Paris: The Novel

drew out a wicker basket from the same compartment and proceeded to lay the table. When he had done that, he took a wooden pail, went to a nearby pump and filled it so that the horse could drink. It was clear that he was now supposed to go off to a tavern and leave his mistress and her guest to their meal.
    “Come,” she called to him quietly. “Let’s dine.”
    It was really a most convenient arrangement. The table took up the space where he had been sitting. But by sitting beside his hostess, there was plenty of room to eat very comfortably.
    “My husband invented the table and had a carpenter make it,” she informed him. “This is my husband’s one contribution to civilization.”
    “And it works,” Le Sourd pointed out, in fairness to the absent gentleman.
    Haricots, pressed duck, an excellent wine, several cheeses, fruit. It was a perfect little meal. Without giving away her name, or where she lived, she talked in general terms about her family and the château where her husband now was to make it quite clear that she was exactly the aristocrat he had taken her to be.
    Did she do this regularly? he wondered. The coachman, whose discretion she clearly trusted, seemed to know exactly what to do.
    “I feel I am taking part in a ritual,” he remarked.
    “A ritual, monsieur, that takes place very rarely. Only when the heavens are aligned in a particular way.”
    “Then I am honored indeed.”
    “If you aren’t happy, you are always free to leave.”
    “I prefer to stay.”
    When they had finished, she asked him if he had observed how thetable and the basket fit into the compartment behind. He said he had. “Then perhaps you would be so kind as to return them to their place.” He easily repacked the basket. It took him a moment or two to master the catch that released the table, but soon he had that outside. It took him only a couple of minutes to stow everything safely in the back.
    He glanced around. It was a quiet, sleepy evening. Hardly anyone was moving about in the square.
    He stepped back into the carriage and closed the door.
    She had removed her gown. He could see that she had a splendid body. She reached out her hand to pull him toward her.
    The coachman did not return for over an hour.

    It was October when Geneviève told her sister.
    “Does your husband know?” Catherine asked.
    “I told him.”
    “Does he think the baby could be his?”
    “No. It’s impossible.”
    “Tell me what happened.”
    Geneviève told her everything.
    “You’re insane!” cried Catherine.
    “I know.” Geneviève shook her head. “I can’t believe I did it.”
    “Why? Was it the risk? The danger?”
    “Yes. That made it exciting. I was so bored. I wanted something … exciting to happen.”
    “Does Perceval know what you did? I mean, going out into the streets like that and …?”
    “No. I lied to him about that. He thinks it was something that suddenly happened … A moment’s madness … You know.”
    “What’s he going to do?”
    “Preserve the honor of the family name, of course. What else?”
    •  1685  •
    Perceval d’Artagnan gazed at his daughter Amélie. He was a medium-sized man with a potbelly, and the long wig that was the fashion of the day disguised the fact that he was entirely bald. Whoever Amélie’s real fatherwas, d’Artagnan thought, he seemed to have bequeathed her a fine head of dark brown hair. In other respects, she looked very like her mother.
    Amélie herself, of course, had no idea. She thought he was her father. She loved him as a father. So he found himself torn.
    How could he not love the pretty little child who would come running up to him in total innocence and put her hand in his? The child whom he carried on his shoulder and taught to ride? She was sweet-natured, truthful, everything he could have desired in a daughter. He loved her for herself.
    And only sometimes, when he was quite alone, did he secretly allow himself to feel the black rage, the hatred that was in his heart—not for the child herself, but for his wife.
    Geneviève had not been unfaithful to him again. She had sworn an oath and he’d been sure she would keep it. For the last twenty years they had gotten along together as well as most married couples. Some affection had grown up between them, especially because of his kindness to little Amélie. But during those years he had learned another sad truth: Small wounds are healed by time; but time can only bandage great wounds,