Armand’s First Letter. Amelia’s First Letter.
16 April 1020, L’École du Sorciers
My dearest cousin Armand,
Maximilian and I have settled into a rhythm here at L’École; a rhythm, I will call it, for that sounds more cheerful than a rut.
We rise at dawn, and break our fast in L’École’s refectory. Our lodgings have a kitchen of sorts, but it is easier to go to the refectory as I am not allowed to go out and shop for the day’s food. Strong coffee and rolls are not what I would prefer at that hour, but little of my life at present is about having my own way.
After breakfast I attend Dr. Laguerre in her cottage, and we review my reading—but reading is a smaller part of my course of study than I had expected. This is all to the good.
I wrote of my reading when I first came to L’École; you might recall that, “The bird takes wing, and flies thrice around the Sun while draped in damask.” The texts are filled with such passages, exalted, highly symbolic, and almost entirely opaque, passages that seemed imbued with higher meaning. It is maddening.
Dr. Laguerre is unsympathetic. “This is the manner of the Fleuve de Johannes, n’est-ce pas? It is not for you to judge the words. The words, they will judge you, and reveal themselves in good time.”
I must read the words, she says, and re-read them, and then soak in them. “Il faut se baigner dans les mots.“, one must bathe in the words.
After our session I return to our rooms, or to the library, or sometimes to the roof, there to bathe in the words as best as I can. I would find all this to be appallingly foolish if I didn’t have reason to know that it works.
Dinner is once again at the refectory, at one o’clock; and then I work on what Dr. Laguerre calls les exercices, in a corner of the grounds dedicated to this purpose. It is a large space, a patch of dead, blackened ground that matches the bleakness of my mood.
When one learns a physical skill, one must practice it. One most learn control, and fluency. One must particularly learn, not to call up one’s power more easily—”Non, non,” says Dr. Laguerre—but to call it only after due deliberation and in the correct measure.
When when plays the piano, one wants the fingering to become second nature. One wishes to play a tune, and one plays the tune without thinking about how it is done. Scales and arpeggios and etudes are all about acquiring this facility. But with wizardry, this is precisely what one does not want.
Dr. Laguerre says that it is less like learning to play an instrument, and more like training an animal—a dog, perhaps, though it feels more like a lion to me. The dog must stay where it is told, and come when it is called, and fetch only what I direct, and give it straight into my hand, like a well-trained retriever. The dog might think it knows what I want, it might be eager to please me…but it must always await my pleasure.
I have much to unlearn, I fear.
And so here on the exercise grounds I endeavor to produce the smallest of workings: to use the flame of Johannes to inscribe my name on a small bit of wood as neatly as if I had used pen and ink. Dr. Laguerre can do this with but a moment’s thought, as she showed me some weeks ago. She took a small plaque of wood, about the size of a carte de visite, and held it for but a moment, and handed it to me. There was no smoke, and certainly no flame, but her name was etched blackly into the pale wood. She handed me a sack of similar plaques and told me to do likewise.
My results are the one thing that reconciles me to my enforced presence here. I am on my fourth sack; my dog is too eager to bolt, and to seize, and to chew. Ashes are usually all that remain.
Maximilian has his dinner at the Embassy, and returns to L’École for supper; and then we often spend time with Jérôme and the other two students of my acquaintance, Janine Allard and Claude Bergeron. It is good to see them, though they are advanced well beyond me, not having had my distractions. They are kindness itself, and I am grateful for their encouragement.
You may tell Aunt Jane that Dr. Guisman was correct; I am, indeed, in an “interesting condition.”
Your unruly and ashen cousin,
Amelia
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Photo by raquel raclette on Unsplash
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