The Reinvention of Love

extraordinary work is possible.
    My hero (me) is good on horseback. When emotions are too much for him, he simply rides off. Later he rides back. Once he says, in all seriousness, “Can a man keep a flame burning in his breast without his clothes catching fire?”
    It is something to consider. My love for Adèle must be visible to all who see us together. In some ways it is a relief to be in exile at the Hôtel de Rouen. I am not in danger of being discovered making love to Adèle in my novel.
    When my hand is tired and cramped from writing, or when I must open another bottle of ink or replenish my sheaf of paper, I pause from my work and look out of the window, across the river, out over the countryside that borders the outer edge of the Jardin du Luxembourg. I like this view. I like being so high up, as though I am on the topmast of a ship.
    My hero (me) narrates the second part of the book from on board a ship. He has to periodically put down his pen to attend to the duties of sailing.
    When I write about our love, I realize how unsettled it has made me. I now depend on my morning ritual of shaving, coffee, pacing, writing. I can lean on it and, on the bad days, the unsteady days, it will hold me up. There was nothing to lean on in my love for Adèle. We did not have the luxury of routine. Every time we met it was fraught with stored-up emotion, with the fear that we would not be able to meet again soon.
    My hero (me) goes to the monastery at Port-Royal. He decides to undergo training for the priesthood and spends his days praying, reading, going for long walks, eating simple meals with the monks. His small cell is sparsely furnished andhe does not want for more. Occasionally there is singing at a meal. More occasionally there is cake. The time passes blessedly, uneventfully.
    After he is ordained, he leaves the monastery, riding off on horseback to visit Madame de Couaen. When he gets to her house he finds her on her deathbed. She is, of course, overjoyed at seeing him, and she asks him, with her husband’s blessing, to hear her last confession and deliver her the sacraments. He does this, with great feeling. She is grateful. She dies.
    I put down my pen. I feel drained of words, empty of emotion. By killing off Madame de Couaen, I have preserved the love she felt for my hero (me) without having to consider its future. It has met a logical end. The love has transcended itself from a physical plane to a spiritual one, but it has remained constant. I fear there will be nothing so convenient for Adèle and me. Our future is, unfortunately, beyond the control of my pen.

I HAVE MADE A NEW FRIEND.
    Even though I am in hiding from the militia, I am still reviewing for the
Globe
. It was my good fortune to be assigned two novels by the same author. Excellent books, both of them, and I say as much in my reviews. I also write to the author, conveying my admiration and asking if I can meet with him.
    He agrees, and so I put on a hat to disguise my face, puff up the steep stairs to his apartment, and knock on his door.
    “Ah, Sainte-Beuve. Welcome.” The door opens to allow me admittance, but I remain in the hallway, confused.
    “George?”
    “The same.”
    I almost burst into laughter, but that would be rude, so I restrain myself (barely) and walk into the apartment of the young, brilliant Parisian author.
    George Sand is a woman. Despite her masculine pen name, and her male dress, and her cigarette smoking – she is very much a woman. She sports male dress in order to have more freedom in society.
    Friendship is best when it is founded on mutual respect, or when there is a sameness of character, and George and I are full of admiration for each other’s work. We were also born in the same year. But what binds us most closely together is love, and the torment it offers us.
    Once, George, despairing of her many unsatisfactory affairs, asked me, “What is love?”

    George Sand

    “Tears,” I replied. “If you weep, you love.”
    “I have asked this question of many people,” she said. “And you are the only one who has answered honestly.”
    There are no women allowed in the Hôtel de Rouen, but George Sand, dressed as a man, passes by the inscrutable Madame Ladame without a glance. We sit in room numbernineteen and read our novels aloud to each other. Her book,
Leila
, is further along than my
Volupté
, but this does not bother me. She writes faster. Every night, from midnight to dawn, she pens twenty pages.