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June 10, 1900
Dear Jane,
Your letter finds me well enough. I eat, I sleep, I remember, and I go through the motions of life in a manner that convinces most. It is the way of grief, I think.
I read your letter with great interest, particularly your description of your son. He seems a free spirit, much like his mother. I’m sure it was well worth retiring from the public eye to spend your time with such a gallant and charming young man. You are fortunate to have him at your side, for you will never be alone.
I, on the other hand, feel as if I will be alone forever. I cannot help missing Henri every second of every day. You tell me the grief will fade, and in spite of my anguish I find myself believing you. The moment I met you, I knew in an instant why Henri loved you so. You, as Henri did, see the world differently. You are not hampered by the strictures of bourgeois society. You see, as Henri saw, beyond all that. You are what Henri called a true bohemian.
How I wish I could have seen you dance at the Moulin Rouge. Henri told me about it, and of course I saw his posters and paintings of you. Henri said he would have loved to see us dance together. He said your entranced and entrancing beauty would have melded perfectly with what he called my natural grace.
Why ever did you give up dancing in public before I moved to Paris?
I was, I must admit, a bit shocked by your revelation in your last letter of what he told you about me. Or more accurately, a bit shocked by the suggestion he made to you about us. I had no idea the two of you had spoken of me in such an intimate fashion, and I certainly was not aware he had any desire to see the two of us together in that way.
Henri must have been quite drunk to suggest such a thing. (From your account of the events, I believe the incident you describe took place scant days after my first enforced journey to the countryside; he must have been missing me terribly.)
Let me assure you that I harbour no such desires, and that these letters are not meant to entice you to take on the burden of my upkeep. I am merely sharing my memories with the one person who will appreciate them without judging Henri unkindly. (I do not care if anyone judges me unkindly, as long as it does not harm his or her opinion of Henri.)
That is not to say, of course, I would not have been tempted by the suggestion, dear lady. You are of a rare beauty, and I might have indulged Henri, had he requested such a thing. But he did not. Perhaps he thought better of it by the light of day. Or perhaps, once we were reunited, he wanted me all for himself.
It is almost five years since I first told Henri I loved him. Five years since my life was utterly transformed. I will never forget the day I met him, or that night I first offered myself to him. The night we were finally able to consummate our love is etched in my mind forever. The passage of time since these events I mark, if only in my mind.
But I refuse to count the days since Henri’s death. Death cannot end our love, so I will not mark the days as if it died as well. But I will finish telling our story, up to the tragic end of his life. You should know the entire truth.
Where did I leave off the tale? Ah, yes, I was banished to the countryside yet again, and a distressingly long banishment it was; it lasted longer than the entire summer. I toiled all the days and spent the nights despairing at being left out of the preparations for “Spectacular Spectacular”. I was not worried about the show itself. Satine’s reputation would ensure financial success for the show, and it had to be an artistic success – after all, Henri was involved - but that did not mean all would go smoothly. I could sense that from the start.
The play was to be an embodiment of the values of the children of the revolution. The ideals were sound, and I supported them wholeheartedly, but I could not help thinking that Henri was hopelessly romantic and doomed to disappointment. For all his drunken nights with pimps and the girls from the brothels, Henri had a pure heart. He had not seen the harsh reality that I had experienced. I was not about to be the one to tarnish his bohemian dreams; I only wished I could be there to soothe him when things went sour.
On our last night together, Henri had spoken of his hopes for the production. We stayed up late, while he drew his fantastical designs for the sets on my skin with wine-stained fingers and licked the traces away. He whispered excitedly of the future, and the production. It would introduce the bohemian revolution to an entirely new class of people, and it would make a theatrical star of Satine.
Satine. I knew he was smitten with her. All men with any desire for women were. I will confess to a small degree of envy, but not of the resentful sort. She was not, as far as I could tell, any threat to me. She would never have stooped to bedding Henri. She treated him as a charming, talented pet of sorts. Even Satine could see his genius, but she felt no obligation to fawn over him or indulge him any more than was necessary to ensure her place as the star of his show.
No, it was not Satine who sparked my jealousy. It was Christian.
Visitors from Montmartre were common at the farm. It was considered chic to visit with old Communards, to partake of their authentic revolutionary spirit and to be able to tell one’s acquaintances, “Oh, yes, I am on friendly terms with Madame so-and-so” or to casually mention, “I bought dinner for old such-and-such last night and we spoke of the Commune.” The farm was a frequent stop for revolutionaries young and old. Even the esteemed Aristide Bruant made the pilgrimage regularly, bringing news and gossip.
The news was welcomed. The gossip, more often than not, hurt.
It seems odd that a scant year later, I think of all this in the past tense. I am sure there are still performers and artists and philosophers and revolutionaries trekking to the countryside to partake in their healthy dose of old fashioned revolutionary zeal. I have difficulty taking it seriously now, after my experiences. All that talk is worth so little next to experience. And so very much has changed since then.
I had never been left in the country that long before. At first, I fretted about Henri’s health; I worried about the play tiring him. Soon enough, I worried that he had forgotten me altogether. Then came the rumours about the young English writer working on the show. He was with Henri constantly, I was told; their collaboration was intense.
Idle gossip burned my ears. Rather than be anxious about Henri’s infatuation with Satine, I began to suspect Christian. Ridiculous, especially now that I know now that he is in the flat below me, and his crying over her loss has just this moment increased in volume.
What I would not give for one day of peace. Surely he must have cried himself dry by now. It started the moment he began to type. Before he began this frenzied working, I’m told he was living in some kind of a haze, drinking and brooding with the occasional violent outburst. Now it all pours out of him, the words, the tears, the pain. Even when he is typing at a furious pace, absorbed in his work, I can hear his sniffs punctuated by the constant clacking of keys.
I have considered going down visit him, as you have so thoughtfully suggested I do. It is true that he most likely knows how I am feeling, and should be able to give me some comfort. But I am not sure how to approach him, and I doubt he would find it in himself to be of much help to me, since he is still so grief-stricken himself.
I could probably comfort him more than he could comfort me. It is moot. I cannot yet bring myself to speak to anyone. My grief is too fresh.
Instead, I listen to him, and I remember. And I take the constant interruptions of my own thoughts as a just punishment for every ill will I bore him while I languished in the countryside.
I had taken to asking daily if there was a letter requesting (and including the necessary funds for) my return. I had no means of travel, no means of supporting myself. In my misery, I became vulnerable to all means of persuasion. I suppose loneliness can drive one mad. The mistress of the farm offered to pay my fare to the city, if only I agreed to earn the money fairly. I submitted to her wishes for perhaps a dozen nights over the period of a few weeks, impatiently waiting for the day I might leave and never return.
To her credit, she had no illusions. She did not demand shows of affection or declarations of amour. She did not require that I kiss or woo her. She did not even care that I never found my completion within her. I needed only to serve. That was fair, since she was not paying me very much per incident. I was able to maintain the necessary attitude and perform my duties before retreating to my little room off the kitchen, where I dreamt of something far more desirable.
I allowed myself to dream that Henri missed me. I dreamt of his mouth on my body, teasing my nipples and sucking at my skin lightly, his tongue enflaming my flesh with his desire, his hands painting me with their love. I dreamt of taking his cock between my legs and hearing his cries of joy. I dreamt of his lips on my cock and his fingers inside me, twisting and thrusting. I dreamt until I my seed flowed over my hand.
But her smell was ever upon me, and my release was little better than the tears of a man who believed himself forgotten. My desperation grew as I waited for word from Henri. My fears grew poisonous. One night, while I tried to service her with my mouth and hand and cock, I could not perform. She scolded me and accused me of stealing drink. She told me to stop yearning for the pathetic little dwarf, to stop wasting myself on him.
My anger rose and caused my cock to rise as well. It was an uprising borne of torment, and she had, of course, provoked it quite purposefully, to produce just such a result. I rutted with her, pouring my frustration and disappointment and fury into the vile act. It was the only time I managed to spill inside her, and she reached her peak at the same time.
To be in her bed earning the money for my return to Paris had been commerce, but this was not a business transaction. It was the one, and only, time I felt I had betrayed Henri. I demanded my payment and cursed her. I felt violated and corrupted, and did not hesitate to tell her; I did not care if she threw me out into the night. She broke down and confessed that a letter had arrived well over a month before, and that she had hidden it from me, hoping to keep me for herself.
I should have been upset with her. Another might have done her violence, but my relief was such that I forgot her treachery at once. All that mattered was Henri.
How can I describe that moment of realisation? I read the letter. I read that Henri had not abandoned me at all. He was waiting for me in Paris; he was going on with his life, but he declared it only half a life without me. “To hell with Mama,” he wrote, “and to hell with everyone else. Never leave me again!”
My relief turned to dread; I was almost struck dead by a terrible thought; he had written all this but I had not returned. I had not responded at all. I feared the worst, and that he believed it was I who abandoned him.
Would he even want me back, after I had ignored him for so long? It was a disaster; I had to return to Paris immediately.
I will not bore you with details of the journey. It was, suffice it to say, fraught with difficulty at every turn. As I grew more frantic to return to Henri, there seemed to be more obstacles in my way, as is always the way when one is in a dreadful hurry. Finally, I arrived on the night of the opening.
Henri had already left our rooms for the Moulin Rouge. I was a taken aback by the state of the flat. It was even more of a mess than usual, and there was a gaping hole in the floor with a ladder protruding from it. I could not have guessed that the infamous English writer occupied the room below. I only cared that I find Henri.
I followed the lights to the Moulin Rouge. The dancehall had been transformed into a theatre, with music and electricity filling the air. I had no ticket, so was forced to break a window open to get into the hall. Fortunately, owing to my misspent youth, this was an easy task. I lurked in the shadows, hoping to catch a glimpse of Henri. The show had already started, so I decided to watch from the back of the darkened theatre.
I happened to look back at the window and saw a shadowy figure gain entry in the same manner I had, taking advantage of the window I had already unfastened. I did not suspect it was the young writer, the same man I feared had stolen my lover’s attention. I assumed he was another poor unfortunate, unable to pay admission, unable to resist the lure of the footlights. I ignored him and made my way to the audience.
I saw Henri on the stage and my heart leapt. He was in a ridiculous costume, just the sort of thing Henri loved, and he sang and danced in his fashion, and drew all my attention. I cannot remember what else was on the stage, other than a blur of colour and light. I know it was spectacular, but it could have been trained monkeys or the clumsiest oafs imaginable, and I would not have noticed. I watched Henri alone, entranced.
Once Henri left the stage, I was able to see how beautiful Satine was, how imposing Monsieur Zidler was, how glamorous the stage looked. And how beautiful the words were.
Imagine my surprise when the play took that now infamous, strange turn. The man I had seen sneaking into the theatre appeared on the set, dressed as the Argentinean leading man. Heartbroken and betrayed, he threw money at Satine and declared himself free of her spell. I suspected from his accent this had to be the Englishman. He began to walk to the back of the theatre, toward me, and that fact was confirmed. I knew at once, from the anguish on his face, that he was no actor.
It was my first real look at Christian, and he was as beautiful as he was broken.
Then, the most magical moment of all came. I heard Henri, but could not see him, as he shouted the words, “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.”
Truer words were never spoken. I felt Henri was shouting them to me, not to the actors and audience. I watched the young man’s miraculous transformation as Satine sang to him of their love.
It was preposterous that the audience could believe this was anything but real, that they could believe it part of a mere performance. I knew, in my heart, I was witness to the truth at its most raw and profound.
And I knew I would be him, as well. I would be just like Christian, because that very night, I would be reunited with my love, with all the joy and delight in the world.
It took only seconds for all the fear and distrust and pain and jealousy in my heart to melt away. I felt free of all doubt for the first time since I had last seen Henri. I was sure that as soon as the curtain fell, all would be right in the world, and I would know perfect bliss.
These magical moments, these little glimpses of paradise, are what make life bearable for us wretched.
The tragedy is that they. Much like the moments of bliss, are so very fleeting.
yours,
Orlando
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Next: Eight - Love
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