meanness, Monsieur Hubert’s childishness, the Duc’s malevolent rants—in some ways her colleagues had described their masters with perfect accuracy. How could one not feel contemptuous of grown people who were so spoiled and thoughtless?
As if by tacit agreement, though, the servants were relatively gentle in their treatment of the Vicomte. For he at least tried to remember to say please and thank you —totreat you like you might have some feelings of your own, as Louise had put it.
And now , Marie-Laure thought, I’ve insulted him myself.
Not that he’d really care what a scullery maid thought of him.
And yet he did seem colder and more distant for the next few nights, abruptly ceasing to speak of America and beginning a series of linked erotic stories instead. Amusing, rather wicked stories whose plots turned upon which lover could most thoroughly demolish the other’s amour-propre .
He didn’t narrate these stories, preferring to act them out as little dramas. She marveled at his acting skill. Yes, he told her modestly (a bit too modestly perhaps), amateur theatricals had been all the rage at Versailles; he’d been invited to play the male lead in one; the Queen, of course, had acted the female lead.
Anyway, he continued, such stories as he was telling these nights lent themselves well to dramatization, didn’t she agree?
She supposed that she did agree. In any case, he was certainly effective, both as himself and as a series of haughty ladies, whispering endearments (“I shall await you breathlessly”) and then appending cynical asides (“and you’d better be as good as they say you are, Monsieur”). Mincing and simpering, he managed to look absurdly effete and thrillingly handsome at the same time—his black eyes burning in a livid face that the candlelight had turned white as rice powder.
But even as she laughed, she wondered why he’d want to present himself in such an unflattering mode. It was almost as though he wanted to punish himself—and her too, by making her his witness.
Or perhaps the message lay buried in the prologues that he used to set the scenes. He always insisted on the same point: every woman he’d seduced had been a great beauty a well-married noblewoman or a notorious courtesan—“which comes to the same thing, you know”—a woman of lofty station, “higher than mine, if possible; I made it a point of pride never to take advantage of a woman of lower birth than myself.”
He reiterated these words as though they constituted a principle of egalitarian virtue. And she supposed that in some ways they did. But they hurt nonetheless.
Yes, yes , she wanted to scream. Yes, I know, Monsieur. Yes, you needn’t repeat yourself. For you have made it purely and absolutely clear—transparent as crystal—that you would never lower yourself to touch someone like myself.
Or that if you did—when you did, because you did , you know, even if you’ve forgotten that you did touch me—it was only to protect me. Your embrace, your kisses—yes I know, they were nothing but amateur theatricals. No real passion (well, except on my part); on your part was simple generosity: the benevolence that any liberal aristocrat might extend to a worthy commoner. Nothing more than a momentary instance of noblesse oblige. It was only…charity.
She was beginning to think that her nightly visits weren’t worth the anguish they caused her; she might prefer taking her chances with the Duc or the Comte Monsieur Hubert (for surely they’d have forgotten their moments of lustfulness by now). But just when she didn’t think she could bear it, he left off the erotic stories as abruptly as he’d begun them.
“Because I’ve been awfully rude,” he said to her one night, “monopolizing the conversation and not giving you a chance to tell me about yourself.
“And anyway,” he continued—how lovely, she thought, to see his mischievous grin again—“I’m tired of hearing myself talk.”
But
As if by tacit agreement, though, the servants were relatively gentle in their treatment of the Vicomte. For he at least tried to remember to say please and thank you —totreat you like you might have some feelings of your own, as Louise had put it.
And now , Marie-Laure thought, I’ve insulted him myself.
Not that he’d really care what a scullery maid thought of him.
And yet he did seem colder and more distant for the next few nights, abruptly ceasing to speak of America and beginning a series of linked erotic stories instead. Amusing, rather wicked stories whose plots turned upon which lover could most thoroughly demolish the other’s amour-propre .
He didn’t narrate these stories, preferring to act them out as little dramas. She marveled at his acting skill. Yes, he told her modestly (a bit too modestly perhaps), amateur theatricals had been all the rage at Versailles; he’d been invited to play the male lead in one; the Queen, of course, had acted the female lead.
Anyway, he continued, such stories as he was telling these nights lent themselves well to dramatization, didn’t she agree?
She supposed that she did agree. In any case, he was certainly effective, both as himself and as a series of haughty ladies, whispering endearments (“I shall await you breathlessly”) and then appending cynical asides (“and you’d better be as good as they say you are, Monsieur”). Mincing and simpering, he managed to look absurdly effete and thrillingly handsome at the same time—his black eyes burning in a livid face that the candlelight had turned white as rice powder.
But even as she laughed, she wondered why he’d want to present himself in such an unflattering mode. It was almost as though he wanted to punish himself—and her too, by making her his witness.
Or perhaps the message lay buried in the prologues that he used to set the scenes. He always insisted on the same point: every woman he’d seduced had been a great beauty a well-married noblewoman or a notorious courtesan—“which comes to the same thing, you know”—a woman of lofty station, “higher than mine, if possible; I made it a point of pride never to take advantage of a woman of lower birth than myself.”
He reiterated these words as though they constituted a principle of egalitarian virtue. And she supposed that in some ways they did. But they hurt nonetheless.
Yes, yes , she wanted to scream. Yes, I know, Monsieur. Yes, you needn’t repeat yourself. For you have made it purely and absolutely clear—transparent as crystal—that you would never lower yourself to touch someone like myself.
Or that if you did—when you did, because you did , you know, even if you’ve forgotten that you did touch me—it was only to protect me. Your embrace, your kisses—yes I know, they were nothing but amateur theatricals. No real passion (well, except on my part); on your part was simple generosity: the benevolence that any liberal aristocrat might extend to a worthy commoner. Nothing more than a momentary instance of noblesse oblige. It was only…charity.
She was beginning to think that her nightly visits weren’t worth the anguish they caused her; she might prefer taking her chances with the Duc or the Comte Monsieur Hubert (for surely they’d have forgotten their moments of lustfulness by now). But just when she didn’t think she could bear it, he left off the erotic stories as abruptly as he’d begun them.
“Because I’ve been awfully rude,” he said to her one night, “monopolizing the conversation and not giving you a chance to tell me about yourself.
“And anyway,” he continued—how lovely, she thought, to see his mischievous grin again—“I’m tired of hearing myself talk.”
But
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