Little: A Novel by Edward Carey

Author:Edward Carey [Edward Carey]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9780525534327
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Published: 2018-10-23T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

The Poor Suffering Bodies of Madame Elisabeth, by Herself.

I am going to tell you about my people,” Elisabeth told me. “The people I collect and put in here.” She held a beautiful leather-bound tome in her lap.

It was her brother, the king, who had inspired her to assemble people all in a book. He was always writing everything down, she said; he so loved lists; he knew the Almanach almost by heart. He had written down how many steps there were to the Queen’s Staircase, how many windows there were in the entire palace, the number of times their grandfather sent for him. (Not very many, she recalled.) He knew the precise number of seconds, hours, days, and years that their brother the Duc de Bourgogne had lived before he succumbed to tuberculosis of the bones, and the exact number of years, days, hours, and minutes after his birth that their mother had died. The king counted everything, it seemed, and wrote it all down. He had books and books of lists.

“I thought, in my small way, I might do like the king,” she told me. “So I collect up my people. There are so many buildings beyond the palace, horrid, mean places, and there do I see such people. Oh, how awfully sad they make me feel. And I make a note of it, and I give a little money, and then I tell them that I, Elisabeth of France, shall pray for them. That’s why I keep the notes, you see here. Read.”

She handed me a long list of people and their distress. Barse, Renaud: broken leg. Grulier, Madeleine: pains in the stomach. Gibier, Agnes: headaches. Billinger, Jean: his little finger, his daughter’s nose. Enderlin, Odile: kidney. Roger, Roland: his mother shrieks. Pynson, Rose: discolored skin on back. Parlant, Alphonse: hungry. Moulin, Dominique: pregnant again. Levesque, Pierre: son has died. Salvia, Huguette: corns, toothache, cannot see. Vincent, François, and his wife, Olivia: cannot conceive. Cutard, Adeline: spots.

“I pray for them all,” she said.

Then I had the idea.

“You might do better yet,” I said.

“Have a care, my body, take warning.”

“You could sculpt the maladies.”

“Sculpt?”

“Yes! Think of it—the people’s most grievous problems, captured in wax!”

“Miniature models? In wax?” She fidgeted a bit, as if imagining holding one in her hand. “Oh—could we take them to the church? Good heavens! Might we? We could make them votive objects, couldn’t we? Votive objects that are different? That are very accurate? Then God would be sure to listen. Then He would see how much good we’re doing. Oh, my body, despite your unhappy face you are indeed a very clever one. Yes! Oh yes!”

Unsure what to say, I reached to take her hand.

“No! Stay back! No closer! But what a lovely idea!”

We never did search for Madame Mackau that afternoon. She was found some hours later behind a tapestry by one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting. When she explained that she was hiding from little Elisabeth, the lady asked why—was she frightened of

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