The Bright Things

OCTOBER 1762

“YOU ARE NEVER POOR IF YOU HAVE ART,” my mother says – every morning and every night, like a ritual prayer: “If you have the fortune of hearing music, seeing a play, viewing a painting, dancing, singing, reading, or writing, then you are just as well off as the wealthiest man in the world – and better off, perhaps.”

            This is her creed. Truthfully, she only says this because we are very poor, and she is an actress, and so she seeks to validate her profession by implying that her form of payment transcends currency – but I always pretend that it is true, even when she and Papa skip a meal so that I can eat. I do not know what they would have done had I had siblings. I am their only child, and they exhaust their entire income on my wellbeing (their “income” includes the small sum they make performing in a Parisian acting troupe as well as the allowance they are sent each month by Mama’s brother, my Uncle Georges). Though I would never admit it to her, I sometimes think that the several miscarriages Mama suffered after my birth were God’s way of telling her that one was enough: she wouldn’t be able to afford anymore.

            In recent years, Mama and Papa do not dwell too heavily on their inability to parent any more than one child; rather, they focus all of the love they would have afforded my siblings – had God been willing to create them – on me: Lysandrine; their darling Lise. I enjoy being doted upon; I am their little protégée, and they take me along with them to their performances and train me in the art of drama. I have seen all of William Shakespeare’s plays produced at least a dozen times; my favorite is A Midsummer Night’s Dream – I am named after the charming Lysander. Come my birthday each winter, Mama and Papa arrange a performance of this play which stars the two of them, respectively, as Hermia and Lysander; a band of other actors – friends of theirs – composes the rest of the cast. I always deliver Lysander’s lines in unison with Papa, albeit under my breath (my father is not particularly fond of being upstaged). From the time I could walk and talk, the theatre was as a second home to me, and I think it shall always have a piece of my heart.

            I should mention that the “theatres” in which my parents and their colleagues perform are not grand establishments by any means; they are makeshift, portable wooden stages which one would scarce deem fit to stand on – and yet, I have seen portly men and plump women dance, jump, and do cartwheels across them! Since the bourgeoisie do not deem “our kind” (those poorer than them) worthy of entering public theatres (they claim it is due to the “stench,” which I have never noticed), we are reduced to dragging these hastily assembled platforms here and there, through mud and crowds and inclement weather, and performing our productions that way.

            Nearly all of my time is spent at the theatre. I do not go to school and can barely read or write; however, I am technically literate, at least insofar as being able to write my name and read my lines. This, I think, is all I shall ever need in life. When I am older, I shall be a thespian just like Mama and Papa, and I shan’t need to read or write important documents; I shan’t need to correspond via letters, because everyone whom I love and cherish will be within arm’s reach, always. And, I think, as I straighten my skirt and turn my attention to the stage, I think I know to whom I shall be married, as well.

            Matthieu Jean is fourteen to my eleven, but I hardly suppose that matters. There are women assembled here who are twenty years their husband’s junior, and so a difference in age of a mere three years is no real nightmare. Matthieu is short and scrawny, but as he is on the verge of manhood, I do imagine that he will grow, and when he does, he will be tall and strong and handsome, and when that day comes we shall certainly be husband-and-wife. Briefly, I dip my head to peer down the front of my too-large dress and see my flat, baby’s chest. I shall grow, too. I hope.