Three Women in a Mirror Read Free Page B

looked up.
    â€œAnne?”
    The young woman did not answer. Godeliève trembled.
    â€œAnne, come back and join us!”
    All the women looked for her, in the closet, elsewhere on the upper floor; the fiancée was no longer there.
    â€œShe’s gone to see her admirer,” concluded Grandmother Franciska.
    Godeliève picked up a pair of shoes.
    â€œWithout her clogs?”
    The surveyor’s widow pointed to the gift by the footstool.
    â€œAnd without the embroidered stockings I lent her?”
    Ida hurried over to the window.
    â€œPhilippe is still downstairs waiting for her.”
    â€œThen where is she?”
    Anne’s name echoed through the grandmother’s house while the women searched the rooms.
    When Godeliève opened the back door on the ground floor that gave out onto the fields, she discovered faint traces of bare feet in the damp earth, vanishing into the meadow grass that extended to the woods beyond.
    â€œWhat! She’s run away?”
    The footprints were spaced well apart, showing only the toes, proof that Anne had used the episode with the mirror to sneak out the door and run lightly through the countryside toward the woods, where she had disappeared.

2
    Lake Maggiore, April 20, 1904
    Â 
    Dear Gretchen,
No, my dear, you are not mistaken, this is your cousin Hanna writing to you. If you look at the portraits I have enclosed, next to the radiant young man posing like a prince and beneath the extravagant multitiered hat you will see a dumpy woman with an embarrassed smile: me again. Yes, you are allowed to laugh. Oh, you already are? You’re quite right, I look stupid. What do you expect? Franz has two shortcomings, which he hid from me when we were engaged: a passion for millinery, and a mania for collecting memories. What does this mean? Whenever we visit a hat shop he transforms me into a bird cage, a fruit basket, a flower vase, a rake with a harvest of ribbons, or a peacock’s tail; after, delighted, he drags me off to the photographer’s in order to immortalize my ridiculous self.
    It takes an uglier woman than I to pull off such flamboyance—someone like our aunt Augusta, whose hooked nose is much improved beneath the shelter of a felt hat—or someone far more beautiful, like you. But Franz is so fond of hats that he hasn’t noticed that hats are not fond of me.
    An Italian countess in Bergamo to whom I related this tragedy scolded me severely by saying, “You wrong yourself, child. Franz idolizes you so much that he has failed to notice that hats do not suit you.”
    I confess her opinion unsettled me. Everything upsets me, offends me, bothers me these days; I am confronted with a glut of unexpected situations.
    And incidentally, you will ask, how is the honeymoon?
    I suppose I must reply, “idyllic.” Franz is superb—tender, thoughtful, generous. We have great fun together, and six months after leaving Vienna, here we are discovering Italy, one sublime town after another, such enchanting countrysides and astounding churches. Let us not forget that for centuries the peninsula has given its all to charm newlyweds: museums overflowing with masterpieces, refreshing hotel rooms, delicious cuisine, exquisite ice cream, sensual sunshine that implores one to take a siesta, and servants who look on lovers with a knowing eye.
    In a word, my honeymoon is impeccable. But am I cut out for honeymoons?
    Yes, you did read that, dear Gretchen, the woman writing these pages no longer knows what to think. I fear I am different. Terribly different. Why can I not be happy with something that would fill any other woman with enthusiasm?
    I’m going to try and explain to you what is going on and perhaps by the time I’m done I will understand, too.
    My childhood lasted a long time. When you, dear cousin, were already married and raising three infants, I insisted on remaining a child, lifting my skirts only to run across a field or step