she didn’t have anything interesting to say, she protested. Her life at home…well, he’d already seen the drabness, the sameness of life back home in Montpellier. Days in the bookshop, meals with Gilles and Papa. And Mamma, of course, when Mamma had been alive.
“You saw your parents every day.”
“Well, we could hardly help it, could we? You know how tiny the house is…um, was. There was barely room for the books, not to speak of the people. We children were always under foot, giving Mamma and Papa headaches. And worse, sometimes…”
She had to smile here.
“…oh dear, I’d almost forgotten. You see, there was a period when Gilles and Augustin were mad for scientific experiments. And they used our kitchen, of course. The Rigauds’ cook had already chased them out of her domain, but Papa believed in encouraging children’s intellectual curiosity, and Mamma believed in the wisdom behind Papa’s eccentricities…”
She laughed and so did he. The evening passed quickly and pleasantly. He was a charming listener, she thought later, his quick nods and sudden smiles inspiring her to turn the silliest of domestic mishaps—bad smells and exploding kettles—into knockabout comedy.
She searched her memory for more stories to tell him. He seemed to enjoy hearing them, and she found it soothing to remember Mamma and Papa so happily. And if there had been a note of wistful envy in his comment that “you saw your parents every day,” he made sure never to show it again.
Once she even confided some of her plans for the future. He didn’t say a great deal, but at least he didn’t laugh at her. “Yes,” he said quietly, “I think you’d be able to accomplish that. Well, you’re a very impressive girl, you know, Marie-Laure.”
They became comfortable together, so comfortable that by late August they sometimes simply spent the evenings reading books from his shelves, each of them illuminated by a different halo of candlelight, both of them isolated in their own worlds of the imagination—separated and yet bound together in an easy intimacy.
Every so often one of them would break the silence, commenting upon a passage or even reading it aloud. They argued sometimes, but more often they found themselves in agreement, for they both preferred wit to sentimentality and liked a spare style instead of a florid one.
“You’ll enjoy this,” he or she would say. And the other would enjoy it, too. They laughed sometimes at this uncanny ability to know what each other would like. It was almost a shared instinct, a miraculous correspondence of taste and sensibility.
And yet she’d failed in her quest to discover his hidden stories; in truth he was as much of a stranger as he’d ever been. She was as confounded by his moods now as she’d been in Montpellier, as ignorant of his real emotions as when she’d first begun visiting his room.
A frighteningly attractive stranger, of course: most attractive, perhaps, during these quiet, companionable, readerly evenings, when the sudden flare of a guttering candle on his cheekbone would cause her belly to tremble and her thighs to tighten.
She tried to suppress her body’s unruly behavior. But as this quickly proved impossible, she could only endeavor not to become too accustomed to his presence.
These nightly meetings wouldn’t go on forever. The Duc would die soon enough; nowadays everybody knew just how ill he really was. And then—well, the gossips in the dessert kitchen agreed that the family would marry Joseph off as quickly as they could, especially since some spectacular offers had recently arrived from Paris.
She tried not to listen to these discussions, but the provisions of the marriage deals—fabulous one-time gifts and princely yearly allowances—lodged unpleasantly in her thoughts nonetheless.
And so now when she visited him, another shadowy entity seemed to materialize in the bedchamber. Was it the inescapable presence of his future wife? More
“You saw your parents every day.”
“Well, we could hardly help it, could we? You know how tiny the house is…um, was. There was barely room for the books, not to speak of the people. We children were always under foot, giving Mamma and Papa headaches. And worse, sometimes…”
She had to smile here.
“…oh dear, I’d almost forgotten. You see, there was a period when Gilles and Augustin were mad for scientific experiments. And they used our kitchen, of course. The Rigauds’ cook had already chased them out of her domain, but Papa believed in encouraging children’s intellectual curiosity, and Mamma believed in the wisdom behind Papa’s eccentricities…”
She laughed and so did he. The evening passed quickly and pleasantly. He was a charming listener, she thought later, his quick nods and sudden smiles inspiring her to turn the silliest of domestic mishaps—bad smells and exploding kettles—into knockabout comedy.
She searched her memory for more stories to tell him. He seemed to enjoy hearing them, and she found it soothing to remember Mamma and Papa so happily. And if there had been a note of wistful envy in his comment that “you saw your parents every day,” he made sure never to show it again.
Once she even confided some of her plans for the future. He didn’t say a great deal, but at least he didn’t laugh at her. “Yes,” he said quietly, “I think you’d be able to accomplish that. Well, you’re a very impressive girl, you know, Marie-Laure.”
They became comfortable together, so comfortable that by late August they sometimes simply spent the evenings reading books from his shelves, each of them illuminated by a different halo of candlelight, both of them isolated in their own worlds of the imagination—separated and yet bound together in an easy intimacy.
Every so often one of them would break the silence, commenting upon a passage or even reading it aloud. They argued sometimes, but more often they found themselves in agreement, for they both preferred wit to sentimentality and liked a spare style instead of a florid one.
“You’ll enjoy this,” he or she would say. And the other would enjoy it, too. They laughed sometimes at this uncanny ability to know what each other would like. It was almost a shared instinct, a miraculous correspondence of taste and sensibility.
And yet she’d failed in her quest to discover his hidden stories; in truth he was as much of a stranger as he’d ever been. She was as confounded by his moods now as she’d been in Montpellier, as ignorant of his real emotions as when she’d first begun visiting his room.
A frighteningly attractive stranger, of course: most attractive, perhaps, during these quiet, companionable, readerly evenings, when the sudden flare of a guttering candle on his cheekbone would cause her belly to tremble and her thighs to tighten.
She tried to suppress her body’s unruly behavior. But as this quickly proved impossible, she could only endeavor not to become too accustomed to his presence.
These nightly meetings wouldn’t go on forever. The Duc would die soon enough; nowadays everybody knew just how ill he really was. And then—well, the gossips in the dessert kitchen agreed that the family would marry Joseph off as quickly as they could, especially since some spectacular offers had recently arrived from Paris.
She tried not to listen to these discussions, but the provisions of the marriage deals—fabulous one-time gifts and princely yearly allowances—lodged unpleasantly in her thoughts nonetheless.
And so now when she visited him, another shadowy entity seemed to materialize in the bedchamber. Was it the inescapable presence of his future wife? More
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