Now that I had seen her once I began to see her often. Although she never paid me the slightest mind, I made her the object of my fascination. I studied her every movement. She seemed near and far at once, as if she knew everything there was to know and was indifferent to it.

Hortense quickly divined my interest in Jeanne and despised her for it. In spite of my hideous appearance, Hortense’s love for me continued to burn, perhaps because it never found its satisfaction. She asked her father to banish the girl from the house but this was a rare whim that Desire did not indulge. He even defended me, calling it proof that I was a red-blooded Frenchman, proof he was glad to have, as he had often doubted my manliness. I denied everything, of course. In truth Hortense had every reason to be jealous, but she mistook the nature of the desire. The bronze glint of the girl’s skin, her reserve, her youth—when I looked upon her it was not lust I felt, for my bloated body was no longer capable of such outbursts of passion. It was recognition. She reminded me of myself, of the girl I had once been, lifetimes ago.

For eight months of the year, dinnertime on the Desire plantation—always an elaborate affair—was conducted on the porch. Michaux père et fille flaunted their French heritage, and dinner was invariably served in the continental manner, in courses that followed one another rather than all at once, on Limoges crockery, with wines from Bordeaux served in crystal glasses. At such times, seated at the head of a long table opposite Hortense, with Jeanne and other servants hovering nearby, Desire Michaux was irrepressible. He enjoyed an audience, and we were ever faithful to the call, Hortense and I, along with the overseer, Champy, and more often than not several invited guests, either planter families from neighboring estates visiting for a day or two or visitors from downriver staying several days or weeks.