CHAPTER 4: In which the Prince makes some new friends, to the consternation of his wife.
The unveiling event at the Louvre was attended by the Prince, Belle, and also (lingering off to the sidelines with the other servants) Cogsworth. It was not a literal unveiling — to find a veil that large would have been prohibitive — but it was the first time that the piece was on display to the public.
The Prince had unintentionally hit upon an existing trend for enormous paintings which swept the capital after the panorama craze of a few years before, and consequently there was a great deal of interest in the new piece. There was a crowd. The Prince wove amongst them, guiding Belle by a hand which bore upon it a shining silver ring that matched his own. The pair listened for what kind of remarks were being made, and overwhelmingly the words were found favorable. The worst they heard all night was someone using the old stock trick for pretending to know about art — "It would be better had the artist taken a little more care; but even with that I don't suppose it could hold up side by side to anything by Perugino."
At length the couple noticed an oddly dressed group of people who seemed to be making quite a ruckus. They could be seen jumping, hooting and posing as they apparently discussed the artwork with considerable ebullience.
The Prince gave Belle a look: let's see what they're saying.
The boisterous group consisted of three men and two women. They all wore their hair cropped short, even the females: a style known as à la victime. Their clothing was of very fine and expensive material, and in a certain manner it was cut to the fashion. Yet they had made strange modifications to everything. One woman wore what initially looked like a Roman-style chest ornament but, on closer examination, it was actually an elaborate chest holster with four jeweled pistols. She wore earrings shaped like guillotines, but most striking was her figure — like Venus de Milo if someone had repaired it with a set of circus strong-man arms. The other woman, who was quite, quite small, wore a lavishly decorated bonnet that seemed to be more of a helmet made from something like bone; her bracelets were gauntlets, studded with little spiked gems. The men were even stranger: one was a thin, regal-looking type who had a large scar across his left eye, itself plainly a glass replacement that never quite looked in the same spot as the other. He wore a buff-colored set of the fashionable pants called unmentionables, so called for their semblance to wearing no pants at all, over which he'd put some kind of tattered loincloth and feathers. He carried a metal walking stick of an unusual style. The other two men were both bulky, muscular fellows, their fine embroidered suits decorated with metal spikes. One fellow, the younger of the pair, had his right coat sleeve cut off at the shoulder, and he wore streaks of rouge on his face like warpaint. The other had what looked like bits of armor on his shoulders, elbows and knees, his trim waistline embellished with brightly colored feathers and sashes. All of these people looked haggard and shabby, though none was above twenty-six years old. They were impeccably clean with nothing about them depicting poverty, vagrancy, disease or thievish ways. They just kind of looked… like they'd been through something.
Belle and the Prince approached this peculiar batch of people, initially not daring to get too close.
"IT IS A MASTERPIECE!" cried the painted man, his tone thunderous from his massive lungs.
"The work of a genius!" cried the helmeted woman, her voice a shrill squeal.
"If it depicts what I believe it does," said the one-eyed man, "then I should think it a great honor to meet the painter." He pulled a black japanned bottle of smelling salts from his pocket and huffed it, so as not to faint with emotion.
The Prince heard that, and his heart lit up like a gaslight. Naturally he wanted to talk with these folks — but a sudden doubt seized him. Was it wise to talk to them, this peculiar little club?
Belle noticed her husband's hesitation and attributed it to shyness and inexperience. Determined to help him, she put on a big smile and pulled him towards the group.
"Good evening, friends!" she said with the genuine and unaffected manner of a country girl.
The strange group perceived her. At once, they all bowed and curtseyed in answer.
The Prince was put a little more at ease seeing that they weren't entirely wild. He smiled amiably. "Good evening," he bowed in turn. "How — how do you like my painting?"
The man with the rouge responded in an awestruck voice."YOU ARE THE PAINTER OF THIS GLORIOUS PIECE? THEN YOU HAVE SEEN THINGS, THINGS THAT FEW HAVE SEEN AND NONE SHOULD HAVE SEEN. ARE YOU ONE OF US?"
The Prince frowned in confusion. "Er — well, what are you?"
"We are the lost souls who know no place in this world," said the woman with the pistols. "What once we were, was stolen from us by the Revolution. Our pasts are nothing; gone like breath in the wind. We lived what none should live. While others fled, or died, we endured and we survived. We are — the aristocrats."
Belle and the Prince stared at them stunned.
"My folks were the Comtes de Nancy," said the armored man. "In the midst of war, we fled from here to a house in the fields. One day I heard the booms — down the stairs I found all dead. A man, ill-fed, had killed them for the food in our cook-pot, on the fire. I took my fresh-killed kin, I put them all in dirt, cleaned their blood from the floors, and till I reached the age of eight and ten, I lived as one, and fought for the house with my blades. Wolves, thieves, rogues, imps have been hit by my sword. I am called Gutslasher."
"I was the daughter of a Marquis," said the tiny one with the bonnet. "He died on the guillotine; my mother and I were abandoned in a castle during the Terror; no food for love or money. My mother died of hunger, and I was forced to eat her corpse — and then I made her skull into my bonnet! I am Mantua Gargantua."
Belle turned to her husband, hoping to find him looking back at her with an expression that would read let's get away from these weirdos. Instead, she observed that he was awestruck by these people — more than that, delighted by them — more than that, enraptured.
The stories went on. The one-eyed man was Vicomte Pream the Prim, an aristocrat kidnapped and enslaved by some other more devious aristocrats, until his daring escape — the Marquise Murderella, armed with her pistols, had fared better than most and merely had to fight against unceasing dangers in a country estate, where her family had died of illness rather than violence — and the Duc de Humongous had had to live inside a gutted horse for two years.
Belle was about to pass out from hearing these horrible stories. They were unimaginable! But what happened next shocked her still the more.
The Prince stepped forward, releasing her hand. "I was the Dauphin," he declared. "My parents were killed on the guillotine. I was sent to a castle, in a wolf-infested woods. An evil Enchantress transformed me and my entire household into monstrosities! We ran out of food; I killed animals with my bare hands to survive. For ten years, I lived in agony. Then, on a night when a violent mob laid siege to the castle, I was stabbed — and now should be lying dead, were it not for this woman!" He presented Belle. "I am known, to some, as The Beast."
A cry of joy rose from the aristocrats.
"He is one of us!"
They ran to embrace him.
Belle simply stood gaping in abject horror. Somehow, an hour later she was having dinner with these people in a fine restaurant. Bizarrely, they were very courteous. Their table manners were impeccable. The conversation was largely about killing things.
Distracted thus, nobody took notice when four Corsican men were seated a few tables over. One was the same fellow who had previously espied the Capets at the Louvre: a man by the name of Luigi. Beside him was second man, more sinister in appearance, with large sideburns, and something too swift in the way that he moved, as if every gesture was meant to sneak up on you. He was called Lucien. Across the table were a gentlemanly looking fellow named Joseph, and a baby-faced young pretty-boy called Jerome. They all bore a clear familial resemblance to one another, with the same coloring and same dark, downslanted eyes. They all wore the same grey redingotes over their fashionable finery.
"Which is the Dauphin?" asked Lucien, glancing at the aristocrat's table through the corner of his eye. His south-of-the-Ligurian accent added a few extra syllables to the sentence.
"The strawberry blond," said Luigi, trying not to look their way. "The attractive lady at his side is his wife; he is never without her."
"Are we to handle her as well?" asked Jerome.
"I don't suppose Napoleon would mind it," said Joseph as flatly as an Italian can, "but there is no instruction for that. That Blondie there is the only target."
"Then that Blondie there shall die," said Lucien.
Meanwhile, so-called Blondie/The Beast was entertaining his new friends with a story. "…And at that point, I suppose I've held my temper pretty well. I mean, I didn't strike her or throw her out myself. But I know she's upset. Then Lumiere runs in, and shouts at me, 'Master, the girl has run away!' I look out the window, and I can see her disappear into the woods on horseback. Those woods are dangerous enough even in the best of weather. It's night, in the dead of winter, and there's a blizzard. I'm aghast. There wasn't even time for me to run downstairs; I had to leap from the window, slide down the turrets and race with all my might after her!" He motioned with his hands not the running gesture of a human but of a four-legged animal. "So, I can see the footprints in the snow. There are wolves after her. I'm dreading that I'll start to see blood in the snow at any moment. I just keep pressing after her — but there is a river that's iced over. I fall into the frozen river. Water that cold — it's paralyzing. I press on, but I can feel that I'm — I'm not right at this point. The cold was getting to me. I'm seeing these spots, shimmering spots, and everything else is going black. But I know I can't stop. I keep going, to follow the footprints. Then I can hear: the horse, and the growling of the wolves. I just keep pushing. And I see them. She is in danger, and there is no other option; I just have to fight off about — ohh, nine wolves? I don't even know what I'm doing at this point. I just flail blindly, trying to knock off as many of them as I can, while they bite me and claw me. Despite the cold, I'm covered in sweat and blood. Finally, I had killed enough of them that the others got scared and ran off. And want to guess what happened then? Belle, tell them what happened!"
Belle wasn't sure what he wanted her to say. "Er… you fainted?"
The Beast smiled and threw up his hands in a taa-daa. "I fainted!"
The table roared with laughter at his climax.
"But she saved me," he continued, smiling, sounding downright proud of his wife. "She always does."
"She too is one of us," said the Marquise.
Belle was astonished. A few months ago, if he had been compelled to tell that story about fainting in the woods while trying to save her, he'd have been embarrassed to death. Now he was laughing at it with friends. Moreover, this was the most she had ever, ever heard him talk.
He seemed to really be enjoying these people, peculiar as they were.
As the evening went on, Belle began to rationalize the situation. Were these aristocrats any stranger than the Beast who had kidnapped her father and taken her prisoner — the man to whom she now was married? They were all made horrifying by their experiences, yet, it seemed that at heart they were all good people. Apart from being boisterous, they were not ill-mannered. They were friendly to her, despite that she was withdrawn and uncomfortable around them. Their tales of homicide all seemed to be of the justifiable variety. She resolved she would try not to judge them for being a bit unusual. Afterall, this wasn't her poor provincial town anymore.
When dinner was finished, Belle expected she and the Prince would be retiring back to the inn. But the remnants of the ancien régime had other suggestions. They knew of a ball that was about to begin, and invited Beauty and the Beast (as they were now known within the circle) to attend with them. Neither Belle nor Beast had been to a formal ball with other people; but it sounded like a good experience to acquire. They went.
It was a private party. Not of a small scale, but private, meaning you had to know someone to get in. The venue was a bombed-out medieval church that had been reclaimed after the Revolution. The space seemed specially made for the purpose of hosting large events. An orchestra played from a gallery, above the dance floor upon which names of the interred dead were still etched in stone. Innumerable candles, chandeliers and candelabrums lit the place as brightly as daytime. The guests were all incroyables dressed in the tight-fitting, Greek-inspired clothes that had become the mode.
The Prince had only ever danced one-on-one with Belle, but now he had to form himself part of a group for the waltzes and cotillions. The dancers in Paris were amazing dancers, which made him feel extremely self-conscious in their midst. Still, seeing the others, he started to figure out what they did differently from himself, and bit by bit he began to improve. Thus Belle and the Prince danced two or three enthusiastic rounds, the acrobatics and show-off moves increasing with each song as the Prince realized that the whole point of the Parisian dancers was really to show up the other men.
The couple paused to the refreshment table for some punch, mopping sweat from their foreheads, at which time Mantua Gargantua, with her traumatized eyes and her shrill little voice, gently inserted herself to inform them that, in Paris, it was considered a bit rude to dance with the same partner all night long. They were advised to change it up.
The Capets exchanged a look between themselves: is that alright with you? And perceiving that they were both willing to attempt this, they split cautiously in search of other dance partners.
The beautiful Belle didn't have to wait long to be asked to waltz, and she was swept to the dance floor anew. Her husband, seeing this, felt an instinctive pang of jealous rage which he swallowed away. He had the advantage that, as a man, he could ask any partner he wanted to dance with him. He decided to play it safe and ask Mantua Gargantua, since they already knew each other. She accepted.
Going across the funereal dance floor, the Capets anxiously tried to keep, if not their eyes, at least their awareness upon one another. It had been a while since Belle had danced with someone other than her husband; and he had never danced with anyone else apart from the coat-rack who stood in for his partner while he learned. For the Prince, Mantua Gargantua was actually a good first-dance, since she knew his background and she had almost zero expectations of him. It also forced him to practice dancing with someone a lot shorter than himself.
Belle's partner was a pleasant fellow who was maybe in his early thirties. He noticed her anxiety. "Is something the matter, madame?" he asked her.
Belle maintained a sweet smile. "This is my very first dance since my marriage," she answered.
The man laughed. "Ah, yes. I recall the first ball my wife and I attended after we were wed. It feels a little strange if you had only danced for courtship before."
"Oh, is your wife here?" asked Belle.
"I don't know where she goes, we got a divorce." He proudly chatted on about his ex-wife and his four children for the rest of the dance.
She scarcely had time to catch her breath from this dance before she was asked for another from a different partner. Up and dancing she was again, this time with a gentleman who seemed a little disappointed that she was already married but who was a good sport about the whole thing. The next ballerin was an uptight fellow who spoke few words but danced best of anyone for his absolute focus on the activity.
At this point Belle became aware that her husband was no longer on the dance floor. She intended to go look for him, but just then she was asked for a dance by a friendly, older looking man. She couldn't bring herself to refuse him. Then somehow, after that one, she seemed to get caught up in yet another waltz.
At last, she was able to escape the dance floor and hurried off to look for her spouse. She discovered him with Pream and Humongous at the refreshment table, drinking a brandy punch. He saw her and smiled, waving to her.
When Belle approached, she realized that her Prince was a little intoxicated. Not sloppy drunk, but just showing a few signs of heightened emotions and worsened coordination, like he'd been standing there drinking for some time. He immediately grabbed her by the waist and kissed her a little too fervently for public consumption.
"Beast," Belle scolded smilingly with a tone of embarrassment. "There are people everywhere!"
He smiled in apology. Belle greeted Pream and Humongous again, while swatting her husband's hands from her torso.
Humongous came out and said in that distinctive manner of his: "YOUR BEAST IS ALARMED AT SEEING YOU DANCE WITH OTHER MEN."
"Been pulling his hair out about it for an hour," said Pream, amused.
The Prince puffed himself up just a bit. "I wasn't that bad… they're exaggerating."
"Didn't you dance with anyone else?" asked Belle to her husband.
He seemed a little embarrassed. "With Gargantua for a while. But I wasn't enjoying it much." He really only wanted to dance with Belle.
"Which is tragic," said Pream, smiling at Belle's fortune, "for no less than three attractive ladies requested that I introduce him."
"Aww, Beast!" she said, moved by his fidelity. Belle caressed her husband's jaw appreciatively. The tension immediately melted from his face.
"Would you like to go back to dancing?" he asked.
Belle thought about it for a moment. She exhaled before answering. "I'm having a wonderful time, but it's so late. I'm not used to staying out for so long!"
"Nor I," said the Beast, smiling. "But, let's bid everyone farewell. Then we'll go home."
That sounded like a good plan to Belle. Yet somehow, that wasn't what actually transpired. The couple started with every intention of simply saying goodnight to their friends, but instead they became caught up in more conversations, soon were taking more beverages, and eventually were back to enjoying themselves with dancing and games and all the delights of a ball. With the aristocrats acting as their sherpas, their unfamiliarity with the people and the fashions melted away, and soon they socialized like the celebrities they were.
Now Beast was the party monster. It was discovered he could slug brandy at a pretty good pace, and somehow an odd competition developed between him and a few other men as to whom could drink the most of it. Six and a half feet tall and all muscle, he was far from ready to stop when the others were collapsed on the floor. Moreover, plied with that much alcohol he became a lot less sensitive to Belle's absence.
Belle was circulated amongst some other dance-partners before her husband found her again. He pulled her aside, whispered something in her ear, and then hauled her off to a dark corner where they ended up being that couple. You know the ones.
On the dance floor, Gargantua's dance partner tossed her tiny body high into the air. Strong-armed Murderella tossed her male partner into the air likewise.
And they all danced some more. And they all drank some more. They all mingled some more. At four in the morning the supper was served and they all ate some more. Music. Booze. Dance. Ruckus. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
It was dawn when the Capets finally staggered from the party. Even then, the aristocrats invited them to a café for breakfast, and the Beast accepted. Energy levels crashing, they all dined on rolls and a coffee-like herbal drink (coffee itself being scarce consequent an embargo put up by the British navy, to act against Emperor Napoleon). After a couple more hours to wrap up their conversation, the exhausted Beauty and the Beast finally made it back to their inn and crashed asleep in their sunlit bedroom — coffee substitute notwithstanding.
And in the course of it all they had agreed to rendezvous and do it all again that same evening.
…