The Dream Lover (15 page)

I would often go and kneel before Corambe's altar in the dim light, with my hands in the prayer position and my eyes closed. Though no words came to me, a rich feeling of peace did.

Sometimes, the best times, I would feel removed from the aching, lonely side of myself and instead part of a greater whole. I was equal to, related to everything around me: the ground I lay on, the animals rustling in the woods, the leaves stirring in the breeze, the sky high above me.

But on this cold and bleak day, I found no comfort in the idea of going to the altar. I had no idea where to go, what to do. I heard owls asking the same question I was:
Who? Who? Who?

When I arrived home, I sat outside the front door. I was cold and wanted to go in; but I was loath to give up the freedom I felt outdoors. I put my forehead to my knees and began to weep, releasing long, wailing sobs, and I spoke to the dirt below me, saying the words I longed to say to my grandmother: “You chide me for failing in my studies. I want to fail! You have no idea how I feel or what I have planned, which does not in any way have to do with the ridiculous, old-fashioned things you try to force upon me. Soon
enough I shall show you why I have no need of you or of what you teach. I shall be rid of all of you forever!”

I spoke with a passion and fury that contained in it a great deal of truth but mostly reflected my loneliness, confusion, and despair. I was like anyone who seeks a place to put his pain; I blamed my grandmother for all that ailed me. I also spoke as one who believed no one could hear, but in fact Julie was standing just inside the door, in the hallway, and she heard every word.

She jerked open the door and spit out, “You ingrate! How dare you speak this way about the woman who has done so much for you! You would deserve her sending you back to your mother!”

“I
want
to go back to my mother!” I said. “It is all I dream of, to escape this place and live where I belong!”

Julie's eyes narrowed. She stepped forward and leaned down to hiss into my ear, “Quiet yourself! You are having a tantrum, and the truth is, you don't know what you want. I only hope for your sake that your grandmama has not heard your diatribe, for she might just take you at your word and send you away!”

“She need not have heard me, Julie. You know full well you will tell her what I said.”

At this, Julie's mouth dropped, and I stood to face her, my hands clenched at my sides, and let go with all the rage that still burned in me. “Do you think I don't see through you? Do you think I don't know that you are kind to me only to try to ferret out information that you can then use against me? Go and tell my grandmother everything; tell her now! I hope it will make her decide to let me go to my mother at once!”

Julie spun on her heel, and I knew she was going straight to my grandmother. I was filled with a great sense of righteousness and hastened to my bedroom, where I slammed the door and then sat on my bed, reviewing all the reasons why I had been justified in lashing out at what I saw as my keepers. Despite my own clearly expressed wishes, I had been left in the care of an old woman whose
methods and predilections were foreign and irksome to me: the way I was made to wear gloves and to curtsy before my grandmother's dour countess friends, the way I had to practically whisper when I was inside. I was made to address my grandmother not even in the formal
vous
but in the third person, as in, “Will Grandmama permit me to go outside now?” My mother may have punished me freely, but she always made up for it afterward; and there was honesty in her behavior. I could be intimate with her, not only calling her
tu
, but easily and quite naturally giving my innermost self to her: my stories, my thoughts, my fears, my dreams. She
asked
me to; and in return, she showed me herself.

It seemed to me that by virtue of her nature, my grandmother had inhibited me from being my true self day after day, year after year. I often thought of the animals that roamed free, wishing I could be one of them rather than a human being subjected to such a dull and regimented environment. No one shushed the birds singing in the trees; no one cautioned the dogs not to run too far from home or the horses not to sleep outside in the sun. The pigs could roll in mud; I could not even remove my shoes and stockings for the feel of green grass beneath my feet.

Whenever we traveled to Paris in the big berlin, the many pockets of the coach would be stuffed with all my grandmother needed, and she needed everything: her perfumes and powders and pillboxes and her maid sitting erectly beside her. She needed coverlets against a draft, parasols against any ray of sun. As I saw it, she did not enjoy life so much as protect herself from it.

When we walked in the garden, I was forced to move slowly, along with her, rather than run down the paths, as I longed to do. Because of her, I had to take my lessons with Deschartres in his overly neat room, which reeked of lavender soap; being there gave me a headache. I felt I needed a younger person to keep up with and inspire me, not an old woman to constrain me and fill me with despair. I needed my mother, whose blood ran hot like my own, whose heart knew my own heart's desires.

Now, with all that I had shouted out, I had made my feelings clear. I was aware that in my pain, I had made no effort to acknowledge the good side of my grandmother: her offerings of praise and sweets when I did well with my lessons; her attempts at affection, stiff-backed though they were; her good-hearted intentions to refine me. No, I had only poured out my frustrations.

Because of my outburst, I would soon be released to live in poverty with my mother, my opportunities for education taken from me. So be it. It was the truer, more honest life! But even as I justified what I had said, I was beginning to feel regret for the pain I would cause the old woman. She had not asked to raise me any more than I had asked that she do it; but here we were, stuck with each other, and she was only trying to make the best of it.

Still! Shouldn't she understand that a daughter would want her mother, first and foremost? And shouldn't she have accepted Caroline as one of her beloved son's children and let us all live happily together here? No! She had insisted upon her own way.

I sat for some time, waiting for Julie to call me to my grandmother's side. I intended to express my appreciation in my leave-taking; and my love as well, for the longer I sat there, the more I realized that I did love the old woman.

When Julie finally came to my room, however, it was to say that I was barred from seeing my grandmother. In a prim and self-righteous way that made me want to strike her, she said, “Knowing now that you are so full of hatred for her, your grandmother has decided that you will not have to see her again. She is letting you go, as you desire. In three days, you will leave for Paris.”

“I do not hate my grandmother, as you well know,” I said. “I am sorry not to be given the opportunity to say goodbye. But I am glad to be returning to my mother. And so I thank you.”

Over the next few days, I was indeed kept from my grandmother. I was given my meals after she had taken hers, and dishes were placed and removed by servants whose steely countenances and absolute silence let me know what they were feeling about me. I was
allowed out in the garden only after Grandmama had retired. She was in a weakened condition at that point and had been spending much of her time away from me anyway, but now I noticed her absence more.

I was full of a mix of shame and defiance and confusion. I spoke with Corambe about my feelings and was assured by my personal god that I was indeed in the right and was following a noble course. I looked upon this time of estrangement as my martyrdom, which I suffered sweetly: I all but saw myself with a blood-red banner flying above my head, torn and battered but proudly displayed. But after two days passed and I noticed no preparations being made to send me to Paris, I wondered if my grandmother had changed her mind.

On the third day my maid, Rose, told me to go to my grandmother, who she said was suffering. She assured me that Julie would let me into the old woman's chambers; she had already asked Julie to do so. By then, I had had enough time to realize that I had been strikingly unfair in not assigning any blame at all to my mother for her complicity (if not initiation!) in leaving me behind. I had made her into a hapless victim when she was anything but. Nor had I considered the fact that I, too, had played a role in my own unhappiness.

And Julie was right: I was lucky indeed to be living amid the beauty and privilege and peace of Nohant, taking with both hands the gifts I was offered daily.

I was thoroughly ashamed and remorseful and eager to apologize most profusely. I came into a darkened room, where my grandmother lay in bed under her lacy scented sheets and down-filled coverlets, her eyes closed. “Grandmama?” I said, my voice high and tentative, and then I rushed to her side. I fell to my knees and began crying and kissing her, saying, “Forgive me, I never meant—”

She held up a trembling hand, and I stopped talking. I sat back on my heels and waited. There followed an ominous quiet.

Then she turned to look at me, and the warm light that was always
in her eyes was gone. Instead, there was a flatness there, worse than anger. “You have come hoping to fall upon my mercy and by so doing return things to the way they used to be. This is impossible. The things you said have pierced my heart, and there is no snapping one's fingers and undoing the damage. For three days, I have considered your assertions and accusations and the feelings behind them. I have slept little and agonized much over what to do. And now I find that I have some things I want to say to you, Aurore. Some of the things I wanted never to reveal to you but now realize I must; other things I have been meaning to say for some time. I would ask that you listen and not interrupt. May I rely upon you to do me that one favor?”

“Yes, Grandmama.”

“Very well, then. Bear in mind that I am telling you this for your own good and not to avenge myself. I offer this to you rather than simply ridding myself of you, which would be the easier thing to do.”

I felt an eerie coldness at the back of my head. It was a shock for me to understand that my grandmother had despaired of me, too. I was still enough of a child to think that I would be pardoned for virtually anything.

My grandmother drew in a deep breath. “Now, then. First I shall speak to you about myself and the way I was brought up. Then I shall tell you about my beloved son. I want you to know about the way he was raised and about the relationship we enjoyed, at least until he met your mother. And then I am going to tell you the truth about her.”

I sat unmoving, my eyes on the floor.

Almost half an hour later, she said, “You may go now; I am tired.”

It was with great difficulty that I rose up from my knees. I felt myself to be a leaden mass, empty of feeling. I curtsied and wordlessly took leave of the woman who had told me things I had not known, and that she never should have told me, at least not without
mentioning the desperate measures that are taken by poor people that rich people will never understand. My grandmother had coldly told me that my mother was a whore when my father met her and that she had gone back to her old profession in Paris. That if I intended to resume my relationship with her, I would forfeit any benefits my grandmother had intended to give me, not because of my own merits but on behalf of her son. Worst, my grandmother told me that it was entirely likely that my father was not my father at all. According to calculations my grandmother had made long ago, my father was many miles away from my mother, fighting in the war, at the time she would have been impregnated.

That night, I sat for a long while at the edge of my bed, staring out the window at the darkness and the cold pinpricks of the stars. I was trying to comprehend all I had wrought in my outburst to Julie only a few days ago. Up until now, my mother had never been directly criticized, and there had been moments of accord and what seemed like mutual respect between my grandmother and her. Now, because of what I had said, I had been told things about her I would never be able to forget, including the fact that she may have created me with someone I would never know.

I felt a rush of defiance. I went to the mirror and looked for evidence of my father in my face. There! Did I not have his black eyes, his curly black hair? And then I wept, because I could no longer be sure that those things came from him. I stood trembling, telling myself that whether my father gave my mother his seed to make me or not was irrelevant; he gave her his heart. And he gave it to me, as well. He had been present at my birth and had made his mark upon me in raising me from the very beginning. Even in his absence, I breathed him in and breathed him out; he was my true father.

And then I lay on the bed and wept most disconsolately, for I realized I could not be sure of anything anymore. What I regretted most profoundly was my loss of any vestige of home. I myself was the only home I had.

January 1833

QUAI MALAQUAIS

PARIS

M
y novella
La Marquise
came out in serial form in the
Revue de Paris
just after I returned to the city from another stay at Nohant. It again featured a young woman sold into marriage, but this time, she is an aristocrat, and her husband dies. All around her expect that she will remarry, or at least have lovers. She does neither. Her feeling is that she has had quite enough of men until, at the theater one night, she falls instantly in love with an actor named Lélio. How embarrassing for her, that one of her station should be enamored of one so low! And not even an irresistible specimen but, rather, one frail and weak-seeming. To add to that, his voice is high and screechy, his mannerisms effeminate. But the marquise is besotted by the young man. She confides her feelings for him to a friend, who warns her never to let anyone else know. And so the lovesick woman dresses in men's clothes so as to be unrecognizable and to have the opportunity to go to the theater and see the object of her desire every night. They eventually become lovers, and when they end their relationship, it is because the marquise finds herself unworthy of him.