Tomorrow, laughing, the mirror will say
"Your gaze is not clear, not bright"
I will answer quietly: "She took
My gift from God away.

Akhmatova.

So after almost four years of absence I walked the streets of Paris, again and saw that

dear glimmering steeping silhouette of Eiffel. The journey had been heavy, and hard. It was summer in 1907 and everything seemed to glow, the boulevards of Paris, the crowds, the hustle and bustle, accustomed to the crowds of St. Petersburg, we walked calmly towards Rue 20 Jacob.

Nathalie had hardly changed at all, she was still just as warm and bright, in her pale misty flowing dress, her hands inked from the correspondence. Katherine was beside her, she was wearing the same bright yellow silk, at first she seemed quite ordinary, but on closer inspection, some shadow seemed to be in her eyes, and there was something forced in her smile, and there were deep shadows under her eyes, she seemed pale and very tired. Renee was not visible, but I doubted she would arrive before long, full of enthusiasm and plans, like a small hurricane in human form.

We drank tea in beloved salon, were crystals gleamed, and all the furniture were in harmony. Virginie drank hers extremely quickly and slid towards the piano in the parlor, and the notes stacked on a nearby table, as always. She sat, waved her hair behind her, and stretched fingers and started playing. Soon Chopin's bright tones echoed in the room and the mirrors reflected Virginies silhouette from that room, vaguely and distorted to us in parisian summer evening.

Suddenly the door of the patio opened and there were sluggish slow steps, and small stumbles, like a stick? I noticed Katherine closing her eyes, for a moment, Nathalie looked at her calmly, and sadly, and raised her voice over the Virginies playing, "cherie we are in the salong, come thee here."There was something strange in her tone of voice, it was not a request but a kind of command.

The steps had stopped and now they turned towards the salon, and I saw a dark figure. As the figure got closer, toward the light, I didn't believe my eyes, it was Renee, but all the liveliness, and temperament, had flowed away. She was pale, withered, her slender, faceted face had sharpened, her was skin so pale that her delicate bones almost shone beneath her skin. The yellow hair of dark honey and gold, which had always been abundant and slightly curly, was unkept, and tied carelessly, and sloppily with a dark, black ribbon, not at all in keeping her usual style of violet shades, and accents. The clothes were the same as ever before, but not a single flower in anywere in her person, not one. New thing was a slight curvature in the left hand, and a slender ebony stick with a silver knob that supported steps that had previously been busy, even cheeky. The large brown eyes looked cloudy, and powerless, with deep, almost blue-black shadows beneath them.

I glanced at Renees changed look and attitude in creeping horror, even Virginie looked healthier than she did, as the poet sat down at the table slowly, taking a cup of tea and a small box from her pocket from which she added something to her tea, and drank, her eyes fluttering closed for a moment. I noticed Katherine's expression tightening up a bit, but she didn't say anything, to Renee, neither did Nathalie, and that was strange, I wondered.

The silence continued, and continued, for hours we did not speak, at all. The music played on in the next room, Chopin exchanged for Mozart, and Salieri, and Tchaikovsky, and then it stopped, suddenly. Virginie came into parlor, shaking her hands, and tying her hair in a thick braid.

She met Renee's gaze, they looked at each other, the two pairs of dark eyes, for a long time, in some wordless and fast communion, and she walked behind Renee and bound the messy hair properly, and embraced her silently, with tears dropping from Virginies eyes to the black suit jacket of Renees.

The air around them smelled of honey, lavender and origan de coty but at the same time some sharp chemical was in the mix too, and I did know that it did not come from Virginie.

Then they turned and left the room, and soon the piano began to sound, the tone was bright, hearty, and varied, the feeling vibrating, dark gloomy tones in between, like gold or the sparkle of distant stars, between small pauses, and it began again, but now enchanting and raging, and rushing, and fierce..

I found myself holding my breath, and I swallowed, and I noticed a smile on my trembling lips, eyes full of tears.

The music echoed and Nathalie and Katherine looked at me questioningly, and Katherine asked quietly " what is, that I've never heard anything like it, Renee can't play, so it has to be Virginie, but there's nothing like that in the notes in this house. Unbelievable."

I continued to smile, and said softly to them, "that's part of Virginie's composition to Renee's poem series, I've never heard it on the piano, before. She made the final edits to it just before we left, from St Petersburg, and took the notes with her because she wanted to show them to Renee, but she doesn't really need the notes, that music lives in her now.

I found myself incredibly relieved as I didn't think Virginie would get a chance to perform her work, at all, but now with the music glowing around us like a hazy cloud, everything seemed to be fine for a moment, even the shock of Renee seemed to have subsided.

I got up from the table and followed Nathalie into the patio, were the trees were full bloom, and asked her directly, in a quiet voice, "can you tell me what Renee has, is she sick, or is it something else?."

Nathalie looked at me and then slowly said, " the past few years have not been easy, for Renee, her tendency to be more, manic has turned into long periods of depression, and she has turned her circadian rhythm upside down, plus she or we suspect, she may be using drugs and other unhealthy substances. Katherine is so worried about her, but Renee won't let us help her, in fact she has banned us from visiting Passy, Colette says the apartment looks mostly like a tomb.

This is the first time in three months that we have seen her at all, she does not write us at all either. I do not know if Katherine and her are still together or not, but it does not look good at all. Maybe with Virginie and thou here she will talk to us, or at least someone. It is pointless to call doctors we did try but she was absolutely furious, for me for suggesting that, after all she has deep suspision of medical persons.

As her mother tried to get her committed to a asluym, or some institution to be declaired insaine, few months before she left England for good, that was roughly decade or so ago, but the scars of that betrayal have never really healed. So there is nothing we can do, but observe and worry, and make her eat, if we can, on that note I would order some cake now."

So Nathlie left from the parlor to the kitchen, soon there was rich plummy cake, with croissants, and cream and fresh pot full of tea in the table. Renee and Virginie returned, and the little red tint, glowed on both faces. I smiled and said to both, in a light tone, "well geniuses, come to have tea and cake, none person can live only from the air, and from inspiration."

Renee glanced at me sharply, and a little suspiciously, but then she smiled, and to my shock I noticed that charming charm still existed, a little fragmented and darker, but still preserved.

Renee said in her soft dark voice to me,"thank you Elizabeth, for coming, you both. Now I can continue my work in peace when I know that we can start practicing my poems, to make a proper performance maybe here".

Renee spoke in such a living tone, and Nathalie glanced at me cautiously. Mentally I was replanning our travel for a few weeks, so that we could still do what Renee asked, and be still able to visit to Canada.

I watched in the gentle gleaming, candlelight as Virginie combed her hair, beneath us were soft sheets, now a litte rumpled, and all around 20 Rue de Jacob's quiet peace.

I looked at her thoughtfully, and I asked "do you think you could do what Renee suggested? If you don't then we can head to Canada in a couple of days as our original plan was."

She smiled, to me, the silver ring and the amethyst, flickering, and said softly,

"darling, I don't want anything so much as to be with you, and perform for our mutual friends, our family, Canada and the Blythes can wait a bit."