awoke, the room was silent. The sky between the open curtains was completely black. He reached for his watch. The table smacked his hand three times before he remembered what he had done.
6
When Ariane Passant was a child, she complained to her mother that she felt nauseated when she looked at certain men.
“Maman,” she said, “why does Uncle Charles make me feel sick?”
“That’s not a nice thing to say, Ariane.”
“I feel sick in my nose.”
“Do you mean you don’t like Uncle Charles?”
“No.” She considered. “I like Uncle Charles.”
Ariane first met Frédéric Molineu at a ball in the Seventh Arrondissement, and they danced a polka. Frédéric’s cravat was patterned with small black plumes like the clubs on playing cards, and as Ariane concentrated on her steps she watched that the size of the plumes did not change, to regulate the distance between their bodies.
Frédéric Molineu called on the Passant family soon afterwards. Monsieur and Madame greeted him with surprise and offered him a seat beside the fire. The cook had just sent up a fresh plate of salmon sandwiches. Ariane locked her fingers and stared at the flame. She was very pale and beautiful, and her eyes were a transparent blue. Monsieur Passant asked Frédéric about his profession, and Frédéric explained that he was a doctoral student at the École Normale. He made sure to allude to his father’s landholdings near Normandy, which he was due to inherit. He could feel the silence coming on and tried to forestall it: he complimented the furnishings of the room, this lovely mantelpiece, was it original to the house? He remarked that salmon was probably his favourite type of sandwich. Monsieur and Madame Passant’s responses were economical: polite, not encouraging, relapsing each time into silence. Frédéric could not understand their reservation. It was obvious that he was an excellent match for Ariane, who was already nearly twenty. Unless, of course, he was misreading something. He stole glances at their daughter, which she never returned. A large freckle underscored Ariane’s left eyebrow, and she had a delicate, tapering chin.
Frédéric persisted. Once a week, sometimes twice, he knocked on the door and was invited in for coffee or a glass of wine. Monsieur Passant began to imply, with meticulous indirection, that Ariane had other suitors; but over the months that followed Frédéric never met a single one or heard any of their names. The conversation did not flow with time, and each visit was as stilted as the first, so that Frédéric found he must restrain himself from commenting on the appearance of the room to avoid sounding mechanical. He watched Ariane for short bursts, resigned to the fact that she would never look back at him. She spoke only if asked a direct question, and then in a quiet, soapy voice would answer as briefly as grammatically possible.
Sometime in the third month Frédéric became aware that the Passants were serving him a salmon sandwich every time he visited. A sign, at last, which he might interpret. He waited a few more weeks to make absolutely certain; and yes, each week a salmon sandwich, flavoured with dill and salted butter. He summoned the courage, and one evening asked for a conversation alone with Monsieur Passant.
Passant led him into the dining room. A brass coat of arms hung on the far wall and the table was dressed for dinner. Frédéric barely needed to introduce his proposal with the various flourishes he had practised before Passant was giving his consent with his hands clasped. He led Frédéric back to join mother and daughter by the old fireplace, and Ariane fixed him with her transparent eyes. There was no need to tell her. She bowed her head.
The engagement lasted for two months, until the end of the semester. Ariane and Frédéric were married in the spring of 1891.
After the age of thirteen, Ariane would tell him later, her nasal nausea had almost disappeared. But on occasion she would still catch sight of certain men and feel the same revulsion. It was usually a man’s face, turned sideways, that set it off, becoming more vivid than other faces in the room. She would look again hungrily at the face, but the sensation always drained quickly, the imbalance neutralised. During her engagement to Frédéric, however, Ariane found herself once more as she had been as a girl. At night she thought of the muscles in Frédéric’s hands, his quick manner, his eyes, his full, masculine eyebrows. It was as though the