Last chapter! I have a faint feeling I am speaking to myself. Oh well.
Servants give me one of Maria Louise's dresses to wear to the party. All of my clothes are in my father's manor and my cousin is near my size. With little jeweled barrettes, the servants pull my hair off my face, insisting that I have such pretty ruby eyes. Suddenly I become a courtier when my hair is put up. I am a lady, not an innocent schoolgirl or an ill young woman. All the court mannerisms about approaching the opposite gender or how to eat finger food without staining your gloves or even how to giggle when nothing's funny and to smile when you're unhappy, come back to me.
As I expected, many young males are flocked around Maria Louise, the beautiful princess of Neo-France. I can slip in unnoticed and slip onto the balcony. For the first time in weeks, I breathe the fresh air of earth. Everything smells faintly of roses, like the only memory I have of my mother. I whistle a few bars of the song George played. That song will forever be emblazoned in my mind. I doubt I can forget that melody. Extracting my flute from the only pocket in the dress, I raise it to my lips and let the tune dance on the wind. In my mind, the scene in the bedroom when I listened to George play stretches through every part of my thoughts. Like an ink blot spreading through paper, it enlarges until my whole head is filled with the pastel shades of the room and the soft piano music. The picture of the washed out room with the morning sunlight splashes through every part of my body. It was the dream of every romantic schoolgirl. I used to fantasize being in a room like that, with the early sun shining through big floor to ceiling windows and richly upholstered furniture washed out in the warm light. An attractive man accompanying my flute never entered my daydreams. I had never thought about males before the funeral. I had never thought about young men before I met George de Sand.
Lost in my reverie, I did not notice anyone approach me.
"I see you have recovered. I am glad the physician was wrong," George comments. I could recognize that voice anywhere. He was glad? A blush rises to my cheeks. My cheeks have not been this consistently red before my father's funeral.
"What did the physician say?" I request. Maria Louise never told me what the physician said, just that he spoke.
"He expected you would not recover completely and you'd be very weak the rest of your life," he explains. I am glad too that the physician was wrong. It would not be very good if I was weak the rest of my life. "Adieu, Mademoiselle Aurore," he utters before returning to the party. My cousin's love is understandable, George has many virtues. It is easy to love him.
Servants give me one of Maria Louise's dresses to wear to the party. All of my clothes are in my father's manor and my cousin is near my size. With little jeweled barrettes, the servants pull my hair off my face, insisting that I have such pretty ruby eyes. Suddenly I become a courtier when my hair is put up. I am a lady, not an innocent schoolgirl or an ill young woman. All the court mannerisms about approaching the opposite gender or how to eat finger food without staining your gloves or even how to giggle when nothing's funny and to smile when you're unhappy, come back to me.
As I expected, many young males are flocked around Maria Louise, the beautiful princess of Neo-France. I can slip in unnoticed and slip onto the balcony. For the first time in weeks, I breathe the fresh air of earth. Everything smells faintly of roses, like the only memory I have of my mother. I whistle a few bars of the song George played. That song will forever be emblazoned in my mind. I doubt I can forget that melody. Extracting my flute from the only pocket in the dress, I raise it to my lips and let the tune dance on the wind. In my mind, the scene in the bedroom when I listened to George play stretches through every part of my thoughts. Like an ink blot spreading through paper, it enlarges until my whole head is filled with the pastel shades of the room and the soft piano music. The picture of the washed out room with the morning sunlight splashes through every part of my body. It was the dream of every romantic schoolgirl. I used to fantasize being in a room like that, with the early sun shining through big floor to ceiling windows and richly upholstered furniture washed out in the warm light. An attractive man accompanying my flute never entered my daydreams. I had never thought about males before the funeral. I had never thought about young men before I met George de Sand.
Lost in my reverie, I did not notice anyone approach me.
"I see you have recovered. I am glad the physician was wrong," George comments. I could recognize that voice anywhere. He was glad? A blush rises to my cheeks. My cheeks have not been this consistently red before my father's funeral.
"What did the physician say?" I request. Maria Louise never told me what the physician said, just that he spoke.
"He expected you would not recover completely and you'd be very weak the rest of your life," he explains. I am glad too that the physician was wrong. It would not be very good if I was weak the rest of my life. "Adieu, Mademoiselle Aurore," he utters before returning to the party. My cousin's love is understandable, George has many virtues. It is easy to love him.