The Reinvention of Love

night?”
    “I am not moving furniture.”
    “But I heard you.” Those sounds could not be anything else. I turn the doorknob, but the door won’t open more than a fraction. “Mother, let me in.”
    “I’m afraid I cannot, Sainte-Beuve,” says Mother through the closed door. “You see, I’m barricaded in for the night.”
    “Whatever for?”
    “So that thieves may not enter my bedchamber and have done with me.”
    Mother is afraid of being robbed and murdered. She is afraid of slipping on the cobblestones when it rains. She is afraid to ride in a cab pulled by a black horse, to open her front door at night, to walk in unfamiliar streets. I do not know when she suddenly became so nervous of life. She seemed so robust when I was young.
    “Don’t be foolish,” I say to her at least once a day, but she is quick to point out that it is her house and she will conduct herself there exactly as she pleases. And I have no rebuttal for that.
    Adèle has returned to Paris, but I have not seen her. I sent word to her under her alias at the Poste Restante to let her know that I have moved, but I have had no word back from her to say when we might meet. I am trying not to despair. I am trying to concentrate on the business of moving house and writing my poems. I must put Adèle out of my mind, for to think of her causes me to miss her, and when I miss her I am incapable of getting anything done.
    The Hugos have moved again. All of Paris knows this, knows how famous Victor has become, how well his bookabout Notre-Dame has sold, not only in France, but all over the world. The household has left rue Jean-Goujon for Place Royale, where, apparently, they have a magnificent apartment in the Hôtel de Rohan-Guémené.
    Love, increasingly, seems more of an affliction than a blessing.
    And now, a ridiculous thing has happened. I have been called up to serve in the Garde nationale. I should explain that the Garde is a militia made up of the middle class. When one is summoned to the Garde nationale, he is given a blue uniform and a rifle and is expected to help keep peace in the streets, stop the vandalism and thieving that seems so much a part of city life.
    The idea of the rifle and the uniform is tempting, but after having made the great sacrifice of moving in with my mother to conserve time and money, I just cannot afford to add yet another duty to my busy life. I will never get my poems written if I do not give them my full attention. So I have ignored the summons and now I have been charged with neglecting my civic duty and have been condemned, in absentia, to serve a prison sentence for this offence.
    I have gone into hiding. Under the name Charles Delorme, I have rented cheap rooms at the Hôtel de Rouen. The hotel is on the right bank of the river, in the Cour du Commerce, a twisting series of alleys that holds all manner of shops and services. If I am chased into the Cour du Commerce, there are many places to hide. And if I am chased into the Hôtel de Rouen, there are four exits by which I can escape, one door to the south, one to the north, one to the east, and one to the west.
    My rooms are on the third floor and look out over the distant Jardin du Luxembourg, out over those perfect days not long ago when I walked through the orchard with Adèle, fully believing that our love was strong enough to bear our circumstances.
    I am less convinced now. As I said, she sends no word to me, no reassurance of her love, no promise of meeting.
    My two rooms cost only twenty-three francs a month, with morning coffee included. The staircase to the third floor is as steep as a ladder. The hallway is dark and narrow. But when I throw open the door to the small room where I am to write, I feel only liberation at my prospects. The proprietors of the hotel, Monsieur and Madame Ladame, are friendly and courteous. They can be relied upon to warn me if the police should arrive to arrest me.
    My mother, however, is unhappy with my arrangement. She was all in favour of my spending time in the Garde nationale. She thought it would be good for my character and for my figure, which has grown a little plumper of late. According to her, the Hôtel de Rouen is not a suitable place for a gentleman. I pronounce the name as
Hôtel de Rohan
, to make it sound more noble, to echo Victor’s prestigious new lodgings, but she is not convinced. She is disappointed in me, in my choices. “I would rather have given birth to a freemason,” she says.
    I