On the morning of April 15, 1893, Isabelle Eberhardt rises from her bed and makes her way to an austerely framed mirror that hangs in an alcove off her room. This room, in the back and on the second floor, is strangely shaped as if made up of all the spaces left over after the creation of the other rooms of Villa Neuve. Isabelle likes it–the odd corners, alcoves and diagonally slanting walls are always a feast for her wandering eyes. She spends hours here, reading, studying, dreaming of distant lands.
She is sixteen years old, her hair is cut short like a boy's, and her ears stand out a little from the sides of her head. Looking at herself she is pleased–she appears intelligent, youthful, brave and, when she chooses, severe. A young person not to be trifled with, she thinks, a person who can hold their own in a duel. She is particularly happy about the way her eyebrows are set–slightly off-center, each one curved into a different arabesque. She gazes at her reflection a long while, wonders for a moment how she may look in ten or twenty years, and is in the midst of a fantasy in which she sees herself dancing, the center of attention at a great ball, when she hears a sound, glances to the side and catches a flash of Augustin's hand pulling her covers over his head.
He hasn't seen her, is too busy hiding in her bed for some ambush he evidently plans to spring, perhaps when she changes into her clothes. She smiles at the mirror, finds it charming the way her smile breaks the brooding, intelligent cast of her face, and then continues with her fantasy, a dizzying waltz in which she is swept around and around at dazzling speed by a tall lean nobleman wearing elegant white silk gloves (she cannot see his face, but can feel the texture of the gloves) until the room, the gilt, the crystal, even the jewels of the women blur into sparkles and streaks of light.
Fantasy concluded, she sets about for a way to properly deal with Augustin. She begins to hum a Russian folk song abstractly, hoping to deceive her brother into believing he has not been seen. As she hums she moves closer to her bed, and then, with the speed and energy of a panther, she leaps, landing directly on Augustin's back. Quickly she pulls a blanket over his head, wraps it down about his face. She holds on tight as he begins to buck, so that his yells and pleas are muffled by heavy wool.
She laughs as he struggles, and when he raises his body she presses her knees against his flanks as if she is taming a runaway horse. For a moment they fight, and then, when he begins to weaken, she lets him go. He comes out from the covers gasping, red-faced. She looks at him quizzically, and when he regains his breath, the two of them begin to laugh.
"You surprise me, Nastasia Filippovna."
"You were trying to surprise me, dear Prince Myshkin." (In recent weeks they have read together from The Idiot in their rooms, lying across each other's beds.)
"What were you admiring so assiduously in your mirror?"
"Myself, of course."
"Of course. But what part of yourself? Superficial exterior or subterranean soul?"
"Both."
"Any conclusions?" "
"Many.
"For example?"
"For example–let me see." She sinks her chin into her palm. The two of them are sitting cross-legged on the rumpled bed. "I saw the face of a woman irresistibly attractive to men–a face that will haunt the dreams of a whole parade of youths unfortunate enough to cross her path. I suspect, Augustin, that I shall be a breaker of many hearts."
"What conceit!"
"I don't think so. You asked me to tell you what I saw and I told you–objectively, too." She pouts a little, but he knows she is not displeased.
"There is something else in your face, Nastasia Filippovna, but I wonder if I should tell you what it is."
"Please, please, Augustin. I must know. I simply have to know."
"I wonder–"
"No, Augustin. That's not fair. You have to tell me."
"Well, all right. But don't be cross if you don't like it."
"What is it?"
"Something–two-faced."
"What are you talking about?"
"There is something doubled–"
"I don't understand."
"Something in you that shows two aspects–just a minute, damnit, let me explain." She is practically on top of him, panting into his face. "I would say something soft and something hard, something warm and something cold, something–" And as he says this, he peers at her closely, studies each feature, then tightens his lips as he searches for the right words. "Some side of you that will be hurt and another side that will hurt."
"Go on! Go on!"
"It's hard. Let me see. Something of Mama and something of Vava. A part of you that's a girl and another part that's a boy. A romantic and a revolutionary. A peasant and a scholar. A person who is simple and a person who is complex."
"A sister and a brother?"
"Yes. A nice nuisance. A bothersome cat."
"Well, I like all of it except the last two." Her fingers explore the sides of her face, stroke her cheeks as if she is sculpting them from clay. "Yes, Augustin, I think you have grasped something of my nature. And you are the only one who does."
Their faces move together, their lips meet. Their mouths press, glow, tingle. For a moment they feel they may succumb to forbidden desire. Augustin presses in closer. Isabelle shuts her eyes, feels her head grow warm as her lips begin to part. Augustin draws away. There are droplets of sweat beneath his nose.
A few minutes later, dressed in a boy's shirt and pantaloons, Isabelle goes to the garden. She finds Vladimir on hands and knees, weeding among the cacti, and Vava, leaning on his rake, speaking with bravado of his future gardening plans.
"We shall put the Arizona rhizomes in a row over there," he says with a wild flourish of his arm.
"This plot will cost me thousands, but I'll get it all back by spring. In Paris they're paying a fortune for anything that smells good. It's the same all over the world. People stink, women find themselves turning foul, and something must be done. Even in Argentina–imagine, Argentina!–there are fools who will pay anything, five, ten, twenty pounds an ounce for a new smell. It's madness, like paying a fortune for a hat or a dress. The idiots give bottles of the stuff to their mistresses, but, and this is the point, a different aroma to each one. Otherwise they couldn't tell them apart. In circles where people devote themselves to fornication, the motto should be 'Follow Your Nose'!"
Vava gives out with an enormous laugh of cynicism and spite. For more than fifteen years he has poured money into his majestic scheme to be purveyor of odors to the world. He has dreams that bottles of his preciously distilled aromatics will find their way into the boudoirs of the Faubourg St.-Germain and the palaces of St. Petersburg. He has engaged a print shop in Geneva to make up ten thousand labels embellished with an imaginary coat of arms. A fortune's worth of crystal bottles lies in crates in the cellar where former owners kept casks of wine. Every few years he travels back to Russia with a trunk containing samples of his wares. The bottles that aren't broken by the time he arrives at the Finland Station are left off at expensive shops to encourage extravagant orders that never come. The Persians (and how he curses them!) have beaten him at this game. He has not the salesman's easy wit, nor enough sense to offer his clients jars of caviar. He must look, thinks Isabelle, like a lunatic, flying down the streets of St. Petersburg, screaming curses against Persians under his breath, coattails flying, hat blowing, his pockets filled with those ludicrous bottles whose labels have been pasted on askew by Vladimir.
On his last trip, discouraged and broken, he spoke with a lawyer about suing the Persian representative. The man began to laugh.
"His practices are unfair," said Vava.
"There is no law against that," he was told.
When he returned home he was nearly in tears. "Nothing means anything," he wailed as he rode back to Meyrin in a hired coach, Isabelle and Vladimir on either side. "Impossible to do business with these horrible Russians. They are intoxicated with religion and money and they stink like hell. I tell you, though, this garden is a fortune. We must plow under the old plants, bring in new ones from America, Australia. Damn the cost! Someday we'll have a scent that will set them reeling, and then, ha! We can spit in Mother Russia's face. We'll refuse to sell to them. All contracts with our concessionaires will carry one nonnegotiable clause–if one bottle, one drop, ever finds itself inside Holy Russia, then the penalty will be ten times the royalty, and the concessionaire will have ninety days to liquidate his stock. I can see them now, plotting ways to make me relent, and, when I refuse, to steal away the formulae. On the train down from Warsaw I was thinking about how we'd work. We must have a warehouse in Geneva, an old home, perhaps, totally secure, bars on the windows, one set of keys, with Nicolas–he has a head for business–keeping track of everything from an office above. I hear that workers in the South African diamond mines must pass a physical search before they're dismissed from work. A good idea! By the way, did the new retorts arrive from London? I've thought up a new combination we must try at once–" On and on, raving like a maniac, all the way back to Villa Neuve, while Vladimir searched Vava's face with his usual dutiful expression, and Isabelle stared straight ahead and wondered how long it would be before the old man would totally crack up.
She is thinking of that mad ride, and the nights he spends in his "office" converted from a sitting room for servants (whom he refuses to employ), pouring over his manuals of chemistry, boiling up new concoctions. Sometimes, so exhausted by the time he locks his precious notebooks away, he confuses flasks of his half-made perfumes with his always available flask of vodka, and has to spit out the horrid oily substance in a stream of curses against competitors he is sure are plotting to steal his work.
She loves him, though, in spite of his insanity. He has spent hours teaching her languages, has made certain that by the age of fifteen she is fluent in Russian, German, Arabic and French. He has taught her how to ride like a jockey, to work out massively complicated problems in trigonometry and algebra, to recite Pushkin until she can do so without a pause in a deep, sonorous, masculine growl that always leaves her exhausted and her clothing soaked with sweat.
For all his terrible displeasure with the world, his conviction that conspiracies are everywhere, his insults about everyone or anything that is accepted or acceptable, his morose nihilism, his scorn, his sarcasm, his drunkenness, his insane demonic rages, he is capable, too, at times, of great good humor. He tells stories with riotous climaxes, anecdotes filled with double meanings, and plays rough practical jokes such as putting a mouse inside someone's chest of clothes.
It is this sort of thing that makes it impossible for Isabelle to hate him despite the fact that she believes he has crushed her mother's spirit. For though he shouts at Old Nathalie, curses her, shows her contempt, there are times, too, when he makes her laugh, breaks through her blank staring into space and makes her sweet face wrinkle with glee. Obviously he adores her, and just as obviously he finds it difficult to demonstrate his adoration–in fact he usually demonstrates it by acting as if she's the most loathsome object in his sight.
Except for Vladimir, her brothers seem to detest him, yet they are careful to act meekly when he's around. He can beat any of them at riding, running, wrestling and any and every feat of strength, and his intellect, though applied to the ridiculous scheme to produce perfume, is massive in comparison with theirs.
Vladimir seems to adore him, to hang on his every word, though he, too, has his moments of rebellion. But he is a strange boy, full of sideways glances and whimpers and bowed-head obedience. Though Isabelle loves him well for his tenderness with her, and the way he seems to soothe their mother, who can often be seen stroking his hair as he lies on the floor beside her, head resting like a dog's in her gentle lap, still she does not really feel she can speak to him beyond the everyday matters that concern people who share the same house.
Nicolas–he is mysterious, constantly away in the city, with friends who, she understands from vague references and overheard whispers, are Russian students, members of anarchist groups. They plot acts of terror and treason against the czar, and in their cramped rooms in the place Bourg-de-Four, smoke opium, make licentious love, and are moved to tears by the thought of the Russian peasant masses so oppressed. She wants to know him, he fascinates her, she needs to penetrate his mystery. But he remains aloof, evades her questions, and she is reduced to spying on him, hovering about outside his window as he chats in whispers with Vladimir and Augustin, or scribbles away in notebooks which, when he is out and she discovers them, she finds have been inscribed in code.
Augustin is another matter. She looks at him now, slinking out of the house, trying to evade Vava's eye for fear he, too, will be handed a rake and forced to spend the day in the garden. Although he is five years older than Isabelle, he is her best friend, the brother for whom she feels both sisterly and brotherly love. But he is weak–she sees that, knows she can always bend him to her will. They have sworn everlasting love, have even signed papers, elaborate detailed contracts, in which they swear they shall never be parted in their lives.
Their kisses are erotic and they like to touch. She especially likes to feel the hardness of his body against her own, and enjoys the times they visit each other's rooms to exchange massages, long deep probing of each other's flesh. On these occasions she peels off her shirt like a boy, making no effort to hide her small firm breasts. Once he touched them and they both laughed. She touched him back, laying her hand for a moment between his legs.
"Pssst. Pssst. Nastasia." He is trying to get her attention from behind a corner of the house. She decides to ignore him–it will amuse her to watch him risk exposing his position in order to entice her to speak. She moves a few feet away, hears him whispering again, louder, more frantic, and then a quick shuffling of footsteps as Vava turns, looking for the source of the hiss.
"Joining us today?" he asks, frowning at Isabelle, taunting her with his finger crooked. "You've been standing there too long–if you'd given us that time we'd already be finished with the row."
"I'm going inside to study–there's some verbs–"
Vava shrugs, then joins Vladimir among the new Arizona rhizomes. She starts around the other side of the house, but before she is gone Vava turns to her and shouts: "Send out Augustin. That boy is lazy and today he promised to work."
She runs into her brother a moment later, starts to exclaim, but he puts his finger to his lips.
"Shhhh."
"But it's your turn today."
"The hell with it."
"Come on, dear Prince. Your services have been demanded."
"Let's go for a walk."
"Where?"
"Beyond Chancy. To France. To Bellegarde."
She thinks a moment. "Yes," she says, "let's leave at once." They slip down the drive, cross the moat that surrounds the garden and then are off down the road, walking side by side, swinging their arms, analyzing, as they often do, the strangeness of their family.
"Sometimes I think Mama will collapse." Augustin, who loathes physical exercise, is already panting as they mount a modest hill. "She seems so calm, so impassive in the middle of all the storms, but if you look closely you'll see a slight trembling–her eyelids, sometimes her lips."
"She hardly touches the piano."
"Especially, notice, since Vava's had it fixed."
"She doesn't resent him–that's what I don't understand. Nothing upsets her. The angrier he gets at some imagined slight, the more she smiles–so gently that it enrages him more."
"I've heard him crying in their room. And when she barricades the door, he whimpers outside, begging to be let in."
"Do you suppose they–you know–?"
"What? Oh–that. Well, probably. Doesn't everyone?"
"I don't know, of course."
"Well, don't ask me."
"Come on, Augustin. You know all about that."
He laughs.
"Well?"
"Well what?"
"Haven't you?"
"Haven't I what?"
"You know–"
He clears his throat. "If you must know–yes."
"Tell me about it."
"Absolutely not."
"Were you afraid?"
"Nothing to be afraid of."
"What did it feel like?"
"Impossible to describe."
"Try."
He ponders, then smacks his lips. "It felt very, very good."
"You're ridiculous."
"I know."
"Who was she?"
"Which one?"
"How the devil should I know which one? Any of them. Tell me how it happened."
"That's very personal, Isabelle. A gentleman doesn't talk about things like that."
"But you're not a gentleman!"
"Ha! You're right!"
"A whore I bet."
"Never!"
"I suppose you're so handsome you don't have to pay."
"My dear Nastasia Filippovna–I have never had to pay for a woman and I never shall."
"Tell me about it."
"Find out for yourself."
"Gladly. Find me a lover. Introduce me. I want to be taught. Find me an experienced man who will initiate me into everything. That's the least a brother can do."
He laughs, and she stalks off ahead. By the time he catches up, he hasn't enough breath left to speak.
They move along the banks of the Rhone, following cow paths and horse trails, sometimes cutting cross country on their own. The atmosphere is bucolic, the light shimmers on everything. They pass cows with bells hanging from their necks, milkmaids poised outside chalets, ponies trailing mares in meadows, old men fishing from rocks on the banks. They see butterflies, bees, robins, sparrows, hear the croaking of frogs. The countryside is so peaceful, so far from the tensions of Villa Neuve, that Isabelle and Augustin feel elation, join hands, swing their arms in what is at first a mock imitation of rustic fraternal affection but becomes, by the time they reach the frontier, an unashamed demonstration of joy.
The road toward Collonges is white clay, a rolling ribbon shaded by tall straight poplars evenly spaced. This road, soft in the brilliant April sun, seems to draw them along to a place unknown. Horizons change. The river widens and slinks. Someplace between Chancy and Collonges they find themselves alone–there is not even a hay wagon, a scarecrow in sight. They stop at a farm when they are hungry, and pay a few centimes for a loaf of bread. Then they are off again, through Collonges, to the outskirts of Bellegarde, where suddenly a huge vista opens up. They see miles of land split by the river, a silver trail in the afternoon light.
They sit down and stare toward the south. Each is thinking of escape. The Alps, which to tourists are such an exhilarating sight, seem to them at this moment like fortress walls which close them in.
"Oh, Augustin, how are we ever going to get away?"
Escape–it is painful, impossible. All of them, Nicolas, even Vladimir, spend hours staring at ceilings or off into space, dreaming, plotting ways of leaving home.
Augustin shrugs.
"We must," Isabelle insists.
"Yes. I suppose we must."
"There has to be some way."
"Yes..."
"Or otherwise we are doomed."
At this moment an extraordinary event occurs. In the last few minutes the afternoon sun which had been brilliant has begun to wane. Isabelle and Augustin, immersed in thoughts of escape, have not noticed this ebbing of the light. Suddenly they both realize that the sky is becoming dark. They look up, see the sun reduced to a crescent nearly covered by a dark brown disk. They look at each other with the same word upon their lips: "Eclipse!"
They are amazed. They have read of this thing, understand perfectly how it can occur, have seen it demonstrated by Vava with croquet balls and a candle set before a mirror. But this is their first experiencing of it, unexpected, unforewarned.
Augustin begins to shiver; he feels cold. Isabelle embraces him tightly and they peer around at the strange soft light that plays upon the trees, draining all their green away. The Rhone, far below, goes rapidly from silver to deepest black. The snow on the mountains of Haute-Savoie loses its brilliance, turns to chalky gray.
They press together, touch for warmth. A tremor passes through them, a single charge that links them to this cosmic change of mood. The eclipse binds them into one, and as they huddle, cold, superstitious, amazed and moved, it occurs to Isabelle who is fond of finding equivalents in nature for her own psychic states, that this incredible sight is a prophecy of familial doom, an omen of the darkening cloud that hangs above Villa Neuve.