I sat in that chair for some time looking at the young man, lost for words, before I lifted my veil and said to him, very slowly and low enough so that only he could hear: “Monsieur Balthazar, as you can clearly see, mirrors are of no use to me. If you speak to me again, I will see to it that you are ejected from this train.” I stood and, simulating an unhurried determination, walked off in the direction of my compartment, where I spent an agitated day and a restless night. A way out of the hall of mirrors … The phrase ricocheted in my mind.

I did not venture from my compartment the following morning, but had breakfast delivered to me. After breakfast, a steward came to the door holding a silver bucket, inside of which were a bottle of champagne and a champagne glass.

“Compliments of Monsieur Balthazar, who requests the pleasure of your company in the dining car for luncheon.”

I sent the steward away with the unopened bottle and the glass, but all the same, all morning I hesitated about accepting Balthazar’s invitation. By midday my resistance was beginning to wilt. This strange young man was possessed of an equally strange power, compelling me to do things I did not wish to do. At one o’clock, I made my way to the dining car. I found Balthazar sitting alone at a table for two, a contented little smile playing on his full lips.

“Behold!” he exclaimed, beaming with pleasure. He stood to greet me, kissed my hand, and helped me into my seat before returning to his. “I’m honored you decided to take up my invitation, madame.”

“My curiosity got the better of me. You seem to be able to make me do things no one else can. How is that?”

“In the course of my studies, I learned the art of mesmerism from a Sufi dervish in Cairo. I am an expert in the technique, madame. I have hypnotized the great and the good across the world, not to mention certain members of Europe’s most illustrious royal households.”

“I see.” It was impossible not to be charmed by the man. “And so is it with mesmerism that you make people do what they don’t want to do?”

“No mesmerist is capable of such a thing, madame. It is not the mesmerist who mesmerizes, it is his subject who wishes to be mesmerized.”

“Are you saying I wanted to come to dinner all along?”

“Of course you wanted to come. You said it yourself. Curiosity got the better of you. Perhaps other urges too, which are more deeply buried within you. We are all conflicted creatures. There are things we want that we don’t want to want. Yet we want them all the same.”

“And what do I want from you?”

“At a guess, solace. It’s what most people want.”