32

IT WAS BIANCA who gave me the news. It was early evening, and I was writing a letter which I would later send to my latest confidante in the Talamasca. The windows were open to the breeze off the Elbe.

Bianca rushed into the room and told me immediately.

"It's Pandora. I know it. I've seen her."

I rose from the desk.

I took her in my arms.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"They're dancing now at the Court Ball, she and her Asian lover. Everyone was whispering about them, how beautiful they are. The Marquis and the Marquis a De Malvrier. I heard their heartbeats as soon as I entered the ballroom. I caught their strange vampiric scent. How can one describe it?"

"Did she see you?"

"Yes, and I put a portrait of you in my mind, my love," she said. "We locked eyes, she and I. Go to her. I know how much you want to see her."

I gazed down at Bianca for a long moment. I peered into her lovely oval eyes and then I kissed her. She was exquisitely dressed in a charming ball gown of violet silk and never had she looked more splendid. I kissed her as warmly as I have ever done.

After that, I went at once to my closets and dressed for the ball, putting on my finest crimson frock coat and all the requisite lace, and then the large curly wig which was the fashion then.

I hurried down the steps to my carriage. When I looked back I saw Bianca on the pavilion above gazing down at me. She lifted her hand to her lips, and blew a kiss to me.

As soon as I entered the Ducal Palace I sensed the presence of the Asian, and indeed before I ever reached the doors of the ballroom, he emerged from the shadows of an anteroom and put his hand on my arm.

Oh, for so long I had heard about this evil being, and now I confronted him. From India, yes, and most beautiful with large liquid black eyes, and a creamy brown skin that was flawless. He smiled at me with his smooth, enticing mouth.

His satin frock coat was a dark blue, and his lace was intricate and extravagant. It seemed he was studded with immense diamonds, diamonds from India where diamonds are worshiped. He had a fortune in rings on his hands. He wore a fortune in buckles and buttons.

"Marius," he said. He gave me a small formal bow, as though he were doffing his hat when in fact he wore none. "Of course," he said, "you are going to see Pandora."

"You mean to stop me?" I asked.

"No," he said with an idle shrug. "How could you imagine such a thing?" His tone was courteous. "Marius, I assure you, she has cast off many another." He seemed perfectly sincere.

"So I've been told," I said. "I must see her. You and I can speak later on. I must go to her."

"Very well," he said. "I am patient." He shrugged again. "I am always patient. My name is Arjun. I'm glad that we've finally come together. Even with the Roman rogue, Santino, who claimed to have annihilated you I was patient. She was so miserable then and I wanted to punish him. But I did not. I followed her wishes and left him unharmed. What a dejected creature he was. How he loved her. I followed her wishes as I've said. I'll follow her wishes tonight, as I always do."

"That's very good of you," I replied, my throat so tight I could scarcely utter the words. "Let me go now. I have waited longer than you can possibly imagine for this moment. I can't stand here and converse with you as though she weren't steps away from me."

"I can imagine how long you've waited," he said. "I am older than you think."

I nodded, and I slowly withdrew from him.

I couldn't bear it anymore.

Immediately I entered the immense ballroom.

The orchestra was playing one of the soft fluid dances so popular in those times, nothing as spirited as music would later become, and the lavish room was full of radiant faces and busy dancing figures, and myriad colors.

I peered through the happy crowd, moving slowly along one wall and then another.

Quite suddenly I saw her. She didn't know I was there. Her companion had sent her no mental warning.

She was sitting alone, artfully dressed in her fashionable clothes, her satin bodice very tight and graceful, her ornate skirts huge, and her lovely white face framed by her natural brown hair drawn back and up in a fancy style with rubies and diamonds.

I leant against the clavichord, smiling benevolently at the musician who played it with such skill, and then I turned to gaze at her.

How sad was her expression, how remote, how unutterably beautiful.

Was she watching the colors of the room as I watched them? Did she feel the same gentle love for mortals which I felt? What would she do when she realized I was watching her?

I didn't know. I was afraid. I couldn't know anything until I heard the sound of her voice. I continued to look. I continued to savor this moment of bliss and safety.

Suddenly, she saw me. She picked me out of the hundreds of faces. Her eyes fixed on me, and I saw the blood rush into her beautiful cheeks and her mouth opened to speak the name Marius.

I heard it over the thin sweet music.

I raised my fingers to my lips, just as Bianca had done only a little while ago, and I blew a kiss to her.

How sad and happy at once she seemed, her mouth opened in a half smile as she gazed at me. She seemed as frozen in her place as I was.

But this was intolerable. What were these volumes of silence which divided us!

Quickly I crossed the dance floor and bowed before her. I lifted her cold white hand, and led her out and into the dance, and would take no resistance from her.

"No, you're mine, you're mine, do you hear?" I whispered. "Don't pull away from me."

"Marius, I fear him and he is strong," she whispered in my ear. "I must explain to him that we've found each other."

"I don't fear him. Besides he knows. What does it matter?"

We were dancing as if we said no such things to one another. I held her tight and kissed her cheeks. I didn't care what the mortals around us might think of this impropriety. How very absurd was the whole notion.

"Pandora, my blessed love, if only you could know how long I've waited. What use is it to tell you now that from the very beginning I have missed you in pure agony? Pandora, listen to me, don't close your eyes, don't look away. I knew within the year, the very year, that I had made a dreadful error!"

I realized that I was turning her too violently: I was pressing her hand too hard. I had lost the cadence of the dance. The music was a strange shrill noise in my ears. I had lost control of everything.

She pulled back to look into my eyes. "Take me out on the pavilion," she said. "We can talk in the river breeze. The music makes me dizzy." Immediately I led her through a huge pair of doors and we found ourselves on a stone bench overlooking the river.

I shall never forget how clear it was that night, how much the stars seemed in my favor, and how brilliant the light of the moon on the Elbe. All around us were pots of flowers, and other couples or groups of mortals who had come to gain a little air before returning to the ballroom.

But in the main we had the shadows to ourselves and I gave way to kissing her. I felt her perfect cheeks beneath my lips. I kissed her throat. I felt her brown hair with its tight waves, which I had so often painted on my wild nymphs as they ran through my thick gardens. I wanted to pull it loose.

"Don't leave me again," I said. "No matter what is said between us tonight. Don't leave me."

"Marius, it was you who left me," she said, and I heard a tremor in her voice which frightened me. "Marius, that was so long ago," she said sadly. "Marius, I wandered so far and wide searching for you."

"Yes, yes, I admit to all," I said. "I admit to every error. How could I guess what it meant to break the tie? Pandora, I didn't know! Yea gods, I didn't know! Believe me, I didn't know. Tell me you will leave this creature, Arjun, and come back to me. Pandora, I want nothing short of this! I can't make pretty words. I can't recite old poems.

Pandora, look at me."

"I am looking at you!" she declared. "Don't you see, you blind me! Marius, don't think I too haven't dreamt of this reunion. And now you see me in this shame, this weakness."

"What? I don't care! What shame and weakness?"

"That I'm a slave to my companion, Arjun, that I let him move me through the world, that on my own, I possess no will, no momentum. Marius, I am nothing now."

"No, that's not true, and besides it doesn't matter. I'll free you from Arjun. I have no fear of him whatsoever, and then you'll be with me and all your old spirit will come back to you."

"You dream," she said and the first coldness came into her face and into her voice. It was in her brown eyes, a coldness that comes from sorrow.

"Are you telling me," I demanded, "that you mean to leave me again for this creature? You think I will stand for it?"

"And what are you saying to me, Marius, that you will force me?" Her voice was low, distant.

"But you've told me you're weak, you've told me you're a slave. Is this not asking for me to force you?"

She shook her head. She was ready to weep. Again I wanted to pull down her hair, to see it loose, to take the jewels out of it. I wanted to take her face in my hands.

I did it. I held her face too roughly.

"Pandora, listen to me," I said. "One hundred years ago, I learnt from a strange mortal that in your wanderings with this creature you circled again and again the city of Dresden. And learning this, I moved myself to this city to wait for you. Not a night has passed that I have not awakened to look through Dresden to find you.

"Now that I have you in my arms I have no intention of abandoning you."

She shook her head. She seemed for a moment incapable of speech. I felt that she was imprisoned in her strange fashionable garments and lost in some painful reverie.

"But what can I give you, Marius, but what you've already learnt? The knowledge that I live still, that I endure, that I wander? With or without Arjun, what does it matter?"

She turned her eyes to me, wondering.

"And what do I learn from you except that you go on, and that you endure¡ªthat those demons in Rome did not destroy you as they claimed, that you were burnt, yes, I can see that in the color of your skin, but you survive. Marius, what more is there?"

"What on Earth are you saying!" I demanded. I was suddenly furious. "Pandora, we have each other! Good Lord. We have time. As we come together now, time begins for us all over again!"

"Does it, Marius? I don't know," she replied. "Marius, I'm not strong enough."

"Pandora, that's mad!" I said.

"Oh, you are so angry and it is so like our quarrels of old."

"No, it's not!" I declared. "It's nothing like our quarrels of old because it's about nothing. Now I'm taking you from here. I'm taking you to my palace, and I shall deal with Arjun as best as I can afterwards."

"You can't do such a thing," she said sharply. "Marius, I've been with him for hundreds of years. You think you can simply come between us?"

"I want you, Pandora. I shall settle for nothing else. And if such a time comes that you want to leave me¡ª."

"Yes, and what if it does come," she said angrily, "then what shall I do when there is no Arjun on account of you!"

I fell silent. I was in a rage. She was staring at me intently. Her face was full of feeling. Her breast heaved under the tight satin.

"Do you love me?" I demanded.

"Completely," she said in her angry voice.

"Then you are coming with me!"

I took her by the hand.

No one moved to stop us as we left the palace.

As soon as I had her in the carriage, I kissed her wantonly as mortals kiss and wanted to sink my teeth into her throat but she forbade it.

"Let me have that intimacy!" I begged. "For the love of Heaven, Pandora, it's Marius who is speaking to you. Listen to me. Let us share blood and blood."

"Don't you think I want to?" she asked. "I'm afraid."

"Afraid of what?" I demanded. "Tell me what you fear. I'll make it vanish."

The carriage rolled on out of Dresden and through the forest towards my palace.

"Oh, but you won't," she replied. "You can't. Don't you understand, Marius, you're the same being you were in those times when we were first together. You're strong and spirited as you were then, and I'm not. Marius, he takes care of me."

"Takes care of you? Pandora, this is what you want! I'll do it. I shall take care of every tiny detail of your entire existence as though you were my daughter! Only give me the chance. Give me the chance to restore in love what was lost to us."

We had reached my gates, and my servants were opening them. We were about to enter when she signaled to me that I must hold the coach. She was looking out the window. She was looking up at the windows of the palace. Perhaps she could see the pavilion.

I did as she asked. I saw that she was paralyzed with fear. There was no disguising it. She stared at the palace as though it were full of menace.

"What in the name of Heaven can it be?" I asked. "Whatever it is that frightens you, tell me. Pandora, there is nothing that can't be changed. Tell me."

"Oh, you are so violent in your temper," she said in a whisper. "Can't you guess what reduces me to this abominable weakness?"

"No," I said. "I know only I love you with my whole heart. I've found you again and I'll do anything to keep you."

Her eyes remained fixed on the palace.

"Even give up the female companion," she asked, "who is inside this very house waiting for you?"

I didn't answer.

"I saw her at the ball," she said, her eyes glassy, her voice quivering. "I saw her and knew what she was, quite powerful, quite graceful. I never guessed she was your lover. But now I know that she is. I can hear her inside. I can hear her hopes and dreams and how they are pinned on you."

"Stop it, Pandora. It isn't necessary that I give her up. We are not mortals! We can live together."

I took her by the arms. I shook her. Her hair did come loose and then violently and cruelly I pulled at it, and I buried my face in her hair.

"Pandora, if you require this of me, I'll do it. Only give me time, give me time to make certain that Bianca is where she might survive well and happy. I'll do it for you, do you understand, if only you'll stop fighting me!"

I drew back. She appeared dazed and cold. Her lovely hair spilled down on her shoulders.

"What is it?" she asked in a low sluggish voice. "Why do you look at me this way?"

I was on the edge of tears, but I stopped them.

"Because I imagined," I said, "that this meeting would be so very different. And I did think that you would come with me willingly. And I did think that we two could live in harmony with Bianca. I believed these things. I believed them for a long time. And now I sit with you here and all is argument and torment."

"That's all it ever was, Marius," she replied in her low sad voice. "That's why you left me."

"No," I said. "That's not so. Pandora, ours was a great love. You must acknowledge it. There was a terrible parting, yes, but we had a great love, and we can have it again if we reach for it."

She gazed at the house, then back at me almost furtively.Something quickened in her and she suddenly gripped my arm with white knuckles. There came that look of terrible fear again.

"Come into the house with me," I said. "Meet Bianca. Take her hands in yours. Pandora, listen to me. Stay in the house while I go to settle things with Arjun. I won't be long, I promise you."

"No," she cried. "Don't you understand? I can't go into this house. It has nothing to do with your Bianca."

"What then? What now? What more!" I demanded.

"It's the sound I hear, the sound of their hearts beating!"

"The King and the Queen! Yes, they are inside. They are deep within the Earth, Pandora. They are as still and silent as always. You need not even see them."

A look of pure terror infected her features. I put my arms around her, but she only looked away.

"As still and silent as always," she gasped. "Surely that can't be. Not after all this time. Marius!"

"Oh, but it is," I said. "And to you it should be nothing. You needn't go down the steps to the shrine. It is my duty. Pandora, stop looking away."

"Don't hurt me, Marius," she cautioned. "You're rough with me as though I were a concubine. Treat me with grace." Her lips trembled. "Treat me with mercy," she said sadly.

I started to weep.

"Stay with me," I said. "Come inside. Talk to Bianca. Come to love us both. Let time begin from this moment."

"No, Marius," she said. "Take me away from that awful sound. Take me back to the place where I am living. Take me back, or I shall go on foot. I can't bear this."

I obeyed her commands. We were silent as she traveled to a large handsome house in Dresden whose many windows were dark, and there I held her still, kissing her, refusing to let her go.

Finally, I drew out my handkerchief and wiped my face. I drew in my breath and tried to speak calmly.

"You are frightened," I said, "and I must understand it and be patient with it."

She had that dazed cold look in her eyes, a look I had never seen in the early years, a look that now horrified me.

"Tomorrow night, we shall meet again," I said, "here perhaps in this house where you are dwelling, where you are safe from the sound of the Mother and the Father. Wherever you wish. But wherever you can get used to me."

She nodded. She lifted her hand and stroked my cheek with her fingers.

"How well you pretend," she whispered. "How very fine you are, and always were. And to think those demons in Rome thought they had put out your brilliant light. I should have laughed at them."

"Yes, and my light shines only for you," I said, "and it was of you I dreamt when I was burnt black by the fire sent from that demon blood drinker Santino. It was of you I dreamt as I drank from the Mother to regain my strength, as I searched for you through the countries of Europe."

"Oh, my love," she whispered. "My great love. If only I could be again the strong one whom you remember."

"But you will be," I insisted. "You are. I shall take care of you, yes, just as you wish. And you and Bianca and I¡ªwe shall all love one another. Tomorrow night, we'll talk. We'll make plans. We'll speak of all the great cathedrals we must see, the windows of colored glass, we'll speak of the painters whose fine work we have yet to study. We'll speak of the New World, of its forests and its rivers. Pandora, we will speak of everything."

I went on and on.

"And you will come to love Bianca," I said. "You will come to treasure her. I know Bianca's heart and soul as ever I knew yours, I swear to you. We will exist together in peace, believe me. You have no idea of the happiness that awaits you."

"Happiness?" she asked. She looked at me as though she hardly understood the words I had spoken. Then she said:

"Marius, I leave this city tonight. Nothing can stop it."

"No, no, you can't say this to me!" I declared. I grabbed her by the arms again.

"Don't hurt me, Marius. I leave this city tonight. I told you. Marius, you've waited for one hundred years to see one thing, and one thing only¡ªthat I live. Now leave me to the existence I've chosen."

"I won't. I won't have it."

"Yes, you will," she whispered. "Marius, don't you see what I'm trying to tell you. I haven't the courage to leave Arjun. I haven't the courage to see the Mother and the Father. Marius, I don't have the courage to love you anymore. The very sound of your angry voice frightens me. I don't have the courage to meet your Bianca. The very thought that you might love her more than me frightens me. I am frightened of it all, don't you see? And even now, I am desperate for Arjun that he may take me away from all of this. With Arjun there is for me a great simplicity! Marius, please let me go with your forgiveness."

"I don't believe you," I said. "I told you I will give up Bianca for you. Good God, Pandora, what more can I do? You can't be leaving me."

I turned my back on her. The expression on her face was too strange. I couldn't endure it.

And as I sat there in the darkness, I heard the door of the carriage open. I heard her quick step on the stones, and she was gone from me.

My Pandora, utterly gone from me.

I don't know how long I waited. It was not a full hour.

I was too distressed, too perfectly miserable. I didn't want to see her companion, and when I thought of banging on the doors of her house, I found it too utterly humiliating.

And in truth, in pure truth, she had convinced me. She wouldn't remain with me.

I was about to tell my driver to take us home when a sound came to me. It was of her howling and crying, and of objects within the house being broken.

It was all I needed to push me into action. I left the carriage and ran to her door. I shot an evil glance at her mortal servants, which rendered them virtually powerless, and threw open the doors for myself.

I rushed up the marble steps. I found her going madly along the walls, pounding the mirrors with her fists. I found her shedding blood tears and shivering. There was broken glass all around her.

I took her wrists. I took them tenderly.

"Stay with me," I said. "Stay with me!"

Quite suddenly behind me, I heard the presence of Arjun. I heard his unhurried step and then he entered the room.

She had collapsed against my chest. She was shaking.

"Don't worry," said Arjun in the same patient tone he had used with me in the Duke's palace. "We can talk of all these things in a courteous way. I am not a wild creature, given to acts of destruction."

He seemed the perfect gentleman with his lace handkerchief and high-heeled shoes. He looked about at the broken pieces of mirror which lay on the fine carpet, and he shook his head.

"Then leave me alone with her," I said.

"Is this what you wish, Pandora?" he asked.

She nodded. "For a little while, my darling," she said to him.

As soon as he had left the room, and shut the tall double doors behind him, I stroked her hair, and I kissed her again.

"I can't leave him," she confessed.

"And why not? " I asked.

"Because I made him," she answered. "He is my son, my spouse, and my guardian."

I was shocked.

I had never supposed such a thing!

In all these years I had thought him some dominating creature who kept her in his power.

"I made him so that he would take care of me," she said. "I took him from India where I was worshiped as a very goddess by those few who had set eyes upon me. I taught him European ways. I placed him in charge of me so that in my weakness and despair, he would control me. And it is his hunger for life which drives us both. Without it I might have languished in some deep tomb for centuries."

"Very well," I said, "he is your child. This I understand, but Pandora, you are mine! What of this! You are mine, and I have you in my possession again! Oh, forgive me, forgive that I speak so harshly, that I use words such as possession. What do I mean to say? I mean to say I can't lose you!"

"I know what you mean," she said, "but you see, I can't turn him away from me. He has done far too well in what I have asked of him, and he loves me. And he cannot live under your roof, Marius. I know you only too well. Where Marius lives, Marius rules. You will never suffer a male such as Arjun to dwell with you on my account or for any other reason."

I was so deeply wounded that for one moment I couldn't answer her. I shook my head as though to deny what she had said, but in truth I didn't know whether or not she was wrong. I had always, always thought only of destroying Arjun.

"You can't deny it," she said softly. "Arjun is too strong, too willful, and has been too long his own master."

"There must be some way," I pleaded.

"There will come a night, surely," she said, "when it is time for Arjun to part from me. The same may happen with you and your Bianca. But this is not the time. And so I beg you, let go of me, Marius, say farewell to me, and promise me that you will eternally persevere and I shall give you the same promise."

"This is your vengeance, isn't it?" I asked quietly. "You were my child and within two hundred years I left you. And so you tell me now that you won't do the same to him¡ª."

"No, my beautiful Marius, it isn't vengeance, it is only the truth. Now, leave me." She smiled bitterly. "Oh, what a gift to me this night has been, that I have seen you alive, that I know the Roman blood drinker Santino was wrong. This night will carry me through centuries."

"It will carry you away from me," I said, nodding.

But then her lips caught me by surprise. It was she who kissed me ardently, and then I felt her tiny sharp teeth pierce my throat.

I stood rigid, eyes closed, letting her drink, feeling the inevitable pull on my heart, my head suddenly full of visions of the dark forest through which she and her companion so often rode and I couldn't know whether these were her visions or mine.

On and on she drank, as though she was starving, and deliberately I created for her the luscious garden of my most cherished dreams, and in it I envisioned the two of us together. My body was nothing but desire for her. Through every sinew I felt the pull of her drinking and I gave no resistance. I was her victim. I held to no caution.

It seemed I was not standing any longer. I must have fallen. I didn't care. Then I felt her hands on my arms, and I knew I was on my feet.

She drew back, and with blurred eyes I saw her gazing at me. All of her hair had spilled down on her shoulders.

"Such strong blood," she whispered. "My Child of the Millennia."

It was the first time I had heard such a name for those of us who have lived so long and I was faintly charmed by it.

I was groggy, so strong had she been, but what did it matter? I would have given her anything. I steadied myself. I tried to clear my vision.

She was far away across the room.

"What did you see in the blood?" I whispered.

"Your pure love," she answered.

"Was there any doubt?" I asked. I was growing stronger by the moment. Her face was radiant with the blood flush and her eyes were fierce as they had always been when we quarreled.

"No, no doubt," she said. "But you must leave me now."

I said nothing.

"Go on, Marius. If you don't, I can't bear it."

I stared at her as if I were staring at a wild thing of the wood, and so she seemed to be, this creature whom I had loved with all my heart.

And once again, I knew it to be finished.

I left the room.

In the grand hallway of the house, I stood stunned, and there Arjun was standing in the corner, staring at me.

"I am so sorry, Marius," he said, as if he meant it.

I looked at him, wondering if anything could work me into a rage to destroy him. Were I to do that, she would have to stay with me. And oh, how the thought of it blazed in my mind. Yet I knew she would utterly and completely hate me for it. And I would hate myself. For what did I have against this creature who wasn't her vile master as I'd always supposed, but her child!¡ªa fledgling vampire of some five hundred years or less, young in the Blood and full of love for her.

I was far far from such a possibility. And what a sublime being he was as he surely read these thoughts in my desperate and unveiled mind and yet stood his ground with such poise, merely looking at me.

"Why must we part!" I whispered.

He shrugged. He gestured eloquently with his hands.

"I don't know," he said, "except she wants it so. It is she who wants ever to be on the move; it is she who draws designs upon the map. It is she who draws the circles in which we travel, now and then making Dresden the center of our roamings, now and then choosing some other city, such as Paris or Rome. It is she who says we must go on and on. It is she. And what can I say, Marius, except that it delights me."

I went towards him and for one moment he thought I meant to harm him and he stiffened.

I took his wrist before he could move. I studied him. What a noble being he was, his grand white wig in sharp contrast to his lustrous brown skin, his black eyes staring at me with such earnestness and seeming comprehension.

"Stay with me here," I said. "Both of you. Remain with me. Stay with me and my companion, Bianca."

He smiled and shook his head. There was no contempt in his eyes. We were male to male and there was no contempt. He told me only No.

"She will not have it," he said, his voice very placating and calm. "I know her. I know all her ways. She brought me to herself because I worshiped her. And once having her blood I have never ceased in that worship."

I stood there, clutching his wrist still, and staring about me as if I were ready to cry out to the gods. And it seemed my cry would break the very walls of this house if I let it loose.

"How can this be!" I whispered. "That I should find her and know her only for one night, one precious night of quarreling."

"You and she are equals," he said. "I am but an instrument."

I closed my eyes.

Quite suddenly I could hear her weeping, and when this sound came to my ears, Arjun gently freed himself from me and said in his soft gentle voice that he must go to her.

I walked slowly out of the hallway, and down the marble steps and into the night, ignoring my carriage.

I walked home through the forest.

When I reached my house, I went into my library, took off the wig which I had worn to the ball, threw it across the room and sat in a chair at my writing table.

I put my head down on my folded arms and silently wept as I had not wept since the death of Eudoxia. I wept. And the hours passed, and at last I realized that Bianca was standing beside me.

She was stroking my hair with her hand, and then I heard her whisper.

"Time to come down the steps to our cold grave, Marius. It is early for you, but I must go and I can't leave you this way."

I rose to my feet. I took her in my arms and gave way to the most awful tears, and all the while she held me silently and warmly.

And then we went down to our coffins together.

The following night, I went immediately to the house where I'd left Pandora.

I found it deserted and then I searched all of Dresden and the many palaces or schlosses around it.

She and Arjun were gone, there was no doubt of it. And going up to the Ducal Palace where there was a little concert in progress I soon learned the "official" news of it, of how the handsome black coach of the Marquis and the Marquis a De Malvrier had left before dawn for Russia.

Russia.

Being in no mood for the music, I soon made my apologies to those gathered in the salon and I went home again, as miserable as I have ever been in my existence. As heartbroken.

I sat down at my desk. I looked out over the river. I felt the warm spring breeze.

I thought of all the many things she and I should have said to each other, all the many things I might have said in a calmer spirit to persuade her. I told myself she wasn't gone beyond reach. I told myself that she knew where I was, and that she could write to me. I told myself anything I needed to keep my sanity.

And I did not hear it when Bianca came into the room. I did not hear it when she sat down in a large tapestried armchair quite near to me.

I saw her as if she were a vision when I looked up¡ªa flawless young boy with porcelain cheeks, her blond hair pulled back in a black ribbon, her frock coat embroidered in gold, her shapely legs in spotless white hose, her feet in ruby buckled shoes.

Oh, what a divine guise it was¡ªBianca as the young nobleman, known to the few mortals who mattered as her own brother. And how sad were her peerless blue eyes, as she looked at me.

"I feel sorry for you," she said quietly.

"Do you?" I asked. I said these words with my broken heart. "I hope you do, my precious darling, because I love you, I love you more than I have ever loved you, and I need you."

"But that's just the point, you see," she said in a low compassionate voice. "I heard the things you said to her. And I'm leaving you."