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Dauphin with his elbow and does not treat him with proper respect.
    To the Dauphin, he says, “I imagine she is fleet as any doe. You’ll have to pant to catch her.” His pleasant smile makes me forgive his impudence, but the Dauphin jerks his head up, stares at the ceiling, and looks miserable.
    I am the center of everything. Not having seen me in the flesh before, they are full of curiosity. There are too many of them for me to have the luxury of curiosity, but the color and splendor of their clothes makes me giddy with excitement. En masse, the spectacle of their dress, their jewelry, their dazzling bosoms, their heavily powdered hair, their style of gesturing, sings to me in a different key than that of the evening galas of Vienna. Nothing of the froth in my chest is manifest as frenzy in my manner; I give off only a quiet and gracious sparkle. Through a chain of whispers, the King’s verdict is wafted close to my ear: “She is a most satisfying morsel.” Eventually the King comes to me, and in his best fatherly manner Papa-Roi suggests that I have traveled long and far and should now take my rest.
    Tonight I sleep by myself, of course, and my new ladies put me to bed with cheerful talk of dresses and bracelets and hairstyles and ribbons. My mother would call their quick French frivolous, but I like the lightness of their chatter. They speak of tomorrow when we go south to the lovely Château de La Muette for more festivities. La Muette lies closer, much closer, to Versailles, only a morning’s drive from the site of my wedding.
    When they have left me, I squeeze my eyes hard shut and think ahead: tomorrow night when I lay my head on the pillow of my chamber in the Château de La Muette, it will be my last night as my virgin self. The next morning after La Muette, which will be Wednesday, 16 May 1770, I arrive at Versailles, where my marriage will be signed again and the marriage ceremony enacted again, but that night I will share my bed for the first time.
    My hands seek the cool blank spaces lying on either side of me. In which blank will he lie? Like two blind moles, my fingertips explore the low flatness between the sheets. I pretend it is a landscape all its own, where field and sky are scarcely separated. Perhaps Madame de Noailles will inform me there is a rule of etiquette that answers the question. What is etiquette and what is it for? It makes life orderly, the Empress once explained to all of us little ones at lesson time, for we had notions of etiquette in Austria too. But these people are conscious and proud in their etiquette in a way we were not. It is as though they are always dancing a minuet.
    On which side of me will he lie? Nature, not etiquette, gives me an answer: the Dauphin will lie on the right side in our bed, for then he can, more comfortably, reach across his own body with his right hand to touch me. His hands and fingers are as big as a man’s.
    For my deportment so far, the Empress would be pleased with me. Tonight, I wish that she could know, now, in France, I have made no mistakes—at least I know of none. The King, who is of course the most important, likes me and I like him. With success and no mistakes, I have met the three aunts and treated them as my most dear mother has instructed. If I have not yet become an angel to the French, I have seen someone here who embodies the idea of goodness because of her beauty: the Princesse de Lamballe. I wish to know her better.
    With wide-open eyes, I turn my head and press my cheek into the pillow to look to my right. The white wall reminds me of the pale side of the moon, as though she has come down and stands close to me, over there. The chamber walls are embellished with gilded arabesques; moonbeams make the gilding gleam like graceful curls and swirls of light. Ah, there is a high oval window, uncurtained, that admits the moonlight. Beyond this château, the endless trees of Compiègne lie all about us, and deer hide among the trees