At this moment, terrified by what he thinks is a vision, the baron interrupts his story.
BARON: Forgive me, sir, I know it’s dark, and I can’t see further than my nose, but I had the impression I saw you for a moment. (silence) I know it’s not possible, it can’t be true, but . . . (silence) I had the impression that you are . . . black?
VOICE: As you’ve realised, it’s dark. You must be hallucinating. It’s common. The darkness produces visions, makes you see things. In the darkness, everyone sees what they want to see.
BARON: Of course, of course . . . Well, when my cousin, the Count of Suz, introduced me to the baroness, in what was left of his property, on the eve of the Terror, I really was in need of a wife, more because of the pressure of circumstances, to save my own skin, since my fame was beginning to make me an easy target for enemies parading as revolutionaries. I was always reputed to be a libertine, marriage is against my principles, but the circumstances demanded I got married, so the count said. They never had the balls for the real Revolution, master, and it was through trying to follow its principles to the letter that I ended up being forced to save my skin by marriage. Well, it happened just at the right time, because she was beautiful. And she wasn’t getting any younger. She had to get married. She managed to persuade me after seven months’ absence, although marrying a repentant émigrée at that moment was riskier than staying a bachelor, for someone with my reputation.
VOICE: If she was so beautiful, why hadn’t she married yet?
BARON: The count told me she was demanding. It was thanks to him we got to know one another in what was left of his property, and we married seven months later, when I was already crazy, wanting to see her again, imploring her to come back from exile. She was very cunning. She was one of those women who know how to hook a man. She knew I was a libertine, and that I would steer clear of the prison of marriage until the last moment, and she knew how to conquer me. It was the perfect tactic. After insinuating herself and seducing me, with her little breasts tightly held in a silver corset, proposing that we should prove that God doesn’t exist, she disappeared for seven months, saying she had emigrated. A shabby excuse. She can’t have gone anywhere, because, if she really had emigrated, coming back would have demanded from her the very courage whose lack had pushed her to go. It’s obvious. I’m not stupid. She accounted for it by her passion for me. She said she would come back clandestinely. A shabby excuse. But a wonderful ploy for seduction. I admire that. I admire women who know how to use words and reach their objectives with patience. If she really had left the country, how would she not have problems in coming back seven months later? Not even with the count’s help, and his contacts, would she have been able to remain undetected. And all the letters she sent me? How did she manage that? She drove me crazy, begging her to come back immediately in secret letters which my cousin, the Count of Suz, managed to get to her, across frontiers and battle fronts, heaven knows how, and bringing me back her replies, minx!, spurring on my desire with the memory of her little breasts pressed into the silver corset I could no longer touch.
VOICE: Why did the count serve as intermediary?
BARON: Because he had contacts. He always had contacts. He’s a man of the moment. First, in the National Assembly. Then under the Terror and the Consulate. And now in the Empire. That was how he managed to save what was left of his lands, and the ruins of my château. He knows how to tack with the winds. Hither and thither, hither and thither. The truth is, he was her accomplice. He wanted to see us married. And he knew me! And gave me his advice. He wanted to help me.
VOICE: Why didn’t you go and see her where she was, if your desire was so great?
BARON: I couldn’t. I would be taken for an emigrant, a traitor, can’t you see? I would lose the château, the ruins left to me out of all my possessions. The guillotine would be waiting for me on my return. All the efforts I made to serve the Revolution, always under the guidance of the count, to save my skin and my château – the only thing I didn’t give to the Revolution of my own will – everything would have gone down the tubes. They were difficult times, you know. Maybe I could have seen her in her hiding-place, if I’d known where that was. But she didn’t tell me. Neither did the count. He said he couldn’t, for his own safety and that of the baroness. And mine! He said it was for my own good; he was protecting me from my own passions. So that I didn’t end up losing my head. It was part of her seduction tactics, no doubt about that. She wanted to be shrouded in mystery, minx! She couldn’t leave France and then come back again without suffering the consequences. What a scheme! And there’s nothing I admire more than someone who can cultivate someone else’s desires. She knew how to make me lose my head. The letters were our only contact. And the things she said to me! How she described the heat of her body awaiting mine, which never came, never came, of course, because she escaped, she was my will-o’-the-wisp, my insatiable desire. That was how she conquered me. After seven months were up, when I could no longer bear it, when she was already pure fantasy, she wrote that she could only meet me again if we were to be married, out of fear of what I might do, of what I could do with her after so many months of pent-up desire. She said she might come back to France, minx!, putting her life at risk, if it was to marry me. And I gave in, for love. The second time I saw her was at the altar.
Again, the baron interrupts himself; he rubs his eyes.
BARON: Forgive me, sir, but I’ve just had that vision again. I thought I saw you. Are you sure . . . ?
VOICE: I’ve already said they’re hallucinations. It’s not surprising when there’s not a chink of light anywhere. Go on with your story.
BARON: . . . When I saw her at the altar, there was no going back. I saw that she wasn’t the woman I’d imagined, of course. At the altar, they never are. And I knew. Marriage is one farce unmasking itself before another, in church, before God. After seven months of pure imagination, I had forgotten the reality I’d only seen once. But I was still blind. Only later, in the bedroom, could I see, in plain daylight, that I’d been betrayed by the cunning strategy she’d trapped me in, minx! The little breasts pressed into the silver corset were no longer there. She wasn’t ugly. No, far from it. She was just a woman, like any other, and not the goddess I’d imagined for seven months. More than anything, because she wanted nothing to do with me. She acted the role of wife unconvincingly, and whenever she could she kept clear of me. The marriage was never consummated. Quite to the contrary of what she wrote during those seven months of absence in her letters inflamed with desire, now all she wanted to do was keep her distance. It was as if suddenly she’d turned around, changed her mind. But that only drove me crazier. I was ready to do anything, to rape her if necessary, if she went on with this act. But before I had the chance, a week after the marriage, she had already gone back to Marseilles, sorting out family matters, as always. She knew how to bargain. She spent all her time keeping her accounts. She calculated everything. And that is what she did with me. She tricked me. The difference was that now she no longer needed to write letters. She was tied to me by marriage. She’d got what she wanted. She didn’t need to keep the flame of desire alive. During the fifteen years of marriage, we spent most of the time apart. You can’t take anything with you from this world, so make the most of it, and that’s what I’ve done. Straightaway I saw the convenience of the situation, and what she was proposing to me in her silent self-removaclass="underline" proving that God doesn’t exist. I was to go on with my libertine existence and leave her in peace, and in exchange I’d have all the alibis of marriage, as would she. It was a kind of contract. She knew how to strike a deal. She got what she wanted. She was getting on. She needed to get married. The parties in the Lagrange château, what was left to me of the ruins, became famous, while the baroness spent her life in the city, taken up by her duties and business affairs, without bothering me. At least that was what she said, although more than once she was seen in Marseilles and Bordeaux, in elegant receptions and dinners, in the company of those people who are still having a good time in spite of the country’s collapse. They were fifteen years of a tacit agreement which was very convenient to me. Until I met Martine, the maid the Count of Suz couldn’t even dream about. The girl I told you about. I planned the Lagrange night only for her.