The Moon and the Sun

“What is this? An opera? Do you think you’re Mlle de la Guerre? You—an amateur, a woman!—you give me an opera to conduct? Worthless! Hopeless!” He tried to tear the sheaf in half, but it was too thick; his hand slipped and he ripped only the first half-dozen pages. He wrenched it with both hands, like a dog shaking a rat, and flung the whole thing down. The score spilled across the polished parquet.

“Sir!” She stooped to gather the torn, rumpled sheets.

“Incompetence! It’s dreadful.” He waved his baton toward Domenico. “You think to match yourself against genius such as Signor Alessandro Scarlatti!”

Domenico’s shoulders shook from laughter, but his hands never faltered, playing the piece M. Coupillet took for his father’s.

“Signor Scarlatti admired it!”

“What do you expect? He’s Italian—Signor Alessandro admires your white bosom, your—”

“You insult me on every level, sir!” She tried to leave, but M. Coupillet barred her way.

“His Majesty asked you for a song—a few minutes of music!” M. Coupillet said. “You insult me—you insult him—with this, this bloated abortion.” He emphasized his words by thumping his baton. “You charmed him with your coquettish ways, but your charm won’t distract him from your arrogant failure.”

“You’re unfair, sir.”

“Am I? I should have had this commission—He never would have noticed you if not for my embellishments—”

“Little Domenico’s embellishments, if you please, M. Coupillet. It’s contemptible enough for you to steal my accomplishments, but to steal a child’s—”

“A child? A child!” He shook his baton toward Domenico. “I have it on good authority, the boy’s a midget of thirty years!”

“I’m six!” Domenico shouted, and kept on playing.

Marie-Josèphe burst out laughing, but her sense of the absurd only infuriated M. Coupillet the more.

“Do you dare to laugh at me? Am I insufficiently grand? I, who brought you to His Majesty’s attention?”

“Through no desire of your own, sir!”

“Desire? How dare you mention desire? You flirt with the Neapolitan, you flirt with the King, you even flirt with dwarves and sodomites, but you ignore and despise me—”

“Good-bye, sir.”

Still he would not let her pass.

“Do you imagine I noticed you for your music? For your amateurish compositions and your fumble-fingered playing? I do not say you would not have been adequate—adequate, no more—if you’d devoted yourself to the art, but you’ve wasted whatever talent you ever had, and it’s just as well! Women play by rote! Women play as if they were still in the schoolroom! And as for the compositions of women—Women should be silent! Women are good for only one thing, and you’re such a fool you don’t even know what it is.”

A fleck of spittle, foaming, collected at the corner of his mouth. He loomed over her, shouting.

She clutched the untidy pile of paper. “Let me pass.” She meant her voice to freeze him, but her words revealed her vulnerability. Across the room, the young musicians stood in uncomfortable silence, their backs turned, as afraid as Marie-Josèphe of their master.

“Give me the score,” he said. “I’ll condescend to carve a song out of it, but you must show me some gratitude—and His Majesty must know the credit is mine.”

“No, sir. I won’t insult His Majesty with my inferior female music.”

Coupillet moved aside. His bow was a taunt, an insult.

“Do you wish to go? Yes, go! You’ll fail without my help. I’ll explain to His Majesty how you neglected his commission!”

* * *

Marie-Josèphe rode Zachi toward the Fountain of Apollo, holding tight to her drawing box and the score inside it. She dared not return to the musicians’ room. Perhaps she could find Domenico when he had finished his practice.

Do I have reason to find him? she wondered. He’s only a little boy, prodigy or not, how can he judge the music? Besides, M. Coupillet will surely forbid him to play it. I should have let M. Coupillet pick out a few measures, and then I wouldn’t be utterly humiliated in front of the King.

In truth, she could not bear the thought of letting M. Coupillet alter the sea woman’s music.

* * *

In the Fountain of Apollo, the sea woman sang and leaped for the entertainment of the visitors. Marie-Josèphe put aside all her own worries and humiliations. They were trivial compared to the sea woman’s peril.

She pushed through the crowd to the cage, where a bright flock of noblewomen sat watching the sea woman. Mme Lucifer smoked a small black cigar and whispered to Mlle d’Armagnac, whose hair was hidden beneath an iridescent headdress of peacock feathers.

When Mlle d’Armagnac saw Marie-Josèphe, she rose to her feet. All the other ladies followed her lead. Baffled, Marie-Josèphe curtsied to them.

She knelt at the edge of the fountain and sang the sea woman’s name. “Sea woman, will you tell these people of land a story?”

The sea woman swam to the foot of the stairs. She lifted her arms; Marie-Josèphe slipped her fingers into the sea woman’s webbed hands.