I made my second entrance to the ball in a beaded black silk satin gown, the train behind me like the glittering tail of a serpent. The dukes were on each arm. As we were announced together, the crowd turned and, at the sight of us, roared with delight. The dinner had been served, so many stood on their chairs to see us as I descended again to the garden to enter under a roof of crossed swords made for us by officers who had served in the army with the dukes. As we made our way off the terrace again, I looked to the balcony the writer had indicated to see the men there watching me, their faces changing as they took in what had happened, and then I heard the cheers in the garden and the laughing as the men saluted me.
This was the entrance I deserved. This was what I wanted this composer to see. I had returned for this.
I took a breath. O Dieu! Que de bijoux! The opening words to the Jewel Song aria from Faust rang out across the garden. There was a shocked silence, and then the orchestra quickly joined in.
This was the song Marguerite sang after being presented with the demon’s gift of jewels meant to seduce her into a life of sin. The chaste girl is transformed at once into a woman in love with her beauty, a beauty the jewels reveal to her. It begins and ends in classic soprano entrance style, on long, clear, high notes, as if Gounod knew it should be sung in a palace garden at a Paris ball at night.
I sang it as a gift to the audience, to the composer, to me. I sang it as a taunt to the Fates, too. I was weary of my fears as well as my desires, and so I sang it in simple defiance of all of it, even defying myself. I covered the night and its secrets and regrets in coloratura cavatina, until all that could be remembered was me.
La Générale! the crowd shouted as I finished and came down the stairs, and I lifted both my hands into the air to the crowd, smiling. I could feel the applause beat against my skin as it echoed and grew. A woman screamed as her dress swept the candles on her table and caught fire as she stood on her chair to see me. She was rushed to the fountain, where it was put out, and even this was cheered. The group of officers who had roofed my entrance with their swords then knelt, offering them to me, and the crowd changed from shouting my name to laughter as I took one and mock-knighted them all. La Générale! La Générale!
The fear, the feeling of the mad scene, the sense of a trap in wait, even the feeling of destiny, all faded into the applause. I looked afterward for the writer to see if I might finally meet the composer, but as in a fairy tale, he was gone.
§
My maid Doro waited until the afternoon and then came and pulled the shutters in my bedroom open.
I had lain awake in my bed for some time, which was unlike me. I had not slept well. The strange amber twilight I’d lived with was gone, and in its place was some terrible new brightness. I’d gone from feeling lost in a dream to lost in wakefulness, as if I might never sleep again.
No more gaslights as I dress, candles only, I said to Doro.
Of course, she said, and tied back my drapes.
Gaslight is a liar, I said. She smiled as she stepped back. On second thought, gaslight and then a last check by candlelight, I said. My dresses must look good in both. Last night’s dress was a foul betrayer. Candles would have caught it out.
Perhaps it only gave its life to make room for the ones to come, she said, and hung the new gown away with a faint smile.
As she walked past, I saw the morning’s papers on my tray with my coffee. Between them and the new dress she had not put on me, she likely knew the story. She asked no questions, though, as ever.
I stood; she put on my dressing robe and left me to my coffee by my window. The alley was unchanged. But here, within the robe, I felt myself to be an imposter in my own life.
I was unnerved after I’d been unable to find my new friend and his composer, and had even withdrawn his card again to prove to myself the conversation had been real. I went again to my wallet and withdrew it once more. Frédéric Simonet, it read, and with that address, the letters like a fracture, the faintest of cracks along this life of mine.
He had not lied. The Marais house was indeed his.
Of all the accolades heaped at my feet, the one I lacked for was the honor of originating a role, a part written precisely for my voice. This was the opportunity with the power still to entrance me. I could not turn away lightly. For a singer, this was your only immortality. All the rest would pass.
But this story was somehow of my life—and to immortalize it, this was not in me to do.
I went to my closet and touched the new dress, hung there just now.