That same evening, I took the keys and entered the house I had known so well.
Everything was exactly as it should be.
But the silence was unbearable.
I went to the door of the marble room twice, yet each time I stopped.
I simply could not make myself go in.
It was more than I could bear.
I went instead to the smoking room and sat down before the spinet.
A small lace handkerchief lay across the keys.
I turned away, fighting back a sob.
It was obvious that I could not stay.
I locked every door and window, secured all three gates at the front and back of the house, and left.
The next morning, Alcide packed my valise.
I put him in charge of my apartment and took the Orient Express to Constantinople.
For the next two years, I wandered through the East.
At first, Jack and I never mentioned Geneviève or Boris in our letters.
But little by little, their names began to appear.
I remember one passage from a letter Jack wrote in answer to one of mine.
“What you told me about seeing Boris leaning over you while you were ill troubles me.”
“You felt his hand on your face and heard his voice.”
“That must have happened about two weeks after he died.”
“I tell myself that you were dreaming, that it was only part of your delirium.”
“But that explanation does not satisfy me.”
“And I know it would not satisfy you either.”
Near the end of the second year, I received a letter from Jack while I was in India.
It was so unlike anything I had ever known of him that I decided to return to Paris immediately.
He wrote:
“I am perfectly well.”
“I am selling my pictures as easily as any artist who has no need for money.”
“I have no personal worries at all.”
“And yet I am more restless than I have ever been.”
“I cannot shake the strange anxiety I feel about you.”
“It is not exactly fear.”
“It is more like a breathless expectation of something.”
“What it is, God only knows.”
“I can only tell you that it is wearing me down.”
“Every night I dream of you and Boris.”
“I can never remember the details when I wake.”
“But every morning my heart is pounding.”
“And as the day goes on, the excitement becomes stronger.”
“Then I fall asleep, and the same thing begins all over again.”
“I am completely exhausted.”
“I have decided that I must break this unhealthy state of mind.”
“I must see you.”
“Shall I come to Bombay, or will you come to Paris?”
I telegraphed him to expect me on the next steamer.
When we finally met, I thought he had hardly changed at all.
He insisted that I looked wonderfully healthy.
It was good to hear his voice again.
We sat together and talked about the life that still lay ahead of us.
For the first time in a long while, we felt how good it was simply to be alive in the bright spring sunshine.
We remained in Paris together for a week.
Then I went with him to Ept for another week.
But before anything else, we visited the cemetery at Sèvres, where Boris was buried.
“Shall we put the Fates in the little grove above his grave?” Jack asked.
“I think only the Madonna should watch over Boris,” I replied.
But my return did nothing to ease Jack’s condition.
The dreams continued.
He still could not remember even the clearest outline of them.
And sometimes, he told me, the feeling of breathless expectation became so intense that he could hardly breathe.
“You see, I am doing you more harm than good,” I said.
“Try getting away from me for a while.”
So Jack left alone for a trip through the Channel Islands.
I returned to Paris.
Since coming back, I had still not entered Boris’s house, which was now mine.
Jack had kept it in perfect order.
The servants were still there.
So I gave up my own apartment and moved into the house.
Instead of the uneasiness I had expected, I found that I could paint there in complete peace.
I went through every room.
Every room except one.
I still could not bring myself to enter the marble room where Geneviève had lain.
And yet, every day, I felt a stronger desire to see her face again.
I longed to kneel beside her.
One afternoon in April, I was lying in the smoking room, lost in thought, just as I had been two years earlier.
Without thinking, I searched the tawny Eastern rugs for the wolfskin.
At last I saw its pointed ears and its flat, cruel head.
I remembered the dream in which I had seen Geneviève lying beside it.
The helmets were still hanging against the worn tapestry.
Among them was the old Spanish morion I remembered Geneviève wearing when we had amused ourselves with the ancient pieces of armor.
My eyes moved to the spinet.
Every yellowed key seemed to speak of her gentle, loving touch.
Then I stood.
Something stronger than reason drew me toward the sealed door of the marble room.
I placed my trembling hands against the heavy doors.
They swung inward.
Sunlight poured through the window.
It touched the wings of Cupid with gold and rested like a halo around the Madonna’s head.
Her gentle face seemed to bend down in compassion over a marble figure of such perfect purity that I fell to my knees and crossed myself.
Geneviève lay in the shadow beneath the Madonna.
And yet, through her white arms, I could see the faint blue veins beneath her skin.
Under her loosely clasped hands, the folds of her dress were touched with a delicate rose color.
It looked as though some faint warmth were glowing inside her breast.
With my heart breaking, I bent down and kissed the marble drapery.
Then I quietly withdrew into the silent house.
A maid came to me with a letter.
I sat down in the little conservatory to read it.
But just as I was about to break the seal, I noticed that the girl was still standing there.
“What is it?” I asked.
She stammered something about a white rabbit that had been found inside the house.
“What should we do with it?” she asked.
“Release it in the walled garden behind the house,” I told her.
Then I opened the letter.
It was from Jack.
But the letter was so confused that for a moment I thought he had gone mad.
It contained nothing but desperate pleas for me not to leave the house until he could return.
He could not explain why.
It was the dreams, he said.
He could explain nothing.
But he was absolutely certain that I must not leave the house on Rue Sainte-Cécile.
I finished reading and looked up.
The same maid was standing in the doorway.
She was holding a glass dish.
Two goldfish were swimming inside it.
“Put them back in the tank,” I said impatiently.
“And tell me why you keep interrupting me.”
With a frightened little whimper, she emptied the water and the fish into an aquarium at the far end of the conservatory.
Then she turned back to me.
“Please, sir, may I leave your service?”
“Why?”
“People are playing tricks on me.”
“I think they are trying to get me into trouble.”
“The marble rabbit was stolen, and then a real rabbit was brought into the house.”
“And the two beautiful marble fish are gone.”
“Just now, I found those ugly live fish flopping around on the dining-room floor.”
I reassured her.
“Don’t worry.”
“I will look into it myself.”
Then I sent her away.
I went into the studio.
There was nothing unusual there.
Only my canvases and a few plaster casts.
Except for the marble Easter lily.
I saw it on a table across the room.
I walked toward it angrily.
But when I picked up the flower, I froze.
It was no longer marble.
It was fresh and delicate.
And its sweet perfume filled the air.
Then, all at once, I understood.
I rushed through the hallway toward the marble room.
The doors flew open.
Sunlight flooded my face.
And through that heavenly light, the Madonna smiled.
Geneviève lifted her warm, flushed face from her marble couch.
Then she slowly opened her sleepy eyes.