Today Pegman took us to Versailles. What a beautifully opulent choice.
Twelve-year-old Giselle sits on the floor, skirts tucked neatly between her knees, silently thinking, dreaming, really.
Tonight this hall will be filled with flirtation and wine. Men and women alike will display themselves in dresses or jackets and pants tailored in pink, gold or baby-blue silk. Their faces and wigs powdered, eyebrows darkened with charcoal and cheeks stained cinnabar-red they will slip handkerchiefs from lacey sleeves while keeping feathered fans ready to cover smiling lips as their wide-open eyes beg for more. More wine, more food, more trysts upstairs or down, no one cares. All they desire is more, more and more.
Who pays for it all? Why the king himself. For he relishes everything and always expects more.
But who really pays? People like our Giselle conceived on such a night. She rises, picks up her mop, looks down the long hall and begins her never-ending task.
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Up From the Ashes 