"Oh, Lydie," Julia said, sounding ragged and desperate. "He was your father. Don't you ever forget that."

"I can't forget that, but I can't pray for him either."

"Why not? If I can forgive him, you should be able to."

"I don't see how you can," Lydie said. She was losing her voice. In a moment she wouldn't be able to speak at all.

"I'll tell you how you can. Remember him as he was was, before he...went out of his head."

Lydie knew the family theory of how her father had lost his mind, had killed the woman and himself out of guilt for infidelity. In a way, she wanted to believe that. That his last thought had been for Julia and Lydie. That his last act was meant to punish himself and to spare them.

"I remember him," Lydie said.

"Tell me one of your happy memories, honey," Julia urged.

Lydie didn't have to search far. "Oh, I remember school nights in late June, when it was too hot to study," she said, trying to sound offhand. "We'd take a picnic to Central Park, and Dad would play baseball with me and whoever else was around."

"You were such a tomboy!" Julia said, laughing merrily. "Your father said you could hit the ball a mile, and how you'd dive dive after the ball when it was your turn to go into the outfield. Oh, he was so furious they wouldn't let you play in Little League. Girls do, nowadays." after the ball when it was your turn to go into the outfield. Oh, he was so furious they wouldn't let you play in Little League. Girls do, nowadays."

Tears rolled down Lydie's cheeks as she remembered the sound of cicadas in the trees, the music from other picnickers' radios, the sight of her tall father crouching to pitch a low ball to her.

"Why did he do it?" she asked Julia.

"The guilt..." Julia said.

"No," Lydie said. "Why did he do it?"

The line was silent, except for static that might have been the Atlantic Ocean rolling over the wires. "I don't know," Julia said helplessly.

"I'm sorry," Lydie said. "I know you wanted to hear happy memories."

Then, with marked cheeriness, Julia laughed a little. "Oh, honey. I thank thank you. You're the only one I can talk to." you. You're the only one I can talk to."

"Anytime," Lydie said.

"That's the spirit," Julia said. "How's Michael?"

"He's fine."

"Of course he is-he's wonderful. He's one in a million. Give him my love, will you?"

"Okay. I miss you, Mom," Lydie said. Back in New York they had talked all the time-sometimes every day.

"And I miss you, sweetheart," Julia replied.

Aren't you amazed how people can change and how differently things come into one's head?

-TO F FRANcOISE-MARGUERITE, MARCH 1680 MICHAEL M MCBRIDE LOVED someone new, and she didn't know it. She was French; she worked at the Louvre. Every morning, walking along the Seine from his apartment to the Louvre, he had fantasies about her. When he actually saw her, however, they barely spoke. Her project was entirely different from his. Her name was Anne. someone new, and she didn't know it. She was French; she worked at the Louvre. Every morning, walking along the Seine from his apartment to the Louvre, he had fantasies about her. When he actually saw her, however, they barely spoke. Her project was entirely different from his. Her name was Anne.

Tonight he walked the route with Lydie, on their way to a performance of Moliere at the Comedie Francaise, and it felt strange; all the familiar sights reminded him of his feelings for Anne.

"Don't you want to take a cab?" he asked. "It's a long way."

Lydie looked down at her new open-toed shoes. Her feet blistered easily; to accommodate her love of walking Michael kept a supply of Band-Aids in his wallet.

"Let's walk," Lydie said. "My feet will be fine."

But twenty minutes after leaving the apartment, she was limping, barefoot, carrying her shoes. They walked along the quai, and Michael watched the way she stepped carefully from cobble to cobble, as if they were stepping-stones across a stream. Gentle waves lapped barges moored to the bank; bicycles and pots of spring flowers covered the deck of one, a striped umbrella shaded the table on the deck of another, but the boats were deserted. Many mornings Michael had imagined himself and Anne leaving Paris on one of those barges.

"Would you ever want to take a barge trip?" he asked Lydie.

"Oh, I don't know," she said. "Don't they usually stay on the rivers?"

The answer made Michael sad. He knew Lydie loved the beach, hated taking vacations inland. Now that he had begun facing the flaws in his marriage, it seemed he could see only Lydie's faults. As if he had been blind to them for so long, blindly in love with her, her small faults seemed major. For example, that she couldn't see the romance of taking a barge through Burgundy in the fall. Of bicycling through vineyards each day.

So he brought Anne into the vivid daydream: chilly air, the spicy scent of ripe grapes, crimson leaves and gold gra.s.ses, strenuous exercise that would make them feel they deserved the fine dinners those barges were reputed to serve every night. He imagined tasting wines with dinner: wines produced by the vineyards they had visited that day. He could see the wine, its color somewhere between orange and ruby, served in a ballon-a gla.s.s as big as a crystal ball. Walking along the quai he felt himself get hard, and he knew why: a dinner like that on one of these barges with Anne would make him feel like loving her all night long.

Michael took Lydie's hand, as if that could make up for the way he felt about Anne. He knew that his marriage would probably end in Paris. He had wanted the Paris year to be special for him and Lydie; he had thought that coming might spark him to love her the way he once had. Instead, it had left him excited, churned up, with no one to share it with. He had loved Lydie so much, and she had loved him back. But now she loved her family's drama more than she loved him; sometimes he considered her att.i.tude overvigilant. Lately, he'd begun to consider it ghoulish.

As a teenager he had thought girls cared more about love than boys did. He had understood that certain trappings were important to them: Valentine presents, birthday presents that could be shown off for their intimacy, a willingness to talk and hug before s.e.x and sometimes instead of it. But Michael cared about those things, wanted to do them. Even before Neil's death Lydie had been more pragmatic than he was, cared less about pa.s.sion than he did. For him marriage should be romantic, even thrilling and dangerous.

And was it guilt for that thought that made Michael remember Lydie's loyalty? The pride she felt at having him work on the Louvre? She never missed the chance to put his work into historical perspective; the idea made him feel excited and daunted. She would invoke all the artists and architects over the ages who had been commissioned by kings and ministers to work on the Louvre, and say that now he was one of them. He ran the phrase "over the ages" through his mind again. If his ideas were accepted, the Ministry of Culture would direct builders to place stones and gla.s.s and information booths according to the specifications of Michael McBride. He had left his mark on museums in New York, Dallas, Cleveland, and Hartford, but to leave it on the Louvre would, for Lydie, ensure real and certain immortality.

"There it is," Lydie said.

The Louvre. They had reached the ramp that would take them up to street level. Regarding the museum, its walls long and ma.s.sive as a fort's, its niches filled with great, n.o.ble statues, Michael was envisioning its blueprint. From the air, its outline was bold and majestic, yet as simple, as symmetrical as a letter of the alphabet.

Michael and Lydie walked past in silence, but something about the way she gazed up the walls let Michael know she was thinking about him and his work. The sun, much higher in the sky than it would be in the States at this time of evening in late spring, threw shadows on the stones.

A barge slid along the Seine, its frothy wake golden in the declining light. Lydie stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and looked Michael straight in the eye. Her expression startled him. She might have been about to set him straight about a major fact of life.

"I'm proud of you," she said, surprising him, standing on her bare toes to kiss him. His eyes were closed, and he heard the voices of people pa.s.sing by. Many of them spoke English; this was, after all, the heart of the tourist district. And beyond the simple pleasure of kissing her, Michael liked joining the ranks of lovers he had seen around Paris, kissing with abandon, caring more for the moment of pa.s.sion than for decorum. Not caring who was watching.

Lydie believed in the process of change. She believed that a cataclysmic or benevolent event could effect a change, of course, send you veering in a direction you might not normally have taken, and just as her father's death was one such event, that kiss on the quai was another. She believed it signified healing-of her own spirit. She could envision the moment in her mind the way someone pa.s.sing in a tour bus might have seen it: in a romantic, photogenic haze. The urge to kiss Michael had come upon her suddenly, raised her up on her toes, made her close her eyes and tilt back her head to meet his lips.

Several evenings later they sat in a noisy bistro in the Seventh, just across the Pont de l'Alma from their building. Trays bearing platters of steak frites frites clattered by, and the patrons were happy drinking cheap red wine bottled in Touraine by the owner's brother-in-law. Lydie watched Michael, who seemed restless. He tapped the pepper mill on the paper cloth, staring at the spilled pepper flecks as if they were tea leaves. Where their dinner hours had once been filled with conversation, for the last eleven months they had been quiet, with Lydie closed off and Michael tired of trying to draw her out. clattered by, and the patrons were happy drinking cheap red wine bottled in Touraine by the owner's brother-in-law. Lydie watched Michael, who seemed restless. He tapped the pepper mill on the paper cloth, staring at the spilled pepper flecks as if they were tea leaves. Where their dinner hours had once been filled with conversation, for the last eleven months they had been quiet, with Lydie closed off and Michael tired of trying to draw her out.

"What are you working on?" Michael asked when he saw her watching him. He spoke in a loud voice, to be heard.

"My linen project. For that catalogue-remember I told you about it?"

Michael nodded, and Lydie realized that he wasn't paying attention. He was looking over her head, across the crowded room. She followed his gaze to the doorway where a couple stood talking to the waiter.

"Do you know them?" Lydie asked.

"I know her from the Louvre," Michael said.

Lydie looked again. The woman had close-cropped dark hair and eyes black as a racc.o.o.n's, and she was so small she had to stand on her toes to whisper something to her escort.

"Should we ask them to join us?" Lydie asked in one of those quick and urgent moments of marital consultation. The table to her right was just being vacated by an elderly man and a small blond boy.

"No, let's not," Michael said. But the woman had seen them and was making her way toward their table.

"Michael," the woman said, shaking his hand. Her French accent made the name sound like "Michel."

"What happened to your eyes?" Michael asked.

"I fell down some stairs," she said. A waiter hurrying past b.u.mped her, making her grab the back of Michael's chair to steady herself. A different waiter, also hurrying, told them to take the empty table beside the McBrides'.

"But we don't want to intrude," the woman said to Michael.

"Please," Lydie said. "You won't be intruding."

Introductions were made. The woman was Anne Dumas. The man was Jean Tavanier. Lydie regarded Anne Dumas and guessed her age at thirty-three. The racc.o.o.n eyes were no illusion; not the product of kohl and mascara, they were bruised.

"I haven't seen you around the Louvre for a while," Michael said. "Were you badly hurt?"

"No, not too badly. I was visiting the cathedral at Aix-en-Provence, Saint-Sauveur, and I wanted to examine the baptistry. It's ancient, you know, dating back to the Romans, and the steps are crumbling a little. So my foot went down wrong, and-pow!"

"She has a bruise of the brain," said Jean.

"A concussion," Anne said. "But not serious. However, no wine for me tonight."

"A concussion!" Michael said. "How high were the steps?"

"Oh, just over a meter, which is the part that makes it so embarra.s.sing."

"You fell four feet?" Lydie asked.

"Concussions can be really dangerous," Michael said. Lydie stared at him across the table and felt annoyed by his furrowed brow, which seemed to express excessive concern.

"I'm sure you've seen a doctor," Lydie said.

"Naturally. There was a doctor two streets away. My guide knew him well." She laughed. "We had to b.u.mp through a crowd of monks on a pilgrimage from Greece, with my head bleeding like mad. You think working at the Louvre with all the tourists is bad. I'm telling you, it's nothing compared to working in a dry temple bath full of monks."

"What work were you doing there?" Lydie asked. "I've always wanted to go to Aix-en-Provence."

"Aix is very lovely," Anne said. "Of course the south of France is hot this time of year, but the cathedral was cool."

"Did your research take you there?" Michael asked.

"Yes," she said. Anne smiled, and her eyes crinkled. She raised one delicate hand to her bruised cheek and her mouth made an "O."

"Hurts?" Lydie said. Anne nodded. She smiled at Lydie again. "I am not an expert on structures," she said. "Not the way your husband is. I am interested in the cultural story, you know? And my interest happens to lie in the past. Mainly in the person."

"She is a historian," Jean said slowly, enunciating each word carefully.

Lydie and Michael had finished their meal, but they waited for Anne and Jean to eat before ordering coffee. Lydie had to marvel that a woman as dainty and bruised as Anne could eat with such gusto, using her bread to wipe her plate, the knife and fork working constantly. Every so often she would glance at Lydie, give her a wonderful smile. Anne was not precisely beautiful, but she had a quality that made Lydie unable to look away from her. Everything about her was smaller than usual. Her stature, her nose, her mouth, her hands. Only her eyes were enormous, black, at once spirited and sad.

"So, you're working with Michael at the Louvre?" Lydie asked when Anne had laid down her fork, dabbed her mouth with the linen napkin.

"No," Anne said. "I am working on a project of my own, and we just get in each other's way."

"Tell Lydie your project," Michael said.

"Well," Anne said, smiling in a way that indicated she had been waiting for this moment; it reminded Lydie of the pleasure she felt when given the chance to explain her own work to someone new. "I am following Madame de Sevigne around. Forget the fact she has been dead for centuries. She is so fantastic, she lives still."

"I'm ignorant," Lydie said.

"Madame de Sevigne is perhaps the greatest letter writer France has known. Her letters tell the story of the seventeenth century; she was trusted by Louis XIV. A member of his court! She was so solid in the middle of all that scandal. And her letters are very funny, sad, poignant. I can't stop reading them. They are mostly to her daughter. She loved her daughter so much, and once the girl was grown, they lived apart. But Madame de Sevigne told the girl everything in letters."

"I'd love to read them," said Lydie, wondering whether the sound of a distant voice had more value than a letter, which could be held. And saved. "Tell me-what is her connection with the Louvre?"

"I am pursuing her connection with Louis XIV, who lived there before Versailles. You can thank him for commissioning many of your husband's predecessors-architects who have left a mark there."

"Is she the reason you went to Aix-en-Provence?" Michael asked.

"Yes," Anne said. "Because that is where her daughter moved after she married Count de Grignan. I begin to feel as though I know them personally, that I am visiting them in their various dwellings..."

"Anne is really crazy," Jean said. "She is so obsessive about Madame de Sevigne, she is researching every single connection. And she has already written a book about her."

"Really?" Lydie asked. "What's the t.i.tle?"

"Three Women of the Marais," Anne said. "She was born on the Place des Vosges."

"I have a friend who lives there," Lydie said.

"Really? To live there-that would be something," Anne said.

Jean laughed in a scoffing manner. "Anne, if you lived there, you might actually start to believe you are the reincarnation of Madame de Sevigne. It would be the worst that could happen."

Lydie giggled and tried to catch Michael's eye, but he was looking away: his head tilted toward Anne, and he was staring at her, a little smile on his lips, as if he was trying to figure her out.

I a.s.sure you that these days drag on slowly and that uncertainty is a dreadful thing.

-TO P POMPONNE, DECEMBER 1664 CHARLES L LEGENDRE, THE Louvre's curator for seventeenth-century art, was a fop. Stickpin, black silk socks, significant tie-obviously from some school, probably in Switzerland. Unfortunately he was Michael's designated Louvre liaison. Michael had sort of liked him, with reservations, at their first meeting. That was back in October, when Charles had walked Michael through the painting galleries, suggesting works Michael might want to appropriate for the Salle des Quatre Saisons. Louvre's curator for seventeenth-century art, was a fop. Stickpin, black silk socks, significant tie-obviously from some school, probably in Switzerland. Unfortunately he was Michael's designated Louvre liaison. Michael had sort of liked him, with reservations, at their first meeting. That was back in October, when Charles had walked Michael through the painting galleries, suggesting works Michael might want to appropriate for the Salle des Quatre Saisons.

"That is a magnificent Poussin," Michael had said, facing a large canvas depicting warriors in a scene from mythology.