us to have as our own. Let us lie down and ravage each other all night, and then breakfast on champagne and oysters!”
“Shall we?” I asked quietly, my heart racing. Could I at last act on my desires? Marie had just opened her mouth to answer me when we heard a knock on the door. And then her husband came into the room.
“Marie?” he said, and just before her face changed into one of domestic compliance, she glanced over at me, and we shared a look that we had shared before, one that could be translated into a single word that meant many things: Men.
I nodded to her husband and took my leave. Outside, the clouds had lifted, and the stars shone brilliantly. Mercilessly. I stood still looking up at them, my hands in my pockets. I ached for her then. Then and always.
All the way home, I made love to her in my imagination, as I thought I could if only she would let me. I would kiss those lips, that neck, that bosom: pink and white, roses and cream.
March 1822
RUE NEUVE-DES-MATHURINS
PARIS
My mother and I had moved into my grandmother’s apartment. Rather than the two of us enjoying each other, which I confess I still hoped for, there was cold silence and an ongoing disapproval. My mother seemed to want to punish me for the life I had lived with my grandmother. She seemed intent on breaking my spirit, on taking away from me the things I loved most. She ripped books from my hand, telling me that since she found them incomprehensible, they were no good. She got rid of my maid, saying she did not like her, and even sent back to Nohant my dog, Phanor, whose imploring look when he departed nearly broke my heart.
I felt I had no allies. My cousin René de Villeneuve, once my champion, stopped coming to visit. When his brother, Auguste, came once to call on me, I expressed my dismay about no longer seeing René. Auguste, who was no diplomat, said, “With a mother like yours, what do you expect? She is always rude to René. And besides that, you did not adhere to the plan we all had agreed to. You did not go to live in the convent. Rather, you choose to live here with your mother, and you even show yourself on the street with her and her people. I myself don’t mind such a thing, but for my sister-in-law and other important people in society, it is quite impossible to think of getting you married off when you are seen with such types.”
However challenging my mother was for me, this made me angry. “First of all,” I told Auguste, “my mother would not permit me to live at the convent. I am seventeen years old, not of age, and therefore am obliged to do as she says. What recourse did I have? Secondly, you suggest that it is wrong for me to keep company with my mother and her family and friends. As long as you are taking moral inventory, you might want to ponder this: What kind of virtue would be shown by my abandoning my own flesh and blood? Shall I blatantly disobey my mother? Threaten and insult her? Shall I run away and abandon her as she abandoned me, throwing bad after bad?
“What, after all, Auguste, makes you a nobleman but the circumstances of your birth? It is no credit to you that you sprang from your mother’s limbs; you had nothing to do with it. Is it not one’s character and actions that make him what he truly is?”
Auguste bristled. “If so, take care to recall the actions of your mother, who before she married your father was—”
“I know what she was! She did what she had to do! Her choices were limited; they were not those of a man!”
He sighed. “Aurore. There are ideals, and then there is the world we live in. You must be realistic. You must be practical. Surely you see our predicament. Our society is not welcoming of women like your mother. As her daughter, if you expect to marry well—”
“The world we live in is the way it is because of the decisions people make. Or do not make, but instead blindly follow behind those who went before, never questioning their motives or reasoning, never thinking for themselves!”
He shook his head. “Aurore—”
“And as for you dangling the prospect of my marriage to a nobleman, what makes you think I want such a marriage? The idea of the convent is more appealing to me than marriage!”
He laughed heartily. “Come, come, let us not pretend that every woman does not dream of getting married! What we hoped for was for you to find a good match, by which I mean a man of wealth and good breeding. But all right, then, marry a commoner, if that is your desire. It makes no difference to me.” He raised a shoulder in a lazy shrug.
My heart was racing so fast it was making me dizzy, but I spoke calmly: “If you want to speak in absolutes, then I shall answer you this way. Every man thinks he can speak for any woman. But he would do better to let her speak for herself, and then consider the worth of her words!”
“Bah!” He stood, pulled out his pocket watch, and looked at it. “I must take my leave. But before I go, I should like to tell you something, Aurore. I know that René finds many of your odd ideas charming. I confess I do not share his enthusiasm. Your outrage about such matters only bores me. Men and women live in this society in the way that makes the most sense; we have evolved quite naturally to operate in a way that is best for all of us. That includes recognizing men as the superior sex, though of course women do have their charming contributions to make. I believe that when you mature somewhat, you will come to understand this. And I hope that, despite your feelings toward me now, you will think about our conversation and understand my family’s concern for you. I speak for all of us, I know, when I say that I wish you well.”
He left, closing the door quietly, and I went to the window to watch him walk away.
June 1833
NOHANT
In early June, when it was my time to be at Nohant for three months, Casimir took the children to see his family for a few weeks. In his absence, I inspected the place thoroughly. My husband had not been tending to the estate the way I would have liked; things looked poor both inside and out.
Ever since I had left to live part-time in Paris, I had made an effort never to criticize anything that went on at Nohant. But this time, as soon as I kissed the children goodbye and watched them and their father disappear down the driveway, I set the entire staff to work. The reward for their efforts, I told them, was that they would all receive two weeks of vacation; I could manage the place alone.
On the last day of the servants’ being there (how high their spirits were, every one, from housemaid to stable boy!), I received a note. My pulse quickened; I thought it was Marie sending me details about her arrival; I had implored her to visit me here.
But instead of an excited acceptance from Marie, I found a vitriolic message from her lover, Vigny, calling me a Sappho and telling me that Marie wanted nothing more to do with me. “I ask you on her behalf to refrain from any more attempts to contact her,” he wrote. I sat stunned, the letter in my hand. I could not believe this was Marie’s doing. But when I thought about how easily she had abandoned me before, I could not entirely doubt it, either. I sat unmoving until the moon began to rise, and then I went to bed, the cold supper of sausage, bread, and cheese that the cook had left for me untouched.
—
The next day, I received a letter from Marie, informing me that she had been outraged to learn of the note Vigny had sent. He had admitted to having done so during an argument they had had, “the most violent yet,” she wrote. I confess I felt a rush of satisfaction on reading this. She said she hoped I was faring all right and that she would see me when I came back to Paris, if not before. For despite a terrible exhaustion, she thought she might just take the time she had been given off between shows not to rest, as she really ought, but instead to come to Nohant to visit me.
I closed my eyes at the thought of it. To have her here alone
with me! But in matters of great longing, one must tread carefully. Especially with one who liked to be a bit contrary, as Marie did. She never wanted anything more than when she thought she might not be able to have it; she was a woman so used to getting her way that any resistance intrigued and engaged her.
I went to my desk to write her back immediately, saying: “However lightly you may have suggested it, do not think of coming to see me here. I have come for solitude; I have even dismissed the servants. I want to hear only the birds and the wind in the grass, the running of the river. To be frank, I need to clear my head of you, Marie. Anyway, I am writing well, engaged in a major project, and there is no one with charms enough to pull me from it.”
Naturally, she came. In late afternoon, four days later, I heard the creak of the carriage wheels, the clip-clop of the horses’ feet. I came to the front door and saw her descending from the coach, her parasol raised against the sun.
“You see that I have come despite your letter to me!” she said, after the driver brought her luggage inside. “Surely you could not have expected me to wait for you in the stifling city, wondering if you were truly as well as you suggested. Tell me you are happy I am here, show me!”
She ran into my arms, and I embraced her. She stepped back and regarded me, tears in her eyes, “So! There! I knew it! I knew you would be glad; I knew you told me to stay away only because you longed for me! Alfred was the devil himself, telling me I must have no more dealings with you, that you were intent only on exploiting me. I am exhausted more by him than anything else in my life. He is jealous of anyone who takes a moment of my time. Men are such infants, so frightened of being pulled from the tit! Except for the pleasures they provide us, which we most assuredly earn, they are worthless.”
Here before me was Marie Dorval, her body and her mind and her spirit. I wanted to speak lofty words of love to her, to bedazzle her. And so what did I do? I told her I had been on my way to the kitchen to make a little dinner. Would she care to join me there? I had had a sudden attack of shyness, and I feared, too, that moving too quickly on my desires might frighten her off. When birds came to me, after all, it was when I was holding still.
Marie’s face brightened. “Ah, George, it is with great eagerness that I accept your invitation. What rarity for me to enjoy the simple pleasures of cooking. No one knows it, but I adore cooking! I am not so good at it as most; you will have to forgive my clumsiness if I—”
“As surely you know by now,” I said, “I forgive you everything. Even the things you have not yet done.”
She looked tenderly at me. “Well, then, my dear. Let us feed ourselves.”
We donned cook’s aprons and worked side by side in the kitchen. We talked nonstop, sometimes about serious things, but just as often we were silly, welcoming the release of laughter.
We talked about men, too—she was still smarting from her terrible argument with Vigny. “I tell you,” she said, “he is enough to make me want to be faithful to my husband, who is a dullard, but who at least asks nothing of me!”
I chopped chives to sprinkle over our omelettes. “As far as I am concerned, the balance between men and women is all wrong, and there seems little interest on the part of men for changing that. Men know that women need them, and because of that, they acquire an elevated self-confidence. Women, rather than acknowledging their own importance in a relationship, focus instead on their need for it, and in the process they lose their self-confidence. I search in vain for equality in a relationship, and for someone who will want all that I have to give. What is the answer, do you think?”
“I think,” Marie said, “that the answer is an omelette.”
I laughed, and she said, “I wonder, George, if you have ever in your life been properly treated by a man.”
I gave no answer, which was of course an answer.
“I see I must teach you some things.” She gestured toward the dining room. “After you.”
She loaded up plates on her arm like a tavern keeper. I rushed to help her, and she said, “No. Proceed.”
And so I did. In the dining room, she set the plates on the table, then pulled my chair out for me. After I sat, she brushed her lips against the back of my neck and murmured, “I adore you.”
She did not let me pour myself wine, and she watched carefully to be sure my glass was never empty. At dinner’s conclusion, she cleared the table while I sat idle. Then she came back to the room and announced that it was now time for after-dinner entertainment.
“Ah, good,” I said. “I want to take a walk outside to show you the stars.”
“No need, for I have seen them in your eyes.”
I laughed; she did not. She was firmly ensconced in her role as séducteur.
“To the drawing room, then, to play the piano?”
“Your voice is the only music I care to hear.”
“What shall we do, then?”
She took me by the hand and led me toward the bedroom.
I giggled like a schoolgirl all the way there, but when we arrived, it grew suddenly silent but for the sound of the frogs singing in the pond.
We disrobed, our eyes on each other, and lay down on the cool white sheets. She turned onto her side, her back to me, and I rested my cheek against the flat space between her shoulder blades, then kissed each knob of the drop necklace of bone that made up her spine. I caressed her bottom, the backs of her thighs, and in her silence I felt her pleasure. Next I turned her over and put my mouth to one of her breasts, sucked gently, then moved to the other. She moaned, low, and I slid down to put my mouth at her center and I tasted her. Then I tasted her more deeply and finally devoured her, until she cried out and her hands, tangled in my hair, pulled up hard, then let go.
We lay still for some time, and then, in a voice not quite her own, I heard her say, “George?” It was not the voice of a prima donna, of the absurdly confident actress who enjoyed the adulation of thousands.
“Yes?” I whispered.
“I am…frightened.”
I pulled myself up to look into her eyes, smoothed her hair back from her forehead. “I am as well.”
We were quiet. Then she asked, “Have you yourself experienced what you just gave to me?”
I shook my head no.
“Ah, you must have it, then.” She turned me onto my back, regarded me tenderly, and began. I closed my eyes. After a moment, my senses and thoughts began to blur together and I felt a lifting away of self from self. She touched me with her mouth, then with her fingers in a way that made me gasp, and my eyes flew open. Outside, I could hear rain falling, lightly at first; then it pounded down. I closed my eyes again, my heartbeat escalating, my breathing soft grunts. And then I cried out in astonishment at the rippling feeling I was experiencing. My back arched in exquisite tension. It lasted for a long, glorious moment, after which I collapsed onto the bed.
She pulled me to her in a tight embrace and whispered to me, and I felt tears trickle down my face to pool at the edges of my smile.
She slept then, her body pressed to mine. I lay awake, listening as the rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun. I got out of bed and tiptoed over to the window to open the shutters. Moonlight spilled in to softly illuminate the room, and then, carried in by a breeze, there came the perfume of jasmine and the fecund scent of the earth, renewed.
I returned to bed and then I, too, slept. I entered that place we must all go to alone, with another.
—
WE SWAM IN THE river upon awakening; we bathed together in the cool waters, from which Monsieur Pistolet, my newest dog, a soulful-eyed spaniel, was cruelly and unusually barred. He was used to diving in from some great height, then swimming to shore with a sapling firmly gripped between his teeth. Or he collected rocks from the silty bottom and laid them in a pile like a stonemason, intent on a project of his own design. As lighthearted as his antics always made me, I did not want him with me now. I left him to pace in circles and whine at the door, and I was entertained ins
tead by the disrobing of my magnificent mistress.
She stood naked in the knee-high grass of the banks and stretched her arms up over her head, her fingers interlaced. Sunlight outlined her body, infused her hair. She smiled at me, and in it I read her pleasure in last night’s lovemaking. I still could not fathom what had passed between us; never had I experienced such feelings. My pleasure was my great surprise; my surprise was her great pleasure. There was no discordance, no doubt. There was no separation of anything. We were part of a glorious whole that made up the summer night: a sudden rising up of wind and the rattle of shutters, a pouring-down rain followed by an aromatic and moonlit calm, black chiffon clouds drifting by, and clusters of stars like ornamentation worn at the shoulders of the firmament. Her crinolines were piled on the floor on top of my clothes, her blond hair unloosened and intertwined with my own black tresses.
We had eaten and drunk again afterward. We had left berry-stained meringues on pink glass plates in order to dance together to the music in our minds. Then we had fallen again upon the bed, our mouths pressed together. Kissing her, I felt kissed myself; it was my breasts that were caressed as I touched hers. I knew her body because I knew my own; I touched her in my own deepest place of pleasure and felt what she felt in soulful reverberation.
Before she left, she sat me at my dressing table and arranged my hair in an elaborate style. It took a very long time, and when she had finished, black ropes of braid hung on either side of my face in a fanciful and alluring way. “See how beautiful you are!” she said. “You must re-create this style every day.”
“I very much admire it, but I would never take the time.”
“But you look so lovely!”
I repeated: “I would never take the time.”
She shrugged. “As you like. As an actress, I must take time to make myself beautiful every day, at every hour. There is nothing more dangerous and unreliable than an adoring public. They will turn on you in an instant if you do not meet their expectations, for they depend on you to lift them from their tedium.” She sighed and gazed at herself in the mirror. “It requires such effort. It is exhausting. If I did not enjoy looking at myself so much, I would find it intolerable.”