appeared to her, her long black freshly combed hair framing her face, falling to her shoulders and her chest, gliding from her waist to her hips. Maud talked with her mouth shut, her lips unmoving, with no line stirring on her very white face. Maudâs voice was audible as if from far away, behind a wall of ice. She declared that Raphaël had the name of an archangel and the teeth of a wolf. At that moment Raphaëlâs dazzling smile filled all the space in Flora Fontangesâs dream, erasing the image of Maud at one stroke. His smile, like the Cheshire catâs, floated in the still air, while Raphaëlâs face and body remained hidden. Then little by little his smile disappeared, like a drawing under an eraser. It began to turn very dark and very cold in Flora Fontangesâs dream.
O NE CLIMBS UP AND DOWN in the city, one sees the mountain, then no longer sees it. The layout of the streets is unpredictable. Her past life and her present life also lie in wait for everything that passes, like a small wild animal alert for its prey. Flora Fontanges listens to Raphaëlâs stories, draws from them characters and roles. Sometimes she can see clearly before her the women Raphaël has conjured up, dressed in the finery of a bygone age. She breathes the breath of life into their nostrils and begins to live fully in their place. Is enchanted by this power she possesses.
At the residence of Monsieur le Gouverneur they ape the court of the King of France. The men have curly wigs and hats with plumes, the women, tall fluted headdresses of muslin and lace. There is wrangling over precedences and privileges in a residence from which the bark has just been stripped. While all around comes the growl of the forestâs green and resinous breath, sometimes advancing by night like an army on the march, threatening at any moment to encircle us, to close in on us and take us for its own.
The governorâs daughter is twelve years old; she turns in her bed, inhales through the walls the forestâs vast breath. The howling of wolves mingles with the wild smell of the earth. The governorâs daughter is overcome by nightmares and dread. Says she wants to go back to France. Her father reprimands her, complaining that she is not brave, promising she will be married soon, to an officer of the Carignan regiment.
The governorâs daughter has blonde hair, and she is slender and tall. She dances a ravishing minuet. When night falls her eyes are dilated by fear.
They have named her Angélique.
For a moment Flora Fontanges tries on at her wrists the chilly little hands of the governorâs daughter. She feels a morbid fear. Frees herself at once to join Raphaël, who is waiting for her at the door to the General Hospital.
T HEY ARE THERE, BOTH OF them, amid the disorientation of the convent and of time, heedful of what role the life of the past might be playing in this closely guarded place.
On the wall, three young sisters painted by Plamondon testify to their earthly monastic existence, even though they have long since been merely ashes and dust. They persist in a tableau vivant as a witness, captured for all time by the eyes of a painter who apprehended them and followed them to the threshold of the mystery, before he too fell silent and vanished into dust.
In a glass showcase, among the pious souvenirs on display there, are a little wrought-iron hammer and scissors, the work of a nun who died in 1683, according to the Sister who guards the museum.
Raphaël and Flora Fontanges must awaken a little nun, faceless and nameless, and keep her alive beneath their gaze, long enough to imagine her story.
Please God, thinks Flora Fontanges, let me be clairvoyant again, let me see with my eyes, hear with my ears, let me suffer a thousand deaths and a thousand pleasures with all my body and all my soul, let me be another woman again. This time, it is a nun at the General Hospital, and
I shall remake her
O NE CLIMBS UP AND DOWN in the city, one sees the mountain, then no longer sees it. The layout of the streets is unpredictable. Her past life and her present life also lie in wait for everything that passes, like a small wild animal alert for its prey. Flora Fontanges listens to Raphaëlâs stories, draws from them characters and roles. Sometimes she can see clearly before her the women Raphaël has conjured up, dressed in the finery of a bygone age. She breathes the breath of life into their nostrils and begins to live fully in their place. Is enchanted by this power she possesses.
At the residence of Monsieur le Gouverneur they ape the court of the King of France. The men have curly wigs and hats with plumes, the women, tall fluted headdresses of muslin and lace. There is wrangling over precedences and privileges in a residence from which the bark has just been stripped. While all around comes the growl of the forestâs green and resinous breath, sometimes advancing by night like an army on the march, threatening at any moment to encircle us, to close in on us and take us for its own.
The governorâs daughter is twelve years old; she turns in her bed, inhales through the walls the forestâs vast breath. The howling of wolves mingles with the wild smell of the earth. The governorâs daughter is overcome by nightmares and dread. Says she wants to go back to France. Her father reprimands her, complaining that she is not brave, promising she will be married soon, to an officer of the Carignan regiment.
The governorâs daughter has blonde hair, and she is slender and tall. She dances a ravishing minuet. When night falls her eyes are dilated by fear.
They have named her Angélique.
For a moment Flora Fontanges tries on at her wrists the chilly little hands of the governorâs daughter. She feels a morbid fear. Frees herself at once to join Raphaël, who is waiting for her at the door to the General Hospital.
T HEY ARE THERE, BOTH OF them, amid the disorientation of the convent and of time, heedful of what role the life of the past might be playing in this closely guarded place.
On the wall, three young sisters painted by Plamondon testify to their earthly monastic existence, even though they have long since been merely ashes and dust. They persist in a tableau vivant as a witness, captured for all time by the eyes of a painter who apprehended them and followed them to the threshold of the mystery, before he too fell silent and vanished into dust.
In a glass showcase, among the pious souvenirs on display there, are a little wrought-iron hammer and scissors, the work of a nun who died in 1683, according to the Sister who guards the museum.
Raphaël and Flora Fontanges must awaken a little nun, faceless and nameless, and keep her alive beneath their gaze, long enough to imagine her story.
Please God, thinks Flora Fontanges, let me be clairvoyant again, let me see with my eyes, hear with my ears, let me suffer a thousand deaths and a thousand pleasures with all my body and all my soul, let me be another woman again. This time, it is a nun at the General Hospital, and
I shall remake her
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