The Prisoner of the Castle of Enlightenment

by Therese Doucet

  “And you’ve never met anyone who seemed able to live up to that ideal?”

  “There’ve been those who said they were in love with me. Those who wanted to take up all my time. Those who were good in character but unbearably dull. Men like Donatien who were exciting but vicious. Those who only cared to make love and never stimulated my mind or my imagination.”

  “I wonder – what do you think of Ulysse? I thought I heard the two of you talking together today in the garden.”

  “Ulysse? Ah, that’s a long and complicated story. We’ve known each other for years and years. When we first met we fell straight into bed with each other. Then we quarreled and I broke it off with him, but we’ve stayed friends. He’s more like me than any man I’ve ever known. Perhaps we’re too alike to be lovers. Yet we always seem to be drawn back to each other.”

  “Do you think he means to make a protégée of Clio?”

  “It’s possible. If he doesn’t I think I shall. She’s a wonderful little person. Gifted, clever, charming and pretty. Someone certainly ought to help her.”

  I nodded. “If she wants help, that is.”

  

  Leaving Séléné distracted and comforted by new thoughts, I hoped, I settled into bed to wait for Thérion. When the lights at last went out and he arrived, he asked me whether I’d like to try with him some of the things I had seen Donatien and Séléné do. I was a little frightened, but I said yes.

  “Whenever you want me to stop,” he said, “if it gets to be too much, you only have to tell me and I’ll stop.” His voice went a note deeper. “Sit up and turn around, on your hands and knees. Yes, like that. Now put your hands here.” He guided my hands and I let him tie them to the bedpost with soft cords. He ran his hands along my prone, bent body, from my breasts to my knees, and pressed his hard sexe against the back of my thighs with a low groan. He wove the outstretched fingers of one hand through my unpinned hair, closed his fist around it, and began my punishments.

  In the nights that followed, our lovemaking grew increasingly rough and passionate. We talked less as time went on, for Thérion was always hungry for me, and I for him. He tested and pushed my boundaries, binding me, mastering me, teaching me, teasing me, even tormenting me, but the pleasure always outweighed the pain. Sometimes we switched places, and he gave me the upper hand, as much as my blindness with him allowed. I missed our conversations but was too caught up in our explorations of each other’s bodies in the night to insist on pausing the language of touch for the sake of speech. There would be time enough for talking of books and philosophy after my new friends had gone home for the autumn, when years had passed, when we’d grown old together, when we’d long since learned every atom of each other’s skin, when every time we made love no longer felt like the revelation of a new Eden, a new heaven and earth.

  Sometimes I wondered dreamily during the days, as the others debated politics, metaphysics, science, and morals, whether I had only one lover, or two, or many. Was Thérion really every man at Boisaulne, coming to me in turn? I came to love each of them in their own way. Above all Harlequin, who excited me with his air of mingled reserve, attentiveness, and humor, always speaking little but listening keenly and watching with his silver-blue eyes, sleek and dangerous-looking in his dark, rich dress, with his high cheekbones, dress sword, and ebony earrings. Tristan with his idealism and guilelessness, his opinions always contrary and his manner sensitive, gentle, and melancholy. The Scotsman, who was always kind, sensible, and moderate, ugly and steady as a rock. Donatien with his elfin beauty, sensuality, and seductive charm. Ulysse with his roaring laugh, skewering every form of injustice and hypocrisy with his boundless energy and ruthless sarcasm.

  

  Later that week, I saw Séléné lead Tristan into the garden toward the fountain of the spring after dinner. On the same evening, Aurore confessed to me that she had let Donatien take her.

  “I don’t know how to feel about it. I always believed in honoring my vows. I’m no Deist like the rest of you – I still hold to my faith in the truths of the Church. But then it didn’t seem I’d harm my husband or anyone else by it, which makes it hard to feel too terrible about it. It’s been so long since I felt wanted by a man or wanted one in return.”

  “And – how was it, being with him?” I asked her.

  “It was … strange. He was very passionate. But I expected my pleasure to be more. I felt as though he was mainly interested in taking something from me, not in giving to me. I felt hollow afterward, and he wasn’t very affectionate. I suppose I regret it. Though not as much as I probably ought to.”

  That was her initial confession to me, but her mood worsened and her regret seemed to increase as time passed and Donatien continued to toy with her – taking her up and dropping her, repeatedly and coldly, even as he pushed her to do things she’d never considered doing in the bedroom before. At last she broke with him, only to be met with harsh indifference. After this I noticed Donatien began to watch me all the time, much as Harlequin always had, in a hungry way. At the same time he began to pay more attention to Clio.

  I was not immune to his charm and felt inclined to forgive him. It was hard to turn my eyes away from him when he was in the room. His clothes were always near works of art in their tailoring and trims, their gorgeous fabrics and colors, and he moved with the confident grace of a lynx. As long as I didn’t succumb to his seductions, as long as I took wisdom from Séléné’s and Aurore’s suffering, I supposed there was no reason why I couldn’t admire him from a safe distance, appreciating the good in him and evading the bad.

  I consented to walk with him in the garden one day, for I was curious to hear his side of why things had gone the way they did with Aurore. I had never met a man so free of scruples where seduction was concerned, and I felt a kind of botanist’s interest in studying and examining his character, trying to see into and understand the soul that underlay it.

  “I know Aurore must have taken it badly,” he told me as we walked through the shaded, sweet-smelling bower under a roof of trellised white roses. “The last thing I ever mean to do is hurt anyone.” He heaved a sigh. “But I’m a strange man, I know, inwardly malformed and difficult to love.”

  “She was very distressed, I can tell you.”

  “It wasn’t that I didn’t love her, that’s what you have to understand. She inspired me, and still does, with her sweetness and virtue.”

  “Which you wanted to corrupt.”

  “No! Well, not only.” He laughed. “She made me wish to be a better sort of man, the kind she could love and admire. I sent thirty gold louis to a charitable organization she favors in Paris, a home for orphans, only in the hope of earning her regard. I thought she seemed lonely, confined as I know she’s been in that sham of a marriage to an old invalid. I thought it might give her pleasure to be made love to. Only, I just – I’m restless. I’m no good at patiently following the conventions. And I can’t trust my own heart to feel the same from day to day.”

  I nodded, considering whether perhaps all men felt like this, and the flaw that made him seem villainous to some was only his sincerity and honesty about it. We spoke of his family, of his father, an uncannily successful and shrewd investor whom Donatien had always admired greatly, but who had never paid much attention to his children in his passion for acquiring ever more wealth and influencing the men of the court. Much as Donatien’s stories drew me in, I still tried to keep my distance in heart and mind.

  “And whom do you intend to seduce next?” I asked boldly. “Clio? Or me, perhaps?”

  He laughed and spread out his hands in a gesture of innocence.

  “Me, seduce anyone? I don’t know where you get these calumnious notions from.”

  I giggled, and he looked at me with unexpected tenderness.

  “Would you like to sit down for a while?” he asked, pointing toward a bench. His eyes went to my waist and traveled back up to my face, full of longing. The pain in them affected me, and for a
moment I imagined sitting with him as Aurore had done, letting him put his arm around my waist and lean his head in toward mine. Mightn’t it be a pleasure to be with him as long as one had no expectations of a lasting liaison? Thérion had said it was for me to choose with whom I made love. With a twinge of sadness I thought how sitting in the warm afternoon sun on a garden bench with a handsome admirer was something I could never do with Thérion, who would never walk with me in the daylight or allow me to look into his eyes when we made love. If Thérion denied me such simple pleasures, he shouldn’t begrudge me taking them elsewhere.

  As I stood wavering, my hand slipped down into the pocket of my skirt, where I had taken to keeping the medallion of Cernunnos that I had borrowed from the chest, as if it were a kind of protective talisman. My fingers closed around the metal, and I took in a deep breath and let it out. The solidity of the pendant in my grip, its grooves under my thumb, recalled me to myself.

  I made a show of looking up to gauge the distance in hand lengths of the sun from the top of the garden wall. “I ought to be getting back,” I said. “I wanted to write a letter before supper.”

  Donatien’s face fell. We turned back to make our way through the labyrinth of hedges out to the path to the arch, but as we passed a shady corner, he took hold of my hand and pulled me back into the shade with him. Stepping behind me, he wrapped his arms around my waist and chest and held me tightly. His movement was so unexpected that I didn’t struggle but relaxed into his embrace. He kissed the side of my neck and whispered how beautiful I was, how he thought of me all the time, how I was different from anyone he’d ever known. I felt hot from the warmth of his body pressing against me from behind and dizzy from the biting pressure of his kisses. He began to move his hands down, and then I did struggle to free myself. His grip was iron and didn’t loosen.

  “Come, what have you got to lose? Let me pleasure you,” he whispered. “I need this. I know you long for it too. What’s all this enlightenment for, if not so we’re free to reach the height of bliss together? No one else need ever know. Ma foi, you’ve the body of a goddess. You were made for love.”

  “Let go.” I wriggled to free myself again, but he laughed and held me tighter. He was too strong for me. “I want to,” I said, “you’re right, but just not now. I’m not ready yet.” His grasp slackened then enough for me to break free. The momentum of pushing away from him carried me several steps forward, and I turned around to face him, breathless, my knees and elbows apart and slightly bent like a wrestler facing an opponent.

  He realized then I hadn’t mean what I’d said, and his face darkened. He kicked the ground in disgust. “I don’t understand you. Can’t you see it’s cruel to make me want you this way? I’d never hurt you. People think I’m unfeeling but the truth is, I’m alone, and it hurts to be pushed away. I hoped I’d have something lasting with Aurore, but she couldn’t love the real me. She only wanted the fantasy. And now you, too.”

  Had I really hurt him? “I apologize. Please forgive me.”

  “Is it Harlequin?” he asked softly. “I’ve seen you look at him.”

  I stiffened in embarrassment.

  “But he’ll hurt you, I promise you that,” he said. “I’ve seen it before. He makes women fall in love with him, acting as though he’s in love with them. He strings them along as long as he can, for the sake of his vanity, but he never gives them anything. I’m not like that. I’m not withholding. I may not be perfect, but at least with me you know what you have and where you stand.”

  “I need to go.” I turned around and walked quickly, almost running, around the corner of the hedge toward the exit of the maze, away from him, my head spinning with confusion and doubt. He didn’t follow.

  

  Ashamed of how I had nearly succumbed to Donatien, and of the parcel of regret and uncertainty that had lodged itself in my soul ever since, I said nothing to Aurore or Thérion about the incident in the garden labyrinth. Mercifully or unmercifully, Donatien left me alone for the most part and we behaved as though it had never happened. Two or three times I caught him looking at me intently from across the library, his book unread in front of him, while I spent the morning at a writing desk working over a poem, but the emotion behind his gaze was unreadable. I wondered, still, if I had truly hurt or upset him with my refusal and if he genuinely had feelings for me.

  On another of those mornings in the library, as I made notes to myself about a new poem and gazed idly at the sunlight streaming in through the window shade, the idea came to me of concentrating on the image of Donatien’s face as if I were going to write a poem about it. I had often found that when I began a poem this way – when I sat perfectly still and shut out everything from my thoughts and senses but a single image – a kind of intuition drew new knowledge to the surface of my consciousness that I hadn’t been aware was in me. But all I could gather from engaging in this sort of meditation on Donatien’s expression was a strange sense of … nothingness in him. There was simply a blankness. Was it an absence of esteem for me, perhaps? What my intuition seemed to tell me was that Donatien simply didn’t care for me, however charming and outwardly gallant he might be.

  When I turned the meditation inward to examine my own feelings, what rose to the surface wasn’t so much hurt or annoyance, but a pity twined with tenderness. I felt sorry for him for being so empty, incapable of returning the warmth, affection, and curiosity I had felt for him all the times he had made me laugh or I had admired his beauty and elegance.

  I put the discovery to the back of my mind. Aurore, for her part, comforted herself after her disappointment with Donatien by spending more time in the Scotsman’s company. I thought surely she couldn’t love such an ugly man, especially not after a liaison with such a beautiful one. But the Scotsman became her most faithful and favored reader during her morning sittings with Clio. He read tirelessly and with animation, and in the afternoons they walked together in the garden, à deux, or accompanied by others. A quiet mutual respect and admiration grew between them as they spoke of books, the Scotsman’s historical research and philosophical writing, and her work in gathering and compiling tales.

  One night after dinner she read one of her fairy tales aloud to the company. It concerned a Persian maiden deceived by an ugly, wicked sorcerer who had drunk a potion to give himself the form of a handsome prince. Cast out into a desert and disinherited by her family, she endured trials and misfortunes before finally encountering a wretched beast that was half tiger and half antelope. She showed it kindness by giving it water and drying its tears when it cried over its ugliness. The beast then revealed itself to be the handsome king of a nearby kingdom who had hitherto been under a spell, and he made her his queen.

  After that night, the Scotsman began to look at her with the lost expression of a lover. Although he was unfailingly respectful and gentlemanly towards her, he lost no opportunity to take her hand on a rocky part of the path, to lift her over a muddy spot by putting his hands around her waist, or to touch her arm when pointing out a bird or an unusual stone in the garden.

  As for Clio, none of her male admirers succeeded very well in charming her. She spent the better part of her days painting and sketching, and neither Donatien nor Ulysse had the patience to sit with her as she worked in silence. Instead they went out riding with Harlequin, or they wandered the galleries of Boisaulne, while Harlequin explained the provenance of the objets d’art on the walls and pedestals and in the curiosity cabinets. Otherwise, Ulysse seemed mainly to devote himself to arguments and flirting with Séléné, who matched him with spirited rejoinders and arch teasing. Now and then he looked regretfully at Clio, as though ruing his inability to take a proper interest in her. She was friendly and cordial to him and seemed not to mind his lack of ardor.

  Tristan, on the other hand, took great pleasure in watching her work, and she seemed to mind him least of her admirers. She sparked off a loud discussion at dinner by saying how she liked the novel he had read aloud, about the
two lovers with their spiritual union. Ulysse was vocally dumbfounded that such an otherwise bright young woman could have such terrible taste in literature. Clio held her ground, insisting the story was fine and moving, and Tristan looked at her in worshipful gratitude.

  “But he wouldn’t know how to flirt with a girl to save his life,” she confided to Aurore and me, talking about Tristan in the morning room over her breakfast chocolate. “And he hardly has a sou to his name. He’s a genius, but he lives with some stupid laundry woman who can’t even read, in a small town outside Paris, in a falling-down rented house. So I suppose we can’t ever be anything more than friends. What a bother. Doesn’t he have fine eyes, though?” She sighed.

  “I’m sure he likes you a good deal,” I said.

  “And I’m sure his intentions must be honorable, or he wouldn’t have told you about the laundry woman or the falling-down house,” Aurore pointed out. “Better to have a friend with a good character than a lover with a poor one.”

  Clio propped her elbow on the table and rested her chin on her wrist dejectedly. “I suppose so.”

  “But surely he could leave his laundry woman?” I said, arranging a happy ending for my friend in my mind. “Perhaps she doesn’t mean so much to him, if he hasn’t married her. Have they any children together?”

  “He made her enceinte a few times, but he couldn’t afford to keep a family, so the babies were all given up to the foundling hospital. He’s very honest about it.”

  Aurore and I exchanged glances with raised eyebrows.

  “But I like that he’s honest,” Clio insisted. “There’s no harm in our having a friendship is there?”

  “He’s lucky to have a friend in you,” Aurore said. “We all are.”