and solitude of her childhood, was loving and mischievous. It is this light irreverence which, despite the depths of her gaze, will bewitch Alejandro de Yepes eight years hence, and it is this irreverence, too, which everyone will soon be needing, if it is true, as the writer said, that gaiety is the most amiable form of courage.
A few days after Clara’s arrival, Tagore and Solon came over the bridge of mists to the farm in the Aubrac. It was a strange feeling—for Maria, who had other parents, and for Clara, who had never had any—to acknowledge these fantastical strangers as their fathers. While the men were strangers to them, they loved the horses, the hare, and the wild boar, with the kind of love only our childhood selves permit. Finally, they walked hesitantly toward them, then Maria ran her hand through the hare’s fur, while Clara caressed the boar’s spine.
The next time, Tagore and Solon came to the farm in the company of a female elf whose white mare turned first into an ermine. Her gleaming fur enchanted Maria, and then her human features left the girl speechless. Everything was the same: her eyes, her black hair, her golden skin, her oval face, her rather Slavic cheekbones, and her well-defined lips: all the same as her daughter’s. Maria studied her in awe; she knew this was her mother she was looking at, but the knowledge poured over her like a rain shower on a roof.
The elf smiled at her through her tears, then changed into an ermine, as the tears vanished.
“I learned a great deal from Rose and Eugénie while watching them bring you up,” she said. “I shared their joy as they cherished you and their pride in seeing you grow up, and I’m glad you like violets, and that they taught you the use of simples.”
Sandro took a step forward and bowed.
“Maria is the heir to your ermine, is she not?” he asked. “It is through your filiation that she commands the snow.”
“If Katsura is covered in snow six months a year, it is because we like to see the flowers bloom in it,” she replied.
“I dream of seeing your world,” murmured Sandro.
Marcus placed a hand on his shoulder.
“We dream of it with you,” he said.
During the trip from Burgundy, and while they were settling on the farm, Father François, Sandro, Paulus, and Marcus had become friends.
“I understand why you get along so well with Petrus,” said Marcus the first evening, when Sandro was asking for wine at the inn.
“Don’t you drink?” asked Sandro.
“We have tried,” said Paulus, “but elves and alcohol don’t mix.”
“But Petrus drinks,” said Sandro.
“I don’t know how he does it,” sighed Marcus. “We’re a complete mess after only two glasses, but after three bottles he’s still going even stronger. However, he doesn’t feel too well the following day.”
“Humans, too, have varying reactions to alcohol,” said Sandro.
“Do they have remedies for intoxication?” asked Marcus.
“For intoxication?” said Sandro. “Without intoxication, we could not endure the solitude of reality.”
“We elves are never alone,” Paulus replied.
A year passed quickly on the plateau in the Aubrac, often uniting the girls, their fathers, and Maria’s mother, whose presence unexpectedly comforted the young woman. When she turned into an ermine, she gave off a familiar perfume (different from that of real ermines, for elfin animals may look like their species, but lack certain of their characteristics, such as odor, and manners of expression or even washing), the odor of a village woman who sews sachets of lemon verbena in her petticoats, one of those refinements of peasant women, who could no doubt teach city ladies a thing or two. Maria had the power to communicate with animals; she’d always had a particular penchant for hares, which she found rather similar to ermines; the animals her mother changed into gave her a sense of familiar ease that the woman herself failed to create and, most of the time, the elf stayed at the farm in her winter ermine form. Maria would kneel by her side, breathing in her perfume and burying her face in her soft fur. The rest of the time, they talked, and the elf described the world of mists, its channels, liquid stones, and winter plum trees. Maria never wearied of these descriptions; Clara, at her side, also listened eagerly. Ever since a certain night in Rome, the little Italian girl had possessed the gift of reading the minds of the people she was with: the landscapes the