I found myself bereft, a black woman alone in Paris, no longer in the first bloom of youth, nor even the second. I began working in a hotel in La Chapelle where rooms were let by the hour. There I met a Haitian man who believed he was my brother. I told him he couldn’t be my brother, but he insisted he was, and that he loved me with a fraternal love, and wanted to take care of me. He was a ragpicker and invited me to live with him here in Batignolles. Soon after I moved here, Charles went to Brussels, fleeing his creditors and censors and enemies. He wrote to me once. He told me about his plans to publish his banned poems and smuggle them into France. But of course nothing ever came of it.

Now, I said to Mademoiselle Édmonde and Mademoiselle Adélaïde, my health is failing. I’m partially paralyzed on the left side of my body. The eyesight in my left eye is dimming. I have no clients, and depend entirely on my brother. Otherwise I lie here on this mattress, remembering the past, resigned to never crossing again, resigned to never returning to the island, resigned to whatever end fate has in store for me.

At last my tale was told. By now it was quite dark, the only light in the room that of an oil lamp that burned on a low table between us. The two young ladies stirred from the reverie in which they had spent the afternoon, thanked me for telling my story, and stood to leave. Mademoiselle Adélaïde stoked the embers in the stove and added several lumps of charcoal. Mademoiselle Édmonde opened her purse and left several hundred-franc notes beside the lamp, parrying my meek protestations. I thanked them, and apologized for not being able to see them out. They turned to leave, but Mademoiselle Adélaïde hesitated. She turned back toward me and observed me for an instant. She approached the mattress and sat down on its edge, very near me. She leaned forward and I felt her eyes studying my face, almost drinking it. She raised a hand and a finger lightly traced the outlines of my nose, my cheeks, my lips. Mademoiselle Édmonde, standing behind her, was half turned away, motionless. Mademoiselle Adélaïde leaned forward slowly until her lips met mine, and kissed me languidly and tenderly. “You are still a beautiful woman,” she whispered, “a very beautiful woman.” Then she straightened and returned to her companion’s side. They opened the door and, with a bustle of silken skirts, were gone.