The Kill - Emile Zola [131]
The ladies had no rest. Some of them were required to make no fewer than three costume changes. There were endless conferences, over which the prefect presided. The character of Narcissus1 was discussed at length. Would he be represented by a man or a woman? Finally it was decided at Renée’s insistence that the role would be given to Maxime. But he would be the only man in the production, and Mme de Lauwerens said that even then she would never have agreed to it if “little Maxime didn’t look so much like a real girl.” Renée was to play the nymph Echo. The question of costumes was far more complicated. Maxime eagerly assisted the prefect, who found himself exhausted by nine women whose extravagant imaginations seriously threatened to compromise his work’s purity of outline. Had he listened to them, his Olympus would have worn powder. Mme d’Espanet absolutely insisted on wearing a floor-length gown to hide her feet, which were rather large, while Mme Haffner had visions of herself in an animal hide. M. Hupel de la Noue was full of energy. Once, anger even got the better of him. If he had given up verse, he said, he was convinced that it was only to write his poem “with deftly arranged fabrics and poses chosen for their exquisite beauty.”
“The overall effect, ladies, you’re forgetting the overall effect,” he repeated at each new demand. “I really can’t sacrifice the entire work to the flounces you’re asking for.”
The negotiations took place in the buttercup salon. Entire afternoons were devoted to deciding the contours of a skirt. Worms was summoned several times. At last all the questions were resolved, the costumes chosen, the poses learned, and M. Hupel de la Noue declared himself satisfied. The election of M. de Mareuil had given him less trouble.
“The Amours of Handsome Narcissus and the Nymph Echo” was to begin at eleven o’clock. By ten-thirty the large drawing room was full, and since the presentation was to be followed by a fancy-dress ball, the women had come in costume and were seated on armchairs arranged in a semicircle in front of the improvised stage: a platform hidden by two broad curtains of red velvet with gold fringe, running on rods. The men, standing behind them, came and went. The decorators had finished their hammering by ten. The platform filled one end of the long gallery. Access to the stage was through the smoking room, which had been converted to a greenroom for the artists. In addition, the ladies had several upstairs rooms at their disposal, and an army of chambermaids was busy preparing costumes for the various tableaux.
It was eleven-thirty, and the curtains still had not opened. A loud buzz filled the salon. The rows of armchairs displayed the most astonishing array of marquises and princesses, Spanish dancing girls and milkmaids, shepherdesses and sultanas, while the compact mass of black frock coats stood out like a dark spot alongside the shimmering display of bright fabrics and bare shoulders glittering with sparkling flashes of jewelry. Only the women were in disguise. It was already hot. Three chandeliers highlighted the gold dripping from the walls of the salon.
At last M. Hupel de la Noue was seen to emerge from an opening to the left of the platform. He had been assisting the ladies since eight o’clock. The left sleeve of his coat bore an imprint of three fingers in white: a woman’s small hand had been placed there inadvertently after dipping into a jar of rice powder. But the prefect had weightier matters to think