Free Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette (P.S.) by Sena Jeter Naslund Page B

and then, with his flat palm, he touches my chest again, as though wondering if, before, his palm landed, perhaps, on the wrong quarter of my frame.
    “They will grow”—I say with a slight smile—“as surely as the resurrection.”
    He throws back his head and howls with laughter.
    “The resurrection?”
    “The resurrection of the body and the life everlasting,” I explain, for he has not understood my reference.
    He controls his laughter for a moment, and then it squirts out of him again. He tries hard to tuck down the corners of his mouth into the proper seriousness for the congress of France with Austria.
    “You are devout?” he says.
    “I have no wish to be a nun,” I reply.
    Now he rolls away from his side onto his back. He stares at the ceiling. All mirth has left his body.
    “I see you are a wit.”
    “Oh, no,” I say sincerely. “That is something I have never wished to be, for wit is cruel, and my first wish is always to be kind.”
    “I believe you, Marie Antoinette.”
    Again, he turns onto his side, the better to look at me. He cocks his elbow and props his head up with one arm. I think he has a noble nose, very large, and powerfully arched.
    “I like best to be called ‘Toinette.’”
    He places his hand on my waist, but he does not draw me to him. His fingertips amuse themselves by making small swirls in the fabric of my loose and mobile gown. He speaks slowly. “If you have not wit, most certainly, you have will. You tell me what you like.”
    “I like best to please you,” I whisper, for I do not want to frighten him again.
    “With saucy talk of resurrection?” he asks.
    I remain silent, waiting.
    “—when I have none to offer,” he concludes.
    I am puzzled and wonder at his meaning. Before I ask for explanation, I remember my mother’s caution: I must curb my curiosity. A tear forms at the corner of my eye, and I feel ashamed. I am failing her. It is ever my duty to be light, cheerful, and encouraging. He sees the tear and touches it.
    No, he takes it, on his finger.
    The Dauphin of France puts his finger in his mouth to taste my tear.
    “You need not cry,” he says, and his voice is chilly and restrained. He sighs. “I would not have you cry, Little One.”
    It is my mother’s pet phrase for me, her youngest daughter. But he must not think maternally of me. “I am…,” I begin, but as I unspool those words I remember the wanton, languishing look so openly displayed by Madame du Barry. Before my lips have completed the phrase “…the Dauphine,” the sultry expression of the du Barry inhabits my own face, for I have been well taught the arts of the theater.
    My husband plops down and rolls again onto his back. Staring at the ceiling, he says wearily, “You need not try to look like her.”
    It is a shocking moment, for he has divined my thoughts.
    “The fault does not lie with you,” he says, but he speaks to the ceiling.
    I think I see a tear forming at the corner of his eye.
    I touch his shoulder gently. “Would you like to hold my hand?”
    Without a word, he reaches toward me, and our hands find each other as though by magic. Like two magnets, our hands fly together. But he does not turn to me. I roll also onto my back, and our firm-clasped hands lie between us with fingers entwined in a pleasant knot. I think of the sarcophagus coverings of kings and queens who lie in marble majesty side by side. His large hand perspires against my flesh.
    “Another night,” he says.
    “I am sorry for my awkwardness,” I say.
    There is silence, but then he replies, “And I for mine.”

T HE C UP OF C HOCOLATE
     
    When I awake, I am informed that the Dauphin has risen earlier to join the hunt, and the royal aunts, Adelaide, Victoire, and Sophie are hoping that I visit them in Madame Adelaide’s apartment, before Mass.
    Because the aunts are maidens, they cannot imagine anything about this pair of nights in the marriage bed, any more than I could have imagined a night