Read Lovers (9781609459192) for Free Online Page A

pavanes are played, it is a long way from Versailles to Paris, she tells herself.

69
    T he street has not echoed to the rumble of coaches. The King has not come, nor have the courtiers. The night is the color of fire, the candles have already been replaced twice. Thirty thousand candles, that is quite something, is it not?
    It is six in the morning, and rather cold, in spite of those thousands of flames.
    What season is this?
    Her faithful messenger has huddled against her. She cradles him.
    They won’t come now, she says.
    Madame.
    I shan’t move from here.
    Madame.
    Are they dead?
    Madame.
    I shall wait a little longer.
    Madame.
    And he hums her a lullaby.
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70
    H onestly, how could we possibly have gone?”
“Personally, I did think of going.”
“You did?”
    â€œYes, I did. Don’t forget, I’m seventeen, I haven’t yet witnessed a rout, a shipwreck, for it was indeed to a shipwreck that Madame de Créon summoned us.”
    â€œThe lights burned late. I know, because one of my servants was keeping watch outside the mansion.”
    â€œShe is mad, isn’t she?”
    â€œAnne de Créon? It seems very likely. The imprisonment of a son is often a source of derangement.”
    â€œI thought that kind of derangement was a thing of the past, that it never happened these days.”
    â€œThe Princesse de Créon, raving mad.”
    â€œWho gives a ball.”
    â€œTo which nobody comes.”
    â€œAnd all for a son. Her own son. Who has been condemned to death.”
    â€œWhy love a son so much, if it is to see him end up in the hands of the executioner, if it is to lose your reason over it?”
    â€œThey say she was magnificently dressed. Ultramarine satin and gilded lace trimmings, it was superb, a touch extravagant, but superb all the same, exactly what was needed to clothe her madness.”
    â€œShe always did have exquisite taste.”
    â€œIs it possible, then, to be both mad and elegant?”
    â€œApparently.”
    â€œDid you know that she makes her coachman stop outside the prison every afternoon?”
    â€œShe’s constantly leaning out the window.”
    â€œWhat is she hoping? That they will have pity on her?”
    â€œShe already has our compassion.”
    â€œAnd that is enough. No need to go farther.”
    â€œShe is guilty of giving birth to a monster who fears neither God nor man.”
    â€œAnd of loving him.”
    â€œAnd of forgiving him for being what he is.”
    â€œIs she—or has she ever been—as immoral as he is?”
    â€œYes, if we consider her unceasing indulgence toward her offspring.”
    â€œThen she does not deserve our compassion.”
    â€œShall we dance?”
    â€œHere comes the King.”

71
    T he time has come for the trial. It will last a week.
The charges against Balthazar de Créon are many: murder, sodomy, holding black masses, practicing alchemy, lèse-majesté, making defamatory remarks against the monarch.
    The judges are savoring the fact that at last they can bring this man to his knees, the worst kind of man, a Gilles de Rais crossed with a Fouquet.
    They will kill him, they will see him go up in smoke.
    Judging the unnamable is a godsend to these people, it will be an imperishable memory, their claim to fame. It is not every day they get to judge a creature of the Devil.
    Créon is of no century and of all time, but it is our century that will condemn him.
    Will evil be reborn from his ashes?
    Is Balthazar de Créon a phoenix?
    We shall see.
    The one thing certain is that God is in this room, invisible and omnipresent.
    The judges are puffed up with pride, there are ten of them, not too many to sustain Créon’s gaze.

72
    H e has appeared to the crowd as they were hoping he would be, thinner, unsteady on his feet.
But there is no sadness or fear in his eyes, they are strikingly, unspeakably serene.
    Some in the