The Oracle Glass (4 page)

“Good day, Madame Pasquier. You have come to discover what fortune your daughters will have in marriage.” Mother seemed impressed. Her fan ceased its motion. A logical conclusion when a woman comes in trailing two daughters, I thought. The woman is shrewd. After a number of flattering compliments were exchanged, Marie-Angélique was pushed to take her seat by the table directly opposite the fortune-teller. The most celebrated pythoness in Paris took her hand.

“Your family has suffered reverses,” the fortune-teller said, running her fingers over my sister's palm. “You have been brought home from…ah, yes…a convent school for want of money. The dowry has…ah…diminished. But you will fulfill your mother's greatest dream. A lover of the highest rank—a fortune. But beware of the man in the sky-blue coat. The one that wears a blond wig.” Bravo, well done. Half the most fashionable men in Paris must have a sky-blue coat and a blond wig.

Mother's smile was triumphant, but Marie-Angélique burst into tears. “Don't you see marriage and children for me? You must look closer. Oh, look again!” Clever, I thought. Satisfy the one who is paying first. But how will she evade this problem?

“I don't always see the entire picture,” the fortune-teller said, her voice soft and insinuating. “A child? Yes, I think. And there may be marriage beyond the man in the sky-blue coat. But just now I cannot see beyond him. Perhaps you should consult me again in a few months' time, when the farther future will appear more clearly.” Very shrewd. Marie-Angélique would be back secretly before Christmas with every sou she could beg or borrow, despite all the admonitions of Père Laporte.

Mother was so impatient to hear her own fortune now that she very nearly pushed Marie-Angélique off the seat in order to hear the words of the oracle. In a confidential tone that I wasn't supposed to hear, the sorceress whispered, “Your husband does not understand you. You make a thousand economies for his happiness and he doesn't acknowledge one of them. He is without ambition and refuses to attend the court and seek the favor that would restore your happiness. Never fear; new joy is at hand.” An odd, pleased look crossed Mother's face. “If you want to hasten that happiness”—the fortune-teller's voice faded out—“more youthful…” I heard, and I saw her take a little vial out of the drawer in the table. Mother hid it inside her corset. Excellent, I thought. When had Mother ever refused a remedy that promised to restore her fading youth? Now if all those creams actually worked, judging by the number of people selling them, all of Paris would have faces as smooth as a baby's bottom. “If he remains hard and indifferent…bring his shirt…a Mass to Saint Rabboni…” Fascinating. One trip multiplied into several, with corresponding payments.

“And now, for the cross I bear daily,” said Mother, getting up and pushing me forward. “Tell us all what will happen to a girl with a heart as twisted as her body.”

The fortune-teller looked first at Mother, then at me, with an appraising eye. “What you really want to know,” she pronounced coolly, “is whether this child will inherit money—money concealed in a foreign country.” This was not what I'd expected. I looked at the fortune-teller's face. She was looking me over carefully, as if taking my measure. Then her dark eyes inspected my sweaty little palm.

“Unusual, this…,” she said, and Mother and Marie-Angélique crowded closer to look. “You see this line of stars, formed here? One indicates fortune. Three—that's entirely uncommon. It is a very powerful sign.” Even the fortune-teller seemed impressed. It was quite gratifying.

“A fortune, an immense fortune,” Mother hissed. “I knew it. But I must know. In what country is the fortune hidden? Can you use your arts to divine the name of the banker?”

“Stars formed on the palm never indicate what sort of fortune or where it is located, only that it involves great changes, and that it's good in the end. You will need a more specific divination to answer your question—a divination by water. There will be an extra charge for the preparation of the water.” Mother's mouth shut up tight like a purse. “Very well,” she said, looking resentful. The fortune-teller rang a little bell, and when the maid appeared she consulted with her. “The gift of water divination is a rare one, usually found only in young virgins—and so, of course, in this wicked world, it does not last long, does it?” Her sharp, sarcastic laugh was echoed by mother's silvery “company” laugh. I wished we could leave now. This was quite enough.

The maid reappeared with a glass stirring rod and a round crystal vase full of water on a tray. She was accompanied by a neatly dressed girl my own age, with brown hair combed back tightly and a sullen expression. The fortune-teller's daughter.

The fortune-teller stirred the water with the rod, chanting something that sounded like “
Mana, hoca, nama, nama
.” Then she turned to me and said, “Put your palms around the glass—no, not that way. Yes. Good. Now take them away.” The little girl peered down into the vase, which was all sticky with my palm prints, as the water became smooth again.

They had done something very interesting with the water. A tiny image seemed to form out of its depths, clear and bright like the reflection of an invisible object. It was a face. The strange, lovely face of a girl in her twenties, gray eyes staring back at me, black hair blowing about her pale face, the wind whipping a heavy gray cloak she held tightly around her. She was leaning on the rail of a ship that bobbed up and down on an invisible ocean. How had the sorceress made the image appear? Mother and Marie-Angélique were watching the fortune-teller's face, but I only had eyes for the tiny picture. The fortune-teller spoke to her daughter:

“Now, Marie-Marguerite, what do you see?”

“The ocean, Mother.”

“But how did you make the little face appear?” I asked without thinking. The fortune-teller's dark, heavy-lidded eyes turned on me for what seemed like ages.

“You see a picture, too?” she asked.

“Is it a mirror?” I asked. There was an acquisitive glitter in the fortune-teller's dark eyes. Suddenly she turned her face from me, as if she had made up her mind about something.

“The fortune comes from a country that must be reached by crossing the ocean,” the fortune-teller addressed Mother. “But not for many years.”

“But what does the face mean?” interrupted Marie-Angélique.

“Nothing. She just saw her reflection, that's all,” said the fortune-teller abruptly.

“Many years?” Mother's silvery little laugh tinkled. “Surely, I'll choke it out of her much sooner than that. Dear little wretch,” she added as an afterthought, giving me a mock blow with her fan to let everyone know it was all in good sport.

***

Late that night I wrote in my little book:
July 21, 1671. Catherine Montvoisin, rue Beauregard, fortune-teller, trial number 1.

Marie-Angélique—A rich lover, beware man in sky-blue coat and blond wig, perhaps a child.

Mother—Youth cream. Measure lines over next three weeks. Large joy soon.

Me—There is money in a foreign country. A thought: Beautiful women fear old age more than ugly women. When I am old, I will buy books, not wrinkle cream.

That evening, after discussing Seneca with Father, I asked him what he thought of fortune-tellers.

“My dear little girl, they are the refuge of the gullible and the superstitious. I would like to say, of women, but there are plenty of men who run to them, too. They are all fools.”

“That's what I think, too, Father.” He nodded, pleased. “But tell me, is it possible to see pictures in water, as they describe?”

“Oh, no. Those are just reflections. Sometimes they can make them seem to shine out of water, or a crystal ball, or whatever, by the use of mirrors. Most fortune-telling is just sleight of hand, like the conjurers on the Pont Neuf.”

“But what about when they seem to know people's secrets and handwriting?”

“Why, you sound as if you'd made a study of it. I'm delighted you are applying the light of reason to the darkness of knavery and superstition. But as for an answer, you should know that fortune-tellers are a devious race, who usually cultivate a network of informers, so that they know the comings and goings of their clientele. That's how they astonish the simple.”

“Why, that settles the point perfectly, Father.” He looked pleased. “But I have another question, a…philosophical question…” He raised one eyebrow. “Which do the Romans say is better: to be clever or to be beautiful?” My voice was troubled. Father looked at me a long time.

“Clever, of course, my daughter. Beauty is hollow, deceptive, and fades rapidly.” His gaze was suddenly fierce. “The Romans believed that a virtuous woman had no other need of adornment.”

“But, Father, that was about Cornelia, whose sons were her jewels, and don't you think that she had to be at least a bit pretty in order to be married and have the sons? I mean, isn't virtue in a plain girl considered rather unremarkable?”

“My dear, dear child, are you comparing yourself to your sister again? Be assured, you are far more beautiful to me just as you are. Your features are exactly my own, and the only proof I have of your paternity.” The bitter look on his face shocked me.

But for days afterward, my heart sang, “Not pretty, but special. Father loves me best of all.” My secret. Nothing could take it away. I didn't even need to write it in my little book.

“Come here and look, Geneviève. He's out in front again.” Marie-Angélique lifted the curtain of her bedchamber and beckoned to me. I put down my sketch pad, and together we peeped out into the misty spring morning. Heavy-budded fruit trees, all ready to burst into bloom, lifted their branches above the high garden walls opposite. And there, concealed in a doorway across the street, stood the figure of a man. “He's there every day. What do you think he wants?” Marie-Angélique's face was pink with pleasure. She wanted me to say again what she already thought.

“I imagine he's in love with you. Everybody is, sooner or later.” Poor man. It was early in the year 1674, and he had hundreds before him. The heavy scent of narcissus in the vase by Marie-Angélique's bed filled the room with spring. Beside the vase on the little night table lay a copy of
Clélie
with an extravagantly embroidered bookmark in it. Marie-Angélique loved romances. They were her measure of life; a scene in reality was judged by how well it matched up with the scene in which Aronce declares his love for Clélie, or Cyrus abducts Mandane in his luxurious ship. “Suppose, Marie-Angélique, that Cyrus had a shabby little boat. What would you think then?” I had once asked her. “Oh, Geneviève,” she'd answered, “Mademoiselle de Scudéry could not even
imagine
such an unromantic thing.” Poor reality—it always came off so badly by comparison to the silly things she read. I was, at the time, reading Herodotus with Father.

“Oh, do you really think he's in love?” she fluttered. “How long has he been there? Three days?”

“No, more like a week.”

“Oh, that's terribly romantic. Tell me, don't you think he looks nice?” It must be the spring, I thought. In spring, everyone falls in love with Marie-Angélique. I peeked out again for her. He stepped out of the shadowy doorway, and my heart died a little as I recognized his face. He had on high boots, a short embroidered jacket festooned with ribbons, an epée with an embroidered baldric, and a short cloak dramatically thrown back. His hat was tilted jauntily over his lean face, and he had managed to grow a moustache since I had last seen him. It was my white knight, André Lamotte, but now no longer mine, not even in imagination.

“Who do you think he is?” Marie-Angélique said dreamily. “He doesn't have any lace…Oh, is that a ring I see? No…but perhaps he's in disguise.” Marie-Angélique was always hopeful.

“I saw him once when Father took me to the Luxembourg Gardens. He was reading,” I said.

“Oh, a student.” Marie-Angélique sounded disappointed. “But perhaps he is a prince, who is learning responsibility before he takes up his title.”

“I think his name is Lamotte.”

“Oh dear,” responded Marie-Angélique. “You had better put down the curtain at once, Geneviève. Mother doesn't approve of staring at strange men.” I dropped the curtain and picked up my sketch pad. There, amidst the dutifully copied flowers assigned by the drawing master, I sketched in Lamotte's handsome young profile. Beneath it I wrote, “Do not look at strange men” and showed it to Marie-Angélique, who burst out laughing.

“Sister, what
shall
I do with you? You will never learn the proprieties!” she cried.

“Come, come, Mesdemoiselles, what are you waiting for?” Mother bustled into the room in her cloak, with a basket of cakes, fruit, and pâtés over her arm. “Don't dawdle. You aren't children anymore. It's high time you learned Christian responsibility.” No, we were not children anymore. I had turned fifteen, and Marie-Angélique was nineteen, and old enough to be married if she had had a proper dowry. Mother looked terribly businesslike. Charity was a new thing she'd taken up, between her visits to the fortune-teller. Now she made weekly visits bringing alms to the sick poor at the Hôtel Dieu, the charity hospital that lay on the square near the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Lately it was all the rage, and Mother loved to be fashionable. Besides, one could meet ladies of the highest rank bandaging sores and dispensing sweets in the vast stone
salles
of the Hôtel Dieu; it was the next best thing to a visit to Saint-Germain or Versailles, and far more convenient.

The charitable fit had come on shortly after Father's creditors had seized our carriage and horses. At first, it seemed to me to be quite unlike Mother, who usually turned up her nose at beggars and gave very poor tips. But then again, it was fashionable, so she embraced her missions of charity with the same tenacious energy that preserved her salon. To still the rumors of a declining fortune, she made sure that the women of the Pasquier family were seen well dressed, with heavily laden baskets, murmuring benedictions from bed to bed with the other aristocratic angels of mercy.

Each of us found something worthwhile in these trips. For days after, Marie-Angélique would feed on the glimpse of the Marquise of So-and-So's beautiful ribbons, or the new hairstyle of the Countess of Such-and-Such, and I would write in my little book. I was, at the time, testing the validity of religion by using the geometric method of proof to assess the efficacy of prayer. First I wrote down the illnesses and injuries of those we visited and the likelihood of recovery of the sick persons we had seen. Then, through ingenuous questioning, I attempted to ascertain how many prayers had been offered in each case. This I did by multiplying the number of relatives by a figure of one to five, depending upon how well the person was liked by his family. Then I would write down whether or not the person outlived his prognostication. The project kept me totally content. After all, the use of ordered thinking to discover the truth is the highest occupation of humankind.

Charity did Mother good and made her calmer. The day the carriage was taken, she had rushed shrieking about the house, then battered open the door of Father's study, where he and I were discussing Seneca, and covered him with abuse. He looked up at her, where she stood before his armchair, and his eyes moved slowly, so slowly, with a look I'll never forget.

“Madame, I leave you to your infidelities; you leave me to my philosophers.”

“Your—your stupidities, your lack of ambition—your refusal to be seen at court, to carry my petitions…your
Romans
have reduced me, Monsieur. They have brought me to
this
, and it is beyond my endurance.”

Father spoke with utter calm: “The day I appear at court it will be to petition the King to have you shut up in a convent for your scandalous life. Go, Madame, and do not interrupt me again.” He opened his Seneca again to the place where he had left his bookmark.

Mother stood still, all white, her eyes half closed. Then she spoke. “You are utterly
tiresome
,” she said in a cold voice and withdrew from the low, book-lined room, holding the train of her pale green silk morning gown in her hand. Father sat still in his armchair, book open on his lap, and looked over his little reading glasses to watch her go with exactly the same expression with which one would regard an insect disappearing into a crack in the wall.

After that she had vanished in a hired chair for the rest of the day. Then it was not long before she discovered charity, and all was calm again.

But to return to our hospital visit. André Lamotte, bold and poor, swept off his hat for my sister with a flourish as we passed.

“Don't nod to him,” said Mother, turning her face away. “He is without fortune. I'll not have you encouraging such people.” As we turned down the rue de Saint-Pierre-aux-Boeufs, I turned back to look at him. He was holding his hat over his heart, with a yearning expression on his face. When he saw me peeking at him, he grinned, and I thought I saw him wink.

We crossed the Parvis Notre-Dame, Mother looking to the right and left to make sure that we missed no one of consequence. “Ah, isn't that the Comtesse d'Armagnac I see arriving there?” she observed. “Walk a little slower, Marie-Angélique, so that we may greet her as she passes.” We entered the low, Gothic portals of the Hôtel Dieu and were greeted by a novice, who preceded us down the long
salle
St. Thomas. As we paused at each of the massive curtained beds to offer sustenance to the sufferers lying within, Mother questioned him as to the fate of those who had partaken of her bounty the week before.

“I miss the patient sufferer on the right in bed number eighty-six—Monsieur Duclos, was it? Who loved my little cakes so. And, see here, I brought his favorite ones—” Mother's saintly tones showed only a hint of disappointment.

“Regretfully, Madame Pasquier, his sufferings on earth were ended shortly after your last visit.”

“I shall miss him. He had such wonderful wit, even in suffering.” Mother passed her handkerchief before her eyes and continued down the second row of beds, offering cakes, words of encouragement, and here and there a prayer. I noted it all. Days lingered, estimated number of prayers. So far, prayer was losing.

I left with ten cases. Two, to whom Mother had not given any attention, were getting better. Of the other eight, five had died despite a plentiful dose of prayers and Mother's little pâtés, and two more had turned that interesting grayish color that precedes death. Writing in my book that night helped clear my heart. If I had a daughter, I would not take her to hospitals.

A
thought: perhaps the geometric proof of the effectiveness of prayer has been measuring instead the evil effects of rich food on the sick?
I went through my notes that night by the light of a guttering candle. I counted, I counted again. Yes, there it was.
Just
to
take
an
example, everyone who has eaten mother's pâtés and candied fruit has died, whether prayed for or not. Devise another proof. Surely God is not concealed in a pâté.
I paused, lifting my pen. Was it something Mother was doing? No, surely it had to be coincidence.

***

“Where are you going, all by yourself like that?” I'd come from our back door out the garden gate with the remains of the hospital food in a basket.

“The rue de la Licorne, and what business is it of yours?”

“You know, I never suspected until this morning that you were a daughter of the house. I thought—well…you know, the way you wander out by yourself and all…” André Lamotte was still haunting the street. I stormed past him, nose in the air, insulted that he'd ever taken me for a servant girl.

“You thought I was a paid companion, didn't you?”

“Wait, now—you can't carry that. I'll accompany you.” He had a certain breezy charm, but I knew instinctively that, like the sun, he beamed equally on everyone, and it didn't mean anything. It was that egalitarianism of charm that offended me even more than rudeness would have.

“Just because I can't walk straight doesn't mean I'm weak,” I said. “Besides, I should inform you right away that we have no inheritance, my sister and I, for all the house is so grand. So you may as well save your efforts for someone more promising.” He laughed and continued to follow me shamelessly.

Having abandoned the basket at its destination, I turned to him and said fiercely, “Now, Monsieur Lamotte, tell me why you are following me.” He made a leg in the mud of the alley, right there, and swept off his hat in a grand gesture worthy of the palace of Saint-Germain.

“Mademoiselle Pasquier, I, André Lamotte, of poetic soul and gentle manners, am at your service. I am not following you but escorting you. And I am doing so in order to ingratiate myself with the sister of the Divine Angel of the Upper Window.”

“That's exactly what I thought,” I sniffed, and I limped on ahead of him without looking back. He hurried ahead of me, and before I reached the corner he blocked my way, bowing again, and flourishing his hat. People were staring. I was humiliated.

“Mademoiselle, I will block your way forever, unless you grant me your favor.” A woman came out of a shop front hung with plucked chickens and geese, wiping her hands on her apron. She laughed.

“Nonsense,” I snapped. I stared at them both and fled in the opposite direction. He replaced his hat and sped ahead of me in great leaps, confronting me at the next corner.

“You stop this!” I cried. He swept off his hat again. A gaggle of little boys playing ball stopped to watch. “Cruel woman,” he declaimed, in the voice of the professional tragedian, “say yes, or I'll die of grief on the street.”

“You quit this,” I hissed. “You're humiliating me on purpose.”

“When I die, Mademoiselle, it will be all your fault. The world will mourn yet another victim of woman's coldness.” He clutched his hat to his heart.

“Tell him yes, you foolish girl!” shouted a woman's voice from a window.

“Yes, do it! He's very handsome!” cried another. Soon the cry was taken up. “Do it, you hard-hearted girl! Yes! Why, I'd do it!”

“If you die here in the street, your relatives will be disgraced,” I announced, trying to ignore the gathering crowd.

“Ah, but I have no one—no hope but you.” He wiped a pretend tear away. The gathering crowd shouted encouragement, and he bowed genteelly to them.

“Quit mocking me, Monsieur,” I cried, stamping my foot as I felt my face turning hot.

“Heartless woman!” shouted a voice from the crowd.

“Stop it now. You take me home.” I burst into tears of rage.

“Yes, yes, take her home!” was the joyful shout of the crowd. He replaced his hat.

“Very well, then, if you insist,” he said, addressing the crowd and taking my arm with an elaborate gesture. Even then, Lamotte was a favorite of the mob. He nodded and grinned to the gleeful group of ragamuffins that seemed determined to follow us all the way to my doorstep. As he led them roundabout through the alleys and streets, they seemed to grow in number rather than diminish. Still raging within, I heard a cry. “There he is! The Grand Cyrus at the head of his troops!” It came from the open door of the Pomme de Pin, that notorious gathering place of would-be playwrights and authors of satirical pamphlets. It was often visited by the police in search of the authors of forbidden works, because folks like that have no fixed address. In short, it was a writers' den, a tavern of the lowest reputation among proper people. The ragamuffins gathered in a cluster behind my escort as he halted to address the source of the voice within the door.