Chapter X: Dream to Dream

Satine let her fingers trail absently down the dark wood of her vanity as she stared out at the faint lights of London outside her windows. The rest of the household had long since gone to bed. She'd been careful to keep only a single candle burning in case one of the maids decided to investigate an undue amount of light from Mademoiselle Claudel's room. She missed Paris desperately at night, where night was romanced with a glass of wine and taken to the dance floors of the Moulin. She was restless most nights, even after two years in the Duke's sterile splendor. An unaccountable part of her heart missed the sweet decadence of the life at the Moulin.

For an instant, a vision of she and Christian flashed into her mind. The sparkling diamond and the penniless poet in the red room, singing a duet--

(You're going to be bad for business. I can tell)

but the idea passed as quickly as it came. Harold never would have allowed anything a flirtation to go on between the two of them, much less a relationship.

(We're creatures of the underworld. We can't afford to love)

If Harold could see her now, she was certain that his disapproval would be severe. Even she had had to endure long lectures on the evil of falling in love-- Satine, the star who had never so much as looked at a Bohemian in her life! She hid a smirk as she conjured up Harold's face in her mind's eye, but her smile quickly faded when she realized the truth of her private joke. Harold would have scolded her, and when he saw the depth of her feelings, his anger would have ripped away at her.

(The infatuation will end. Go to the boy. Tell him it's over)

Satine rose impatiently and paced the length of her room. She stopped by the largest window and, ignoring the sudden mist of tears that blurred her eyesight, stared fiercely at a passing cat. Wrapping her arms about her, Satine sank down onto the windowseat and put her fingertips on the window. Her reflection superimposed on the visage of London's quiet night.

She had been so sure that he would come.

He had made no promises to her, no vocal reassurance that he would come tonight. He'd only smiled meaningfully at her. Promising--

(You'll come? Tonight?)

But such things meant that he would come, and he knew it as well as she. Listen to me, Satine reflected ruefully. I sound like a lovesick schoolgirl, whining because her beau can't be troubled to stop by with a box of candy.

In her heart, though, Satine knew that in this sting lay something deeper. Her entire love with Christian was formed on the unique trust that he loved her and would give her everything that his heart had to give. It was unfair to blame him for tonight, she knew. But if this could happen, could he also demand. . .things. . . that weren't hers to give? He'd been very good ever since the first tentative touch of their lips, receiving only what she chose to give him.

But even that can't hold out much longer, a small voice grated at the edge of her consciousness. She'd been trained to deal with unseemly desire at the Moulin, but she knew that you could only hold a lit candle in your hand for so long before either extinguishing it or letting the fire leap into life. She had no desire to be burned by her own feelings.

Satine turned away from the window and buried her face in her hands. What was she doing? Her entire career hung on this affair. She'd been very good for the past few years, ignoring the pointed glances that came from men handsomer than the Duke, men richer. She above all knew how fickle men's choices were, and whatever else could be said of the Duke, his infatuation with her was a fairly permanent one.

Regardless of whatever affection the Duke held her in, though, he would not hesitate to ruthlessly cut the bonds between them if he caught sight of anything that might suggest infidelity. Before, she'd justified it to herself that with the Duke's pointed joke, that she was safe to flirt with him before company. Things were progressing too far for that she would be safe with that flimsy excuse any longer.

(The Duke is expecting you in the tower at eight)

Stop it, she said, calmly enough to believe it. Just stop it, Satine. It's gone too far this time.

But memories of Christian were coming to her, thoughts of his voice and face. The sweet expressiveness of his hands as he caressed her cheek. The warm, insistent pressure of his lips on hers. His poetry, his music, his unfailing belief in love and in her. Who was she to do this to him? To rip away his first love would be as cruel an act as the disillusion she'd suffered, and just as hard to forgive. It would take away his innocence. How could she inflict her own pain on the man she loved just to keep her body in comfort?

(Hurt him. Hurt him to save him)

As if in a dream, she wandered over the window and blew out the candle burning there. She cast one more longing look at the street below, and then closed the heavy damask curtains. Slowly, she walked over to the mirror, her mind playing the old melancholy tune that had been so in vogue at the Moulin a few years before its renovation. She remembered the little can-can dancer who had sung it. What had her name been? Marguerite?

Her little white face appeared unbidden in Satine's mind. The young girl had been left by some Bohemian to die from an unspeakable disease of the whores, and all the Dogs had (strangely) taken pity on the young girl, who wandered the halls with flowers in her stream of golden hair, crooning her strange little songs to whoever would listen.

One song she sang constantly, letting her high-pitched voice ring out during rehearsals while the rest of them belted out the brassy tunes that the customers so loved. It was that song that came into Satine's mind, long after poor Marguerite was lain in the cold earth.

If I should die this very moment,
I wouldn't fear.
For I've never known completeness like being here.
Wrapped in the warmth of you,
Loving . . . .
Every breath of you.

In a sudden rage, she picked up the powders on her vanity and hurled them at the sofa. They did not shatter, but instead scattered the soft red over the creamy satin. Still furious, she continued to throw things-- kohl, lip rouge, cold cream. She gathered up the perfume bottles, hating the soft clink of glass in her arms, and poured them out on the rich fabric. The soft, pampered existence of the whore. The liquid mingled with the makeup as she threw her jewelry into the mix, sending rivulets of blood-red down the sides of the sofa and onto her clean diamonds.

It wasn't fair! Her heart cried along with the silent twist of her lips. Her life had been stolen away from her from the price of a few francs, the same as a cheap whore and a warm bed at the Moulin. She'd lost any chance for life and love that her soul had ever owned. And for what? A chance to throw valuables silently at a beautiful piece of furniture, too afraid of talk if she was heard?

Why live life from dream to dream?
And dread the day when dreaming. . .

Satine slid to the floor, her back against the cold wall, and wept. The sobs blinded her, threatened to choke her breath, and she covered her face with her hands, trying to escape into a place where no one could own her.

she moaned softly, the noise guttural, from the base of her throat. She whimpered, and clutched the silk of her dressing gown, brutally tearing it with her fingernails. She cried again, harder and deeper, until no more words were possible, until her entire body was caught up in the act of mourning.

Clara awoke from her little room off of Satine's, and pressed her hands to her mouth as she heard the broken sounds of tears from her mistress's room. Trying to ignore the sounds of utter helplessness, she stood and walked to her small window. She was slightly surprised by what she saw there-- a handsome young man, with a basket in his hand and a worried expression on his face. He glanced up again, towards her room-- or Miss Satine's, Clara realized abruptly-- and closed his eyes. The expression of puzzled heartbreak burned itself across her mind, and she bit back a sob of her own as the sounds from Miss Satine's room subsided and the man walked on.