The Academie by Susanne Dunlap Page A

Eliza made a pretty picture together. If she were just a little older, perhaps a match with her would be the answer. Her family is wealthy, or they would not be able to send her to school here, and as she’s American, the question of her background hardly arises. Unfortunately he disdains the Americans, blaming them for igniting the revolution here by their example. I fear he was not very polite to Eliza.
    The hour is late, yet my mind will not cease its ramblings. I take out a quire of paper and line it with the special implement my stepfather gave me for my birthday last April, after I had written a song for him when he returned from the campaign in Italy. Its five nibs allow me to quickly ink in perfectly spaced lines for the staves where I can place the notes that comprise my music—an operation that used to take a great deal more time. Soon I have lined half a dozen sheets.
    I pause and hold this valuable instrument, examiningit, turning it over in my hand. It was so like my stepfather to think of giving it to me. He appears to be focused on only one thing: glory for France. And yet, he has been a true father to me ever since he married Maman. That is what I, in turn, must focus on. Everything he does for me is as a father, who cares for me and Eugène as if we are truly his.
    And yet, Napoléon is younger than Maman by six years. And she was just twenty when I was born. Only fourteen years separate me from my stepfather. Many girls marry men who are much older than they. How can I blame myself for idolizing Napoléon, who rescued us from poverty and ignominy?
    Now, I hope that thoughts of Michel will drive away the hopeless infatuation I have allowed myself to indulge in for a man who is doubly forbidden to me: as the preeminent general of France and as my mother’s husband. Now, I shall let the musical link between Michel and me have expression in a new composition.
    I ink in the notes on the staff I have created, letting them flow out of me. As the notes form, so do words. I close my eyes and hear the tune. But no matter how hard I try, what finds its way onto the page is not a love song. It is a patriotic anthem. I force myself again and again to think of Michel and the sweet, thrilling feelings he inspires in me, yet my hand betrays me. Before long, I have fashioned a new, stirring piece, an anthem that lauds France’s new glory.
    What is love? I love France. I love my Maman and my brother so fiercely that I would do almost anything to protect them. I love Napoléon because he has been so kind to us after the fearful days of the Terreur . I have witnessed my mother fall in love in a way I could never imagine for myself, where she will set her children aside in an instant for a man who promises her protection and who adores her.
    My love for my family has left little room for any other feeling, except for one. It is that quiet, personal love I bear for music. It feeds me, takes me away from the agonies of the present, letting me wander off into other worlds where all is beautiful and kind and people aren’t cruel to one another—and they don’t die. Music is the only love I have that gives itself to me without expecting or needing anything in return.
    And now, Michel. He is music. And yet, he is a man. That’s what I saw when our eyes met. The possibility, just the possibility, that my spiritual love could have a physical embodiment.
    What am I to do? He is only the son of the music master. He could have a noble background—there is nothing to say he does not, except that I imagine if he did his father would claim it loudly to enhance his reputation among the bourgeois families whose daughters are his students.
    How strange it is that only five years ago no one would admit to having noble blood, because it could lead to torture and death. Now, as the specter of those days begins tofade, the old lines are redrawn. Madame Campan treats her aristocratic pupils differently from the others. The nuance is subtle,