The Oracle Glass Read Free

gilt-paneled walls and nymphs painted on the ceiling, from which the music of violins could be heard when Mother entertained. Beyond this lay all that was ancient and unplanned, curious rooms of various sizes running almost at random into twisted staircases, and a maze of interconnected chambers.
    The front of the house, a wide, low Gothic arch and heavy door to the street, revealed little of the complex life within: the maids kneeling to dust the heavy furniture while my mother locked the silver-laden sideboards; the manservant lowering the chandelier to replace the candles; my older sister playing the clavichord; father’s valet hurrying upstairs with a cup of cocoa; and high, high above, Grandmother’s parrot pacing and squawking while the old lady read the court news in the Gazette de France . Above this all-concealing door were carved in the stone arch those little Gothic grotesques called marmousets ; and from this, not only was the house known as the House of the Marmousets, but the narrow winding street beyond it, which ran from the rue de la Juiverie to the cloister of Notre Dame itself, was called the rue des Marmousets.
    Father, as I was to learn much later, had risen rapidly as a financier under the protection of Nicolas Fouquet, the surintendant des finances , only to lose his fortune and his freedom in Fouquet’s fall. Father’s face never lost the pallor of the Bastille, nor his heart a disgust for the court and its intrigues. He had been forced to sell his offices and now had only the income from a tiny country property left to him by an uncle. His years in prison had left him caring only for philosophy and with no interest whatsoever in returning to high finance. Rumors abounded that he had hidden money abroad, safe from Colbert, the King’s contrôleur-général des finances , but Father kept his secrets.
    Mother had had several horoscopes cast indicating the return of good fortune, but it was not returning fast enough to suit her. She still resented the fact that the royal pardon had not returned Father’s fortune, which had been gobbled up into the maw of the ever-hungry Colbert. The King, she said, should have taken into account the fact that she was practically a Matignon on her mother’s side and granted her an allowance.
    â€œAfter all,” she would announce, “it is inconceivable that a family such as mine, no matter in what straits, would have arranged my marriage to a poor man of your name, and now your mismanagement has left me in most inappropriate circumstances. It’s entirely improper for a Matignon to live this way. I deserve to live better. Besides, you have quite spoiled my Wednesdays.”
    â€œWhat’s a Wednesday, Grandmother?” I asked some weeks after my arrival, when I had climbed the stairs from the kitchen to Grandmother’s room. Grandmother was always there. She never left her immense bed, all hung about with heavy green curtains. Whenever I knocked at the door, Grandmother’s parrot repeated her “Come in!,” stepping back and forth on its tall perch with its dry, yellow feet and peering at me over its curved orange beak with its little black eyes. If it had had a pink face instead of a green one, and wore a little cap, it would have looked not altogether unlike Grandmother.
    â€œAh, you’ve brought my chicory water, have you? Come and sit here on the bed and tell me what’s going on downstairs.” The walls of the room were painted in the old style, in dark red, the color of dried blood, with geometric designs in gilt around the edges. The curtains were always pulled across the windows; Grandmother thought the sun unhealthful.
    â€œGrandmother, why does mother say she has a Wednesday, when they belong to everybody?”
    â€œâ€˜Wednesday,’ ha ! That’s the afternoon that whorish daughter-in-law of mine displays her bosom to the world and flirts with strangers. She calls it her