Table of Contents | Introduction | Historical Notes

The rest of the evening passed in a kind of waking dream. I returned to the ballroom and fulfilled each obligation on my dance card with tolerable young men, though I could not afterward have recalled what any of them said. Between dances, I found Marie. We spoke of everything. Her aunt’s house near the Tiergarten, the paintings she had seen at the Nationalgalerie, the difficulty of finding decent sheet music in Berlin, Mama’s garden, Otto’s salon, which I had been excluded from but would now attend. We spoke of books. Of music. Of…

I made certain that every conversation took place in public. Our time in the library had taught me that I could not trust myself in private with Marie, and I had no intention of testing that conclusion a second time.

It was past three in the morning when Papa found me near the refreshment table, Marie at my side, discussing Schumann’s late piano works.

“Emilie.” He looked tired but not displeased. “I see you have made a friend.”

“Papa, may I introduce Frau von Czarwinski. Marie, this is my father, Heinrich Knopf.”

Papa’s expression grew more attentive. “Von Czarwinski? Are you the daughter of Kasimir von Czarwinski?”

“I am.”

“You are as lovely as your mother.” He paused, studying her face. “And are you the widow of Wilhelm von Kessler? As I remember, he married a daughter of Czarwinski.”

“I am.” Her voice had gone perfectly even.

“I was sorry to hear of your loss. We served together in France.”

“You are kind to remember him.”

The exchange was entirely correct and entirely insufficient. Marie had introduced herself this evening as Von Czarwinski, not Von Kessler. Most widows retained their married names. It was the convention, the protection of the husband’s family and status, even after death.

Papa turned back to me. “I am growing tired, Liebchen. Are you ready to leave?”

I looked at Marie. At the face I had only seen unmasked for three hours. I did not want to leave. I could have stayed in her company forever. But the evening had to end, and perhaps it was better to leave now, while everything was still extraordinary.

“Yes, Papa.”

He excused himself to call for Ernst and the carriage.

Marie and I stood facing one another. The ballroom was thinning. The orchestra was probably playing its last set. In an hour or so, the house would be dark.

“We should have tea,” Marie said. “Or walk in the Tiergarten. I am usually there in the afternoons when the weather permits.”

“I would enjoy that very much.”

“Then I will see you again, Fräulein Knopf.”

In the carriage, I sat across from Papa, who had closed his eyes and settled into the corner with the relief of a man who had survived a long social evening. My skin still carried the memory of Marie’s lips against my neck. My hand remembered the warmth of hers. I wanted to see her again immediately. Tomorrow.

But as the Landauer rolled through the darkened streets toward home, a colder thought arrived.

The two people I had found most interesting this evening, the two who had shown the most interest in me were a young Jewish man and a widow. James von Bleichröder had asked permission to call. Marie von Czarwinski had invited me to tea. Both would be considered unsuitable by the standards Hildegard would apply. One because of his birth. The other simply would not do.

So perhaps the evening was not such a success after all. Not in the terms that mattered to anyone but me.

But my dance card was mostly full. That would satisfy Hildegard. And if Hildegard was satisfied, Papa would be as well.

I looked out the window at the gaslit streets. I thought of Mama’s garden, neglected for all these years. Of the promise I had made to myself earlier, looking down at her garden from my window.

Tomorrow I would kneel in that dirt with my hands in the earth she had tended.

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I slipped back into the ballroom through the corridor entrance, letting the door close softly behind me. I searched the crowd for a particular figure in white silk with golden serpents in her hair.

I had last seen Marie and her followers on the balcony. I moved in that direction, weaving between clusters of guests. A Pierrot. Two Renaissance courtiers. A woman dressed as Flora with flowers pinned to her bodice that had begun to wilt in the heat.

Finding the balcony empty, I returned to the ballroom, scanning the room once more for a tall brunette with a silver mask and snakes in her hair. Nothing. The refreshment room. The foyer. The ladies’ withdrawing room, where two women were repairing their costumes.

No Marie.

“Fräulein Knopf.”

James appeared at my left shoulder. Not blocking my path, but impossible to ignore.

“I believe we have another dance.” He smiled.

I could not refuse without giving offense.

“Of course.” I placed my hand on his arm. “I’ve been looking forward to it.”

I did want to dance with him. It was only that I wished to continue my search.

He led me to the crowded dance floor where guests made room for him.

The quadrille formed around us, four couples taking their positions. James stood across from me, composed and ready. I knew this dance. I had danced it many times.

The figures began with Le Pantalon, the opening movement executed with couples advancing and retreating in sequence, which I managed without incident.

L’Été followed, partners crossing and returning. I kept my attention where it needed to be, more or less, though I caught myself scanning the room twice and had to redirect my eyes back to James both times.

Then La Poule arrived, requiring me to take the correct hand at the correct moment as four couples threaded their way through the sequence. I gave mine to the wrong man, who accepted it with the grace of someone who had seen worse mistakes. James, returning from his own exchange, waited patiently, amused rather than annoyed.

La Pastourelle brought the third figure and my second mistake. Couples were meant to advance toward each other in sequence — our neighbors first, then us. I stepped forward on the wrong count, but James guided me back into the proper timing.

The fourth figure brought us back together. I could feel him watching my face rather than the room. My eyes moved around the floor, looking for a silver mask with serpents etched into it. For a mythological creature with her dark hair swept up.

“You seem to be looking for someone,” he said quietly, between figures.

An observation, not an accusation. He gave me the space to explain or deflect as I chose.

I met his eyes and found no anger there, only mild concern.

“I’m tired,” I said. Which was true. “And warm from dancing.” Also true.

“You’re a wonderful dancer and deserve a better dance partner.”

He studied my face for a moment, then nodded. “The evening has been long.”

The dance ended. As we reached the edge of the floor, James did not leave my company.

“Fräulein Knopf.” He paused, finding his words. “I wonder if I might call on you. At your home.”

His question caught me entirely off guard. He was still interested even after my disappointing performance.

Having him sign my dance card twice had been one thing, but having him call at the house was different. Calling at the house meant Papa would know of James’s interest and Hildegard would have considerable say in the matter.

I looked at him and he waited. Not pressing.

“You should speak to my father,” I said. It was not only a deflection but also correct protocol.

“I intend to.” He held my gaze. “But I want to know first whether you wish me to. Would you like me to visit you?”

This stopped me entirely.

Men did not ask this of women. Men asked fathers. Men presented themselves and expected gratitude for their attentions. James was asking me what I wanted, as though my answer mattered.

I have thought about that question many times since. It was not the last time he asked me something that required a more honest answer than I was prepared to give.

I thought, very briefly, of Marie. Then deliberately did not.

“Yes,” I said. “You may ask my father.”

I meant it. The complications were their own matter. I was not in love with James. And even if I were, could a courtship between us even be possible? I liked him in a way I had not liked any of the other young gentlemen who had signed my card.

His company would be worth having even if it led nowhere.

James bowed over my hand.

“I look forward to calling,” he said.

He released my hand and stepped back into the crowd.

Resuming my search for Marie, I found Otto in the foyer with several of his friends, but she was not among them.

“Have you seen Marie?” I asked without preamble.

“Ah.” He looked up with the expression of a man who knows more than he is willing to say. “I thought the two of you might find each other interesting. Be careful, though. She is a woman of peculiar tastes.”

“What do you mean by that?”

He ignored my second question and nodded toward the staircase. “I saw her heading upstairs a few minutes ago.”

I glanced toward the stairs that curved up from the foyer. I was not certain if guests were permitted on the upper floors. But nothing stood in my way.

The stairs were carpeted in dark red with a polished brass balustrade. A steady parade of paintings hung on the walls as I ascended. Under normal conditions, I would have stopped to examine each one. At the top, I paused. Long hallways stretched in both directions.

To my right, at the far end of the corridor, light spilled out from an open door.

From that room came a sound that drew me closer.

The sound was that of a violin. Not the unskilled playing of a drawing room. Not the polished sound of an orchestra. But the sound of a skilled musician having a conversation with themselves and their instrument. A conversation they had not expected anyone to overhear.

The melody was unfamiliar and flowed effortlessly between joy and sadness without resting in either. The notes bypassed my intellect entirely and arrived at an emotional place not well defended.

I approached and peeked around the door.

The room was a library with floor-to-ceiling shelves, a large mahogany desk, and a narrow settee in front of a fireplace. It smelled of old books and gas from the dimly lit sconces. Standing near the window, violin pressed beneath her chin, was Marie.

She played with her eyes closed, her body swaying. The Medusa mask was still in place, but her posture was entirely different from how she had carried herself downstairs. The social armor was gone. She was present only to the music. Nothing else existed for her. I was witnessing something I had not been meant to see.

I must have made some sound.

The music stopped and she turned.

“Who goes there?”

My shadow fell across the threshold, cast by the hallway lamps. I stepped into the room.

“Forgive me. I heard you playing and— I did not want to interrupt.”

Marie lowered the violin.

“I always love exploring spaces that are not meant for me,” she said, looking around the room.

I thought of all the spaces I had wished to enter, but had not dared.

“I found this on the desk.” She lifted the violin slightly. “Someone in the family must play. It is a remarkable instrument.”

“You play beautifully.”

“Thank you, but my playing has declined. I used to play better.” She turned the instrument over in her hands with care. “My arm and several fingers were broken some years back and did not heal correctly.” She flexed her left hand as she had on the balcony. “I rarely play the violin anymore. It is my favorite instrument, but I can no longer do it justice. I compose on the piano now, as it does not require me to lift my arm.”

“I am sorry to hear that.”

She gently plucked a string, producing a solemn note. “Do not be. One finds accommodations.”

“Did you have an accident?”

She took her time answering, producing a silence that lasted just long enough to have meaning.

“Yes,” she said. “It was an accident.”

The way she said it made me distrust her answer. I did not press further. She told me the truth eventually, on her own terms and in her own time. The truth was worse than I could have imagined.

“I did not recognize the piece you were playing,” I said.

“It is one of my own compositions.”

“From the opera you are writing?”

“Yes.” She turned back toward me. “The overture. Or what will be the overture, when it is finished.”

“Will you play another piece for me?”

“I should not—”

“Please.”

Marie slowly lifted the instrument and once more placed it gently under her chin.

She took a deep breath and, as she exhaled, produced a long note. I noticed her body tense as her arm fully extended, the solitary note lingering in the air. A single stroke, the way a painter makes the first stroke with their brush on a newly prepared canvas.

She began to move as she played. A slow circuit around the room, the bow drawing strong lines across the strings. I turned to follow her, and her lips formed a smile below her mask. She drew close. Close enough that I caught the scent of her perfume again, jasmine and sandalwood. She retreated before I could take it in fully.

The music built. Not loudly, not dramatically, but with the persistence of an idea that had been patient for a long time and was now no longer willing to wait. It climbed toward a climax before reducing to a tenderness that settled into my body and caused my eyes to water. I was not entirely surprised when the tears began. I had felt them coming from the first note.

When the final passage faded with the last pull of the bow, we stood less than a foot apart. We remained motionless, neither of us wanting to be the first to move.

Marie lowered the instrument and returned it carefully to the desk. She took my hand and led me to the narrow settee in front of the fireplace. We sat facing each other.

I retrieved my handkerchief from my bodice and lifted my mask just enough to press it to my eyes.

“I hope,” Marie said softly, “that those are not tears of suffering.”

“Nein.” I managed to steady my voice. “They are tears of — of pleasure. I did not expect to be so moved.”

“Knowing it gave you pleasure means more than I can say.”

I tucked the handkerchief back into my bodice. Marie’s eyes followed its path and stayed there for a moment before returning to my face.

“I have never been so jealous of a piece of cloth,” she said.

The heat that went through me was immediate. Had I heard her correctly? If a man had said such a thing, I would have stood and left the room. But she was not a man, and I did not wish to leave.

“Was that—” My throat had gone dry. “Was that another piece from your opera?”

“Yes.” She shifted, her leg pressing against mine. “Sappho’s first aria. The moment she sees the woman she will love forever and understands, for the first time, what she desires.”

“The woman she will love forever.” I held her gaze. “As one woman can love another. As friends, you mean.”

Marie shook her head. Very slowly.

“Nein, meine Süße.”

She reached up and her bare fingers found my face, tracing the line of my jaw beneath the edge of the mask. The touch I had been thinking about since the balcony. Her fingertips carried the faint roughness of a musician. My heart found a rhythm I did not recognize.

I closed my eyes.

I was aware of her moving closer. The warmth of her. The scent of jasmine. The sound of our breathing.

Her lips met my neck.

Soft. Deliberate. I had no experience of being kissed. Anywhere. By anyone. And I had never imagined the first lips to touch me would be those of a woman.

And yet. A suspicion was being confirmed.

I should have pulled back. Every sense of propriety I possessed told me to put a stop to this.

“Ja,” I heard myself say, barely audible.

Marie pulled away instead. Not far. So close I could feel her breath on my lips. I opened my eyes to find hers dark and still, holding mine in the lamplight. She leaned forward.

Downstairs, the orchestra stopped as cheering erupted through the floor, applause and voices rising together, the sound of a room full of people celebrating the arrival of what they had been waiting for all evening.

The unmasking. Midnight was nearly upon us.

I stood, the words arriving without thought. “We must go down.”

Marie rose more slowly.

At the door, she fell into step beside me. As we reached the staircase, she placed her hand at the small of my back. We descended together.

The entrance hall had filled with guests pressing toward the stairs. We found Otto near the Haushofmeister, who had taken his position a few steps up the staircase.

“Meine Damen und Herren — die Stunde naht! Zehn… neun… acht…”

The crowd took up the count. Marie stood close enough that her shoulder pressed against mine. Her gloved hand found mine.

“Sieben… sechs… fünf…”

We looked at one another as we counted.

“Vier… drei… zwei… eins!”

The room erupted. Around us, masks were lifted, and faces revealed, voices calling out names across the crowd. Brief fear took me. All evening I had been imagining Marie’s face behind that mask, and now I was about to see it. For all I knew, the face beneath belonged to Medusa herself.

Marie lifted her mask and I saw her face for the first time.

I had been painting since I was old enough to hold a brush. I had studied portraits in every gallery I had been permitted to enter. I knew what it was to look at a face and understand immediately why it had been worth painting — the particular arrangement of features that produces not beauty in the conventional sense but something more durable, more interesting, more specific to that one person and no other.

Marie’s face was that kind of face.

The lips I already knew. The dark eyes I had seen all evening through the mask. The full picture, assembled at last. A nose with character, slightly stronger than fashionable, but entirely correct for the face it occupied. Cheekbones that, in repose, struck one as formidable. The skin pale, almost marble in the lamplight, and at odds with the warmth that I knew lay underneath.

I have tried to paint that face many times since that night. I have yet to capture it properly.

She stood watching me remove my own mask. Her expression was now fully visible. The expression of someone who already knew a thing and was waiting for confirmation.

“There you are, meine Liebste,” she said softly, reaching out to tuck one of my loose curls back into place. “Even more beautiful than Athena.”

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Table of Contents | Introduction | Historical Notes

Otto led me through the ballroom, weaving between dancers, until we reached the far corner, where a small crowd was gathered around a woman dressed as Medusa.

She looked to be in her mid-twenties and stood at the center, surrounded by young men and women who leaned forward as if she were a painting they needed to view more closely. Her voice carried easily despite the music, with her admirers hanging on her every word.

Her costume was striking — a draped chiton in white silk, clasped at one shoulder with a bronze serpent brooch. More golden serpents coiled through her dark hair, which fell loose down her back in a style that was surely scandalous to the matrons in the room. She wore an exquisite silver Colombina, its surface etched with delicate snakes along the temples and around the eyes, with her thin red lips left uncovered.

The group parted as we approached, making room for us to join them.

“Otto!” one of the young men called out. “You’ve returned with a companion.”

Otto pulled me forward. “Marie, I have someone I would like to introduce you to.”

The woman stepped closer, as if I were an object in need of more intimate examination. Her dark brown eyes took in the whole of me.

“We are already well acquainted.”

This surprised me, as I had never met this woman before.

She continued. “You dare bring this woman, Athena, into my presence. The very goddess who reduced me to such a wretched state and provided Perseus with the mirror he used to slay me.”

I blinked, surprised by the reference. She was correct. Athena had been the one who wronged Medusa, transforming a beautiful priestess into a monster because Poseidon had violated her in Athena’s temple. It was an old story, and most people no longer remembered that Medusa had been the victim.

“I must beg your pardon,” I said, recovering my composure. “I do hope that bygones will be bygones. I was jealous, you see. Poseidon had lain with you in my temple, and I punished you for his transgression. It was wrong of me to curse you so.”

She tilted her head, considering. Slowly, she reached out and touched my chin with one gloved finger, her red lips curving into a smile.

With her other hand, she took my gloved hand and brought it to those lips, pressing a kiss against my knuckles. “All is forgiven, dear Athena.”

As the kiss was delivered, a warmth bloomed in my chest and settled somewhere a young woman of my upbringing was not permitted to acknowledge.

Still in possession of my hand, she said, “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Marie Von Czarwinski. And you are?”

Still trying to compose myself, my name eluded me entirely. I looked to Otto for rescue.

“Allow me,” Otto said. “Frau Von Czarwinski, may I present Fräulein Emilie Knopf. My oldest and dearest friend.”

“We were discussing Wagner,” Marie said, releasing my hand and turning back to her audience. “I was saying that his genius is real, but his philosophy bankrupt. His theory that music, song, dance, poetry, and visual arts can be unified as a total work of art is a magnificent idea executed with the ego of a man who cannot conceive that anyone else’s contribution to that work matters as much as his own.”

“His loathing of Jews is not incidental to his genius,” a young woman said. I later learned her name was Harriet Zimmerman. “For some of us, it is impossible to separate the two.”

Marie’s eyes narrowed with interest. “But shouldn’t art be judged strictly on its own merit, regardless of the artist creating it?”

She did not appear to be stating her own position, but rather opening a space for argument. I had met very few people who asked questions in that manner.

“It’s an interesting argument,” Harriet said. “But hard to do in reality.”

Otto spoke up. “If we must take the artist’s opinions into account, we may be left with no art to enjoy. Every artist surely has some idea we might disagree with.”

“True,” I said. “But some views are too repugnant to be ignored. They cast an ugly shadow on the work being produced.”

Marie turned back to me. “This is why I am so glad to be in Berlin. In the country, these types of debates don’t exist.”

“I have been to many of these balls,” I said. “I’ve never heard such a debate before. Perhaps it is you who has brought such a discussion into being.”

“I cannot believe that.” She shook her head, serpents glinting. “I’ve only lived in Berlin for six short months, and I’ve had many similar conversations.”

“You must keep good company,” I said. “I would very much like to meet that company. I rarely hear women discussing such ideas.”

“Why shouldn’t we discuss whatever interests us, as the men do?”

“I agree. But I find women rarely want to discuss such things. If I want to discuss politics or philosophy, I must seek out the company of men — and men rarely want to engage in such discussions with a woman.”

She looked shocked and turned to Otto. “Otto, mein Lieber, you must invite this poor thing to your next salon. She is dying for the type of intellectual stimulation they provide.”

I went still. Heat flooded my cheeks. I looked at Otto, who would not meet my eyes.

What salons?

I knew nothing of any salons. Why had he never invited me? Did he think me not intellectually stimulating enough? I considered him one of my closest friends, and he was holding salons without inviting me?

Otto cleared his throat, stumbling through an apology. “My salons have been for people older, from university. I did not know you would like to attend.” He finally looked at me. “Of course you will be invited to the next one.”

I was glad I would be invited in the future, but surely he knew I would have wanted to attend. He had purposefully excluded me.

I was glad he could not see my face beneath my mask. My cheeks burned with equal parts embarrassment and anger. I would learn later that Otto had been protecting me from knowledge that could have harmed us both.

The orchestra struck up a new piece. Marie’s eyes closed, her head tilting back as the opening notes filled the room. She swayed, serpents in her hair writhing, her entire body responding to the music before the melody declared itself.

Her eyes opened. They were looking directly at me.

“Do you know this song?”

I listened. “It sounds familiar.”

“Invitation to the Dance. A waltz by Weber. It’s one of my favorites.”

I concentrated on the melody now unfolding. “Oh yes. I hear it now.” I paused. “That is a lovely waltz, but a bit complicated. I am surprised the orchestra is playing it.”

“They must be bored,” Marie said, amused. “And wanting to show off.”

She extended her hand.

“We must dance.”

My chest tightened. “Nein. I cannot.”

She did not lower her hand. Did not speak. Simply stood there, dark eyes fixed on mine from behind that intimidating mask of hers.

My pulse hammered.

“I am not good enough to dance to this song.”

“Trust me.”

Her hand remained.

The silence stretched.

“Are you truly going to let this moment pass?” Marie’s voice dropped lower. “Be bold. Are you not Athena?”

I could not let her challenge go unanswered. I took her hand.

She pulled me toward the floor with a sureness that left no room for doubt. Very few couples occupied the floor — the piece was too demanding for most. It was not unheard of for two women to dance together at a Kostümball, but they usually danced to simple playful songs, not one such as this. People were surely watching.

Marie turned to face me, not yet initiating an embrace.

“The prelude is coming to an end. It is exactly thirty-five bars.”

“How do you know—”

“I am a violinist and composer myself.”

Before I could register this revelation, she had taken me in her arms, the waltz beginning proper.

She moved and I had no choice but to follow.

This was nothing like dancing with James. That had been pleasant and safe, the feeling of being guided by someone who knew the steps and would not let me stumble. Marie did not lead as a woman standing in for a man. She led as herself, not pushing, not pulling, but offering. Creating space and trusting me to fill it.

My body responded to her lead before my mind could register it. Something about the way her hand rested at my waist, firm but not heavy. The way she anticipated my weight before I shifted it, as though she were listening through her palms. The way she opened a path and waited, certain I would follow. And I did, every time, without knowing quite how she had asked.

The music began slowly. We took long gliding steps, covering more ground than seemed reasonable. The suspension at the height of each turn was thrilling as we dropped into the next step. Marie’s hand at my back remained a constant point of reference, a promise that I was in skilled hands.

The tempo increased. Our steps shortened, tighter circles now, spinning faster. The chandelier above became a blur of light. I forgot there were other couples on the floor. Forgot the watchful eyes around the edges of the room. There was only the music and Marie’s embrace, and the particular thrill of being led through space as though it were a canvas on which our feet were painting.

The song built to a crescendo. For one breathless moment we seemed to be suspended in midair, weightless, before crashing back down as the music emptied into a bold passage. My heart stuttered. Time fractured.

During a particularly lyrical section, Marie pulled me in tight and all that existed was the warmth of her embrace, the scent of her perfume swirling around me, and the dark intensity of her eyes holding mine. How she managed to lead us through the other couples without collision, I will never know.

The final measures arrived too soon. The music resolved as we slowed to a stop.

I realized I had forgotten to breathe.

Applause erupted from the corner where Otto and the others stood. Others around the room joined in, the sound washing over me, pulling me back into a world that contained other people.

Marie grasped my hand and bowed as if we had just given a major performance.

The center of attention. All those faces turned toward us. Heat flooded through me. My chest constricted. I had gone from not breathing at all to breathing entirely too much, each sharp inhale insufficient.

“Oh dear, Emilie, do calm yourself.” Marie’s voice cut through the roaring in my ears. “You did wonderfully, and everyone agrees.”

We have danced many times since. I remember all of them. Not one has come close to the first.

“You need some air. As do I.”

Marie did not wait for a response. She guided me through the tall doors to the balcony. I followed, grateful to escape all those watching faces.

The night air was cool against my heated skin. It carried the faint scent of the city beyond the Bleichröders’ grounds. I drew in a long breath, then another.

“I can’t believe we just did that,” I said.

Marie moved to the balcony’s edge, her back to me. She began pulling off her gloves, one finger at a time. The kid leather peeled away to reveal bare skin beneath. She laid both gloves on the stone railing and flexed her fingers in the night air.

It was such a small thing, removing one’s gloves. Women did it constantly in the privacy of their homes. But here, on a public balcony, with the music still drifting through the doors behind us, it felt like witnessing an act of physical liberation I was not sure how to interpret.

Her fingers were those of a musician, strong and thin. Those were the fingers that had touched my chin in the ballroom. Those that had brought my own to her lips for that devastating kiss. Those that had held me while we danced.

Now uncovered before me in the moonlight.

“Dancing does warm one, doesn’t it?” Marie said.

It was not just the dancing that was warming me. But I could hardly say that.

“You mentioned you are a violinist and composer.”

“Did I?” Her smile suggested she knew exactly what she had said. “Yes. I began playing when I was seven. Mama’s idea. She thought it would make me more marriageable.” The word carried a certain edge. “Perhaps it did.”

Is she married?

I glanced down at her fingers and found them all bare.

She caught me looking and smiled. “I was married, but I am a widow now.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” She said it with such finality that it suggested she did not want to speak of it further.

“What composers move you?” I asked, in an attempt to change the subject, though I wanted to know more about this marriage she did not mourn.

“Bach, always. The order of it appeals to me. And Beethoven. The late quartets especially. Though I confess a weakness for Wagner despite his many failings as a human being.” She paused, her fingers trailing along the stone railing. “Currently I am working on an opera of my own.”

“An opera?” I moved closer. “What is it called?”

“The Tenth Muse.”

“And who is this tenth muse?”

“The Greek poetess, Sappho,” she answered. “Plato himself called her that.”

“I’m familiar with her story,” I said, remembering my education. “Ovid tells the story of her falling desperately in love with the ferryman Phaon, and when he rejects her, she throws herself from the Leucadian cliffs.”

Marie’s smile changed. She looked at me as if I were a student who had almost gotten the answer correct.

“That is one version.”

“What’s the other?”

“It’s not important right now. Too long to explain properly.” She turned back to the city lights in the distance. “Only to say there is more to the story than that.”

“I’ve studied Greek history and mythology.” The words came sharper than I intended. I did not like being dismissed as though I were a child asking questions beyond my comprehension. “I want to know what the other version is.”

Marie turned. Moved closer. Each step echoed off the stone floor until she stood directly before me.

She reached up and touched my face with her bare fingers.

I had not been touched like that before. Her skin against mine. Her thumb traced the line of my cheekbone with a gentleness that made my throat constrict. This was not the touch of a Papa or a Mama or even a friend.

I glanced toward the ballroom doors, seeking assurance no one stood watching from inside. Behind the curtained windows, only vague shapes moved to the music.

I closed my eyes. The soft pressure of her palm. The warmth of it against my cheek.

It was not the last time she would touch my face. But it was the first, and the first has a quality the rest cannot recover.

The doors burst open.

Marie’s hand withdrew so fast I almost flinched at the loss of it. She stepped back, reaching for her gloves as Otto and four others spilled onto the balcony, laughing about something, too loud after the intimacy that had existed moments before.

“What time is it?” asked one of the young women I had not yet been introduced to.

“It is almost eleven,” Otto said cheerfully. “Midnight approaches. The unmasking will be soon. I cannot wait to remove this silly thing.”

The unmasking.

My agreement with Papa. We were to leave immediately following the unmasking. I had insisted. Twelve chimes of the clock and then Ernst would bring the carriage around, and we would depart and—

And I would have to leave Marie behind.

There was so much more I wanted to say. So many questions I wanted to ask her.

“Excuse me,” I said.

I turned and fled back into the ballroom before anyone could respond.

I searched the card room first, where tables of whist, piquet, and skat occupied men hunched over their cards with glasses of claret near their elbows. Papa wasn’t among them, but General von Reinhausen was still there and informed me Papa had retired to the smoking room.

The smoking room occupied the far end of the ground floor, down a corridor lined with portraits of Bleichröder ancestors. I smelled it before I reached the door — cigar smoke, brandy, leather, and beneath it all the faint scent of a fire burning low. After the perfume and flowers of the ballroom, it announced itself as a room women were not meant to enter.

The door stood half-open. I paused at the threshold.

Dark walnut paneling rose from floor to ceiling. Deep leather armchairs clustered in conversational groupings, occupied by men whose faces were lit in amber gaslight. The wall sconces burned lower than in the public rooms, giving everything a dim, intimate quality. Smoke hung in layers near the ceiling. Hunting prints and military paintings lined the walls. A sideboard held crystal decanters and silver cigar boxes.

Near the fireplace, a group had gathered around one of the armchairs. I recognized several faces, all friends of Papa. He stood among them, leaning slightly forward with his hands clasped behind his back in the particular posture of someone listening to a superior officer.

The man in the chair spoke in a low voice that carried without effort.

“The whole problem is rooted in the question: does the state have the responsibility to care for its helpless fellow citizens, or does it not?”

I knew that face. Everyone in Prussia knew that face.

Chancellor Bismarck sat with his legs crossed, one hand resting on his knee, the other holding a cigar. He wore his dark Kürassier uniform. White whiskers framed his face. At sixty-three, he dominated the room. Men arranged themselves around him without being asked.

“I maintain that it does have this duty,” he continued. “And to be sure, not simply the Christian state, as I once permitted myself to allude to with the words practical Christianity, but rather every state by its very nature.”

A younger man — I didn’t recognize — cleared his throat. “But Herr Reichskanzler, surely there are limits to—”

Bismarck’s gaze shifted to him. The younger man stopped speaking.

“There are objectives that only the state in its totality can fulfill,” Bismarck said. His voice hadn’t risen. It didn’t need to. “Among these objectives of the state belong national defense, the general system of transportation, and the help of persons in distress in order to prevent such justified complaints which provide excellent material for exploitation by the Social Democrats.”

Several men nodded. A man near the fireplace murmured agreement.

“The socialists understand hunger,” Bismarck said. “They understand desperation. They exploit it brilliantly. If we do not address the conditions that make men desperate, we will not contain them with laws alone.”

This was the man who would suffer two assassination attempts in the coming months, attacks that would harden him further and lead to the Anti-Socialist Laws that October. Somewhere in Berlin, Dr. Hödel and Dr. Nobiling were already preparing to carry out their deeds. Neither would succeed.

Papa noticed me at the door. His eyebrows rose. He murmured something to the man beside him and made his way over.

“Is everything all right?”

“Yes.” I kept my voice low. “I wanted to tell you. I’d like to stay longer. Past the unmasking.”

He studied my face with suspicion. And a small amount of hope.

“Does this mean you’ve met some young man you wish to spend more time getting to know?”

Heat rose to my cheeks. “It’s nothing like that.”

Which was not a lie.

“I’ve met some very interesting people,” I continued. “I’d like to spend more time with them.”

His suspicion lifted. “This is wonderful news. You need more friends.”

I didn’t know what he meant by that, and decided not to ask.

“I’ll call a footman at once,” Papa said. “Ernst will need to know we’re staying later than planned.”

He turned toward the door.

“Papa.” I caught his sleeve. “It’s getting cool out. Please have the footman take Ernst some food and something warm to drink.”

He smiled and kissed my forehead. “You’re such a thoughtful girl, caring for those below you.”

I said nothing. Ernst had served our family since I was seven years old. He had shown me his children’s names carved into the wooden seat of the driver’s box. I did not think of him as being below me. He was simply sitting outside in the cold while I danced in a warm ballroom.

Papa disappeared down the corridor. I stood alone near the smoking room door, listening to Chancellor Bismarck as he continued speaking about the state, its obligations, and his vision for Germany’s future.

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As we entered the grand ballroom, the dance floor was already crowded with dancers, their costumes and masks a wash of color as they flowed counter-clockwise to a Strauss waltz. The parquet floor was laid in the Versailles pattern, cut from walnut and maple. Gold silk draped the ceiling between small crystal chandeliers. Between the mirrored panels on the walls, gas sconces threw a warm light across the room. At the center, one grand chandelier presided over the rest.

“Herr Knopf! Emilie!”

A figure approached from the left, tall and unmistakable despite the elaborate peacock costume. Blue and green feathers covered his coat, with more feathers sprouting from his shoulders. His mask was an absurd beaked thing that should have looked ridiculous, but somehow worked.

Of course, I was not supposed to know who it was, but Otto was impossible to mistake. Standing at just over six feet, his lanky frame moved with the kind of awkwardness that suggested he had grown into his height only recently and had not yet figured out how to maneuver.

Papa smiled. “Ah. A magnificent bird swoops in.”

“Herr Knopf, might I borrow your daughter for a moment? I promise to return her undamaged.”

“Of course.” Papa glanced at me. “Remember what you are here for, Liebling. Be about your business tonight.”

Otto offered his arm and led me toward the refreshment room before Papa could add anything else.

“Was war das?” Otto asked once we were out of earshot.

“The usual. Finding a husband.”

“Ach.” He laughed, sharp and knowing. “I’m feeling the same pressure from my parents. My father cornered me last week.” He held an imaginary monocle up to his bird mask, voice dropping into a passable imitation of General von Reinhausen’s parade-ground tone. “It simply will not do for a young man to remain single after he graduates from university. You must be on the lookout for a suitable companion if you want a position in the Staatsdienst.”

I smiled despite myself. “At least you can marry and then ignore her if you don’t get on. Live your own life.”

“True.”

“I can’t do that. I’ll have—” I paused, not wanting to speak the word I feared so much. “Responsibilities.”

Otto considered this, and when he spoke again, his voice had lost its playful edge. “Husbands have their duties as well.”

Before I could imagine what duties he feared, he took me by the hand and dragged me through the crowd. We passed someone who looked familiar, dressed as Julius Caesar, deep in conversation with a Cleopatra, and a woman in an elaborate swan costume laughing at something her companion said.

“I’m hungry,” Otto announced.

“I’m sure we can find you some worms around here somewhere. Perhaps we should look in the garden?”

He snorted. “Dreadful. You’re dreadful.”

The refreshment room was smaller than the ballroom and less crowded. Tables lined the walls beneath white linen, laden with the particular excess of a family that understood hospitality as a form of excess — platters of Aufschnitt, the cold meats fanned out with architectural precision, wheels of cheese, Laugengebäck stacked in baskets, the dark bread of Berlin alongside lighter rolls, bowls of fruit, and at the center of it all a great crystal basin of Erdbeerbowle set on a silver stand, the strawberries floating in its golden depths. Waiters moved through the room with trays, offering champagne to anyone whose hands were empty.

“The Bleichröders have outdone themselves.” Otto appeared at my elbow, already holding a plate he had assembled with impressive speed. “Champagne?”

“Nein,” I said.

He gestured toward the Bowle with a piece of Laugenbrot. “Should I fetch you some Erdbeerbowle then?”

“I’m perfectly capable of getting my own drink.”

“You haven’t moved.”

“I’m observing.”

He ate a piece of cheese, maneuvering it past the beak of his peacock mask with more difficulty than the task probably warranted. “Why don’t you try observing with a glass in your hand? It’s less obvious that you’re judging that way.”

“How are your studies?” I asked, after returning with my glass of Erdbeerbowle.

“Tedious. Contracts and torts and procedural law. My father thinks I’m learning to be useful. I’m mostly learning how to stay awake while very boring men argue about very boring things.”

“At least you’re learning something new.”

His bird head cocked to the side. “You should attend classes as a Hospitantin.”

I set down my glass. “A what?”

“A ghost student. Some women do it. You don’t register officially — you can’t — but you attend lectures and take notes. You wouldn’t be able to sit for examinations or earn a credential, but you’d learn.”

“And the professors allow this?”

“Some do.” He ate another piece of cheese, still negotiating his beak. “I could approach a few professors I know who might be sympathetic. But your Papa would need to approve.”

“I could manage Papa. The problem would be my stepmother, but if I begin entertaining suitors, she could be talked into it.”

“So what would you want to study?”

“Philosophy. Classical studies. German literature.”

“I’m taking philosophy,” he said. “And the professor allows several women to attend. We’ve been discussing Kant and Schopenhauer. Have you heard of Nietzsche? He’s a young professor at Basel. Remarkable ideas. I think in twenty years the whole world will be thinking differently.”

“I hope so.”

“I’ll also speak to Professor Adler. He’s a classicist, known for welcoming female auditors.” Otto finished his cheese and set the plate aside.

“Danke, Otto. You’re such a dear friend.”

I picked up my glass and took a small sip. To sit in a lecture hall and hear ideas debated with proper rigor. To be directed in my learning again, rather than stumbling through it alone. To be told what to read and why it mattered. To learn with intention rather than mere appetite.

“It appears that you have an admirer.”

Otto’s attention shifted to someone across the room. I followed his gaze and found James making his way toward us, weaving through the crowd with that same confidence he’d shown at the receiving line.

Otto stepped back, creating space as he arrived. “James.”

“Otto.” James nodded to him, then turned to me.

Otto gestured between us with his champagne glass. “Have the two of you been introduced?”

“Yes, we met just a short while ago,” James said. “In fact, Fräulein Knopf has been gracious enough to reserve a dance for me.”

I held up my card, the single name written there in his steady hand. “He is currently the sole occupant of my dance card.”

“Which is precisely why I’m here. To make good on that promise.”

“I hope it will not be too much of an inconvenience,” I said. “You should know that I’m not the best dancer.”

He extended his hand, amusement flickering behind his eyes. “I’m sure it will be no inconvenience at all. In fact, I’m certain it will be nothing but a pleasurable experience for us both.” He paused, perhaps catching the implication in his own words. “And you needn’t worry. I’m a fine dancer.”

He offered his arm and led me toward the ballroom. The orchestra was starting a new piece, a waltz by Waldteufel with a manageable tempo, one that would not demand too much of me.

As he took me in his arms and we began to move, I quickly decided he was not being arrogant. If anything, the word fine was a modest one.

His lead was clear and confident without being overbearing, the way so many boys were, always pushing too hard, trying to demonstrate their mastery of the steps rather than guiding their partner through them. I felt safe in his arms, which was an odd thing to notice but impossible to ignore. My hand rested in his, his other hand settled at my waist with exactly the pressure required and no more. We moved together as though we’d danced before.

“You said you paint,” he said as he led me through a turn. “What subjects do you prefer?”

“I started with watercolors. Nature scenes, mostly. Gardens and landscapes.” We moved past another couple, their costumes a blur of red and gold. “But I’ve been working in oils recently. Portraits and city scenes.”

“Oils require a dedicated space, don’t they? A proper studio.”

“They do. Papa is very accommodating. He gave me my own painting studio on the third floor.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” He smiled behind his mask. “I’ve just acquired my first substantial piece. A Liebermann — one of his Dutch works. Peasants working in the fields. My mother thinks it’s depressing, but I find it honest.”

I looked at him with renewed interest. Liebermann was controversial. His work captured labor and poverty with an unflinching eye that made Berlin’s polite society uncomfortable. The fact that James had chosen it, not a respectable landscape or a flattering portrait, said much about him.

“I would very much like to see your paintings,” he continued. “Perhaps I might acquire one for my collection.”

Heat flooded my face. “You don’t need to purchase my attention.”

He missed a step, the first imperfection in his dancing, and his hand tightened briefly about my waist. “Nein. I— That wasn’t my intention at all. I apologize. That came out entirely wrong.”

“I know what you meant.” I softened my tone, aware I’d flustered him. “But perhaps you should see my work before making such an offer. For all you know, my paintings are hideous.”

“I cannot imagine that being so.” His voice had recovered its steadiness. “But you are correct. I’m just very excited about building a collection and anxious to add more pieces, especially from new artists.”

We finished the dance and moved to the edge of the floor. A young man in a harlequin costume stood close, obviously wanting a dance, shifting his weight from foot to foot in a way that announced his intention.

James noticed. “I believe you’re going to be very popular tonight.” He paused, his confidence briefly wavering. “I wonder if you would permit me to dance with you again later. I would very much like to continue this conversation.”

“I would be most agreeable to that.”

I handed him my card. He wrote his name again, below the first entry, and returned it with a small bow.

I smiled, imagining the scandal in the morning as my stepmother reviewed my card and saw his name twice. I knew nothing could come of this, but the displeasure it would bring her pleased me immensely.

“Until later then.”

I curtsied as he left, then stood watching as he disappeared into the crowd, adjusting my assessment of him. Not entirely without charm or intelligence. In fact, I was already looking forward to our next dance.

The young man in the harlequin costume approached, clearing his throat.

“Fräulein? Might I have this dance?”

I glanced at my card. Two entries, both James. I looked up at the young man, picturing the hopeful face that surely lay behind that painted harlequin grin.

“Of course.”

More young men approached, introduced themselves, and requested dances. I added their names to my card — Hoffman, Richter, Klein, Werner, Brauer. All of them polite, some more interesting than others. Hoffman talked about horses for the entire dance. Richter asked more questions about Papa than about me. Klein was handsome and knew it, which made him slightly less attractive. Werner was pleasant and entirely forgettable. Brauer stepped on my foot twice, which was the most interesting thing about him.

By the time the orchestra paused for an intermission, my dance card was nearly full.

I found Papa in the card room, seated at a Skat table with General von Reinhausen and Herr von Bleichröder, who was taking a brief respite from his hosting duties. Papa looked pleased with himself, which was explained by the considerable stack of Geld sitting before him and the rather serious expressions on the faces of his opponents.

He glanced at my card, eyebrows rising. “You’ve been busy.”

“I’ve been about my business.”

He smiled. “Your stepmother will be delighted.”

“Ja,” I said. “I imagine she will be.”

He glanced at my card again, counting the remaining empty spaces. “Do you still want to leave after the unmasking?”

“I’ve had about enough dancing and socializing for one evening.” I kept my voice light. “But I plan to mostly fill the card as I promised.”

“Good.” He looked back at his hand, considering his cards. “I should be able to relieve these men of their remaining money by then.”

He took my hand in his and squeezed. “Continue about your evening, Liebling.”

Otto was exactly where I expected him to be, at the dessert table in the refreshment room, attempting to enjoy a piece of cake.

“Are you back for more worms?”

He looked up, beak slightly askew. “Ja.” He pecked at the cake with his fork. “Remind me to never dress like a bird again.”

“I’ll try to remember,” I said, accepting a glass of champagne from a passing waiter. The Erdbeerbowle had ceased to be adequate.

“You’ve been dancing a lot,” Otto said.

“I have.”

“And enjoying it, from what I observed.”

“It’s been a more enjoyable evening than I anticipated.” I took a sip of the champagne. “But I’m growing tired of it now.”

“Well then.” Otto set down his plate, brushing crumbs from his gloves. “I must introduce you to a new friend of mine. She moved here from the Rhine last month. You’ll find her delightful.”

“I’m sorry, but I have no patience left for meeting new people.”

He grabbed my hand. “You’ll like her. She’s as passionate and strong-minded as you are.”

“Otto, I don’t—”

But he was already pulling me through the door, back toward the ballroom. He never took no for an answer. He never had.

I doubted anyone at this ball could still interest me. But I followed him anyway, because arguing with Otto required more energy than I possessed.

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Table of Contents | Introduction | Historical Notes

I stepped down from the carriage, my hand in Papa’s, and looked up at the house. Three stories with almost every window ablaze, music spilling into the street along with the steady murmur of laughter and conversation. The livery on the footman at the door was immaculate, with gold trim and freshly polished buttons. The Bleichröders had money and wanted you to know it.

Inside, footmen relieved arriving guests of their cloaks and wraps. There were more of them than necessary, stationed at intervals like soldiers awaiting inspection. Flowers were everywhere. On the side tables, banked along the staircase, arranged in urns that were themselves arranged in pairs. Roses in April, which meant expense, which was the point.

At a large gilt-framed mirror, a couple and their daughter were admiring their reflection and picking at each other’s costumes. He wore the blue and gold dress uniform of Friedrich der Große — Frederick the Great, Prussia’s most celebrated king — rendered in such faithful detail that it might have come from a museum. Beside him, his wife stood dressed as Empress Sisi of Austria, the most beautiful woman in Europe and the most famously unhappy. The costume captured Sisi’s famous wasp waist and dark hair with uncanny accuracy. Their daughter stood slightly apart in pale green silk and golden hair unbound, trailing a small silver comb — the Lorelei, the Rhine maiden of German legend who sat upon her rock and combed her hair and lured sailors to their deaths without meaning to. The daughter looked the part and was sure to break many a man’s heart before the night ended.

Two officers in Prussian dress uniform stood near the staircase, apparently having decided that their uniforms would do for the occasion. They were not wrong. Imperial blue coats with gold epaulettes, high stiff collars, boots polished to a mirror shine, the Iron Cross displayed with the careful casualness of men who wanted it noticed but did not wish to appear to want it noticed. They watched the masked guests with the mild interest of people who considered themselves the most important people in the room, which in Berlin was not an unreasonable position.

Papa handed our card to the Haushofmeister, who announced us to no one in particular.

We joined the receiving line. Six couples ahead of us, moving at the pace of polite pleasantries. I watched our hosts, Herr and Frau Bleichröder, greet each guest with identical smiles of welcome. They had known most of these people for most of their lives, and would see them again next month at someone else’s ball. But tonight they acted as though each arrival were a surprise.

Papa had introduced Herr von Bleichröder to several men of influence during the last round of military contracts, the kind of introduction that cost nothing and was worth everything. It was the currency of a world that ran on relationships rather than receipts. Now Herr von Bleichröder threw this ball, which Papa attended, which maintained the connection that permitted more introductions, more contracts, more balls. A perfect circle that required constant motion, or else it collapsed.

The men in this room ran Berlin. No one had explained this to me. No one had to. I had spent eighteen years observing from the edges of rooms like this one, listening to conversations that were not meant for me, and drawing my own conclusions.

I knew enough to understand that Herr von Bleichröder’s bank financed the military contracts my father’s associates depended upon, and that those associates sat on boards of companies that benefited from those contracts. I had noticed that the same families appeared at every gathering. These families hunted together in autumn, took the waters together in summer, and required their sons and daughters to marry with a regularity that could not be coincidental.

Which was why I was here.

I was to find a husband among the sons of this circle. A young man I could tolerate, whose family’s interests would align with our family’s. A man I would have children with, who would marry the children of the other families here. These were transactions dressed as romance, alliances dressed as love, and arrangements so old and so complete that the people inside had long since stopped being able to see them clearly.

I could see the machine clearly enough. I could not yet see that escaping it would bring me more sorrow than I was prepared for and more joy than I had any right to expect.

The line moved forward.

As we reached our hosts, Herr von Bleichröder clasped Papa’s hand warmly.

“Knopf. Good of you to come.” Herr von Bleichröder was a substantial man with a long mustache and bushy sideburns. A pair of pince-nez perched on a strong nose, sharp eyes behind them that missed nothing. He looked the part of the powerful man he was in his black tailcoat, white tie, and white gloves. “You know my wife, of course.”

“Of course.” Papa bowed, taking Frau von Bleichröder’s hand, his lips grazing her glove. “Frau von Bleichröder. You look radiant this evening.”

When Papa released her hand, she looked down at me and took my hand in both of hers. She had the kind of face that made you feel, quite irrationally, that she had been hoping to see you. “And this must be your Emilie. What a delightful costume, my dear. Athena herself.” She leaned slightly closer. “I hope you will enjoy yourself tonight. We have some very interesting young people in attendance.”

“Danke, Frau von Bleichröder. You are most kind.”

“You must meet our son.” She turned slightly, drawing forward a young man who had been standing just behind her. “James. Come and meet Fräulein Knopf. She is just about your age.”

James von Bleichröder stepped forward. He was dark-haired, with his mother’s warm eyes set in a face that a painter would have found worth studying. I wanted to look at him longer. That was unexpected.

He took my hand, bowing slightly. “Fräulein Knopf.” His voice was low and unpretentious. “I hope the evening finds you well.” He held my gaze a moment longer than strict formality required. “I also hope, if you have room on your card, that I might be added to it.”

The dance card request made in the receiving line was slightly forward. Most young men waited until the dancing had begun. But it was done correctly, with a small smile that acknowledged the slight forwardness without apology. I did not mind it.

“I believe there’s room,” I said, and extended my wrist.

He took the card, producing his own small pencil. He was a young man who came prepared. He turned the holder in his fingers before removing the card, examining it with appreciation. It was a small silver case engraved with a pattern of Walderdbeeren, a gift from Papa on my sixteenth birthday.

“The design is lovely,” he said. “Though not as lovely as the wrist it’s attached to.”

Warmth rose in my face. I was glad of the mask.

He returned the card to the case with another small bow, and turned to Papa.

“Herr Knopf. A pleasure.”

Papa shook his hand. “Your father tells me you have developed quite an interest in painting.”

“He is correct to say so.”

“My daughter paints,” Papa said, surprising me.

“Is that so?” James’s eyes returned to me with fresh interest. “We will have to discuss that later.”

I noticed a slight recalibration in the quality of Papa’s smile. Was it recognition of this young man’s interest in me? He was not angry. Nothing so simple as that. More like a man discovering that his principles, as open-minded as they were, had boundaries he had not known existed.

He liked Herr von Bleichröder. He had said so in the carriage, and I believed him. But James, looking at his daughter as a potential suitor, that was another matter entirely.

Perhaps Papa was not quite as modern as he liked to imagine himself.

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Table of Contents | Introduction | Historical Notes

I settled into the seat across from Papa, close enough that our knees nearly touched. The carriage jerked forward, its wheels catching on the cobblestones. The house fell away behind us, the iron gate at the street receding, then gone.

The sounds of the city rose to meet us. Hooves on stone, the creak of other carriages about their way, voices of people heading to their evening entertainment. Berlin’s spring air moved through the open hood. A late-afternoon rain had washed the cobblestone streets clean, leaving them glistening under the gas lamps. The air carried the fresh scent of new foliage and hyacinths from the gardens we passed, mixed with the coal smoke smoldering from chimneys along the way.

Papa leaned back in his seat, hands resting on his knees. He watched me with the expression of a man who had something to say and was deciding when to say it. I looked out at the street and let him take his time.

The buildings grew taller as we moved toward the center. Our district gave way to wider boulevards, the narrow residential streets replaced by the grand sweep of Unter den Linden ahead, the street lights shining through the new leaves of the linden trees, their branches pale green and trembling.

The Opera House appeared before us, its columns glowing. Another carriage passed us going the opposite direction, the passengers visible for half a second — a woman in red silk, a man’s white mask turning toward us, then gone. I thought the scene would make an intriguing painting.

“I overheard you,” I said. “At the bottom of the stairs.”

He exhaled, a small sound, then nodded. “I thought you might have. Hildegard only wants what’s best for you. She worries because she cares.”

I said nothing. The carriage swayed, a small lurch as Ernst guided us around a slower carriage. I folded my hands in my lap and looked at the trees passing.

Papa knew what my silence meant. He knew I said very little when I disagreed, and this always made him nervous.

“When I married your mother, it was not a love match.”

I turned my head, surprised by this admission.

“We barely knew one another. And were certainly not in love,” he continued. “It was a sensible match. Practical. I was twenty-eight, she was nineteen, and neither of us expected anything more than a sound partnership. A household. Children, if God willed it.” He paused, his hands still on his knees. “Perhaps I was more comfortable with the arrangement than she was.”

I could hear Ernst above us, the soft click of his tongue urging the horses forward.

“The first year was tense,” Papa said. “Living with someone who was almost a stranger. Learning her habits, her likes and dislikes. She hummed when she was content — did you know that? Small tunes. I noticed it one morning at breakfast and realized I’d been hearing it for weeks without realizing it.”

He smiled, looking directly at me.

“But then you arrived, and everything was different.”

The words came without drama. A fact.

“She changed after you were born. Or perhaps I changed. Or perhaps we both did, and you could call it love because there was no other word for it.” He looked at me the way he used to look at Mama’s portrait, before my stepmother had it removed from the drawing room. “What I mean to say is this — sometimes the thing we think we cannot have becomes the thing we cannot imagine living without. Sometimes we don’t know what we need until we possess it.”

I held his gaze. Saw the love behind his eyes, unguarded in a way he rarely permitted himself. Saw Mama’s reflection in his eyes, not the woman on her knees in the garden but the woman who had shared his life, who had borne me, who had died six years ago and left her garden untended.

But I knew their story would not be my story. I would not marry a man and eventually fall in love with him. I understood what was expected of wives, and the thought of it filled me with dread.

The carriage swayed. Berlin passed outside. I let the silence settle between us, let him think I was considering his words with the seriousness they deserved.

Then I turned back to him.

“I’ll do my best tonight,” I said. And I meant it. Tonight I would do my duty. I would speak with every young man who approached, dance with whoever asked, smile at their tedious jokes, and ask polite questions about their equally tedious interests. I would be the very model of an eligible young woman. It would be exhausting.”

I could see the relief on his face. “Thank you, Liebling.”

“But,” I said.

He waited.

“I’d like to leave after the unmasking. Not right away, as I’m not unreasonable. But once the masks have come off and I’ve been seen and my dance card full. Once I’ve done what’s required.”

I watched him weigh it, the request against the promise, the evening’s obligations against my willingness to meet them.

He nodded. “If you socialize properly for the first few hours, I won’t insist we stay late.”

I held out my hand. “Agreed.”

We shook once, formally and slightly absurdly.

“Agreed,” he said.

The relief this produced was considerable. A Kostümball could go on until four in the morning or beyond. I had heard stories of dawn finding the last dancers still on the floor. The thought of enduring that many hours of polite conversation seemed a daunting challenge.

“I also overheard what she said about the von Bleichröders.”

Papa exhaled slowly and looked at me with the expression of a man making a decision. “You’re old enough to understand these things, I suppose. Life is sometimes more complicated than we would like it to be.”

“Is it? It seems to me that people often make life more complicated than it need be.”

He smiled at that, though not entirely with amusement. “Tell me your simple version.”

“She does not wish to attend because they are Jewish. You do wish to attend because you do business with Herr Bleichröder, and it would be discourteous not to. That seems simple enough.”

“You have the broad outline.” He shifted in his seat, looking out at the passing street. “Hildegard is not alone in her position. Many people of our acquaintance share it. You should know that.”

“Ich weiß,” I said. “And I don’t understand it.”

He was quiet again. Outside, we caught up to the lamplighter working his way along the street, the flame catching and holding above us as we passed.

“I have known Gerson von Bleichröder for many years,” Papa said at last. “We have worked closely together on matters I will not bore you with. What I can tell you is that in all that time, I have found him to be an upright and honorable man. More honorable than many Christians I know who would not hesitate to call themselves his betters.” He paused. “Hildegard has her position, and I do not expect to change it. But I will not pretend to share it.”

I noticed discomfort in his demeanor where I usually found composure. It was a rare division between them. Hildegard had been, whatever my feelings about her, a good wife to my father. She ran his house with quiet efficiency and managed his social obligations with little complaint. These were not small things, but most importantly, she had given him Friedrich. This disagreement cut deeper. It went to the heart of who he was and who she was.

“Why do people hate one another for such things?” I asked. “They believe what they believe. We believe what we believe. Why can that not simply be accepted?”

Papa was quiet for long enough that I thought he might not answer.

“If it were only that simple,” he said at last. “I wish I could tell you it were.” He turned to look at me directly. “What I can tell you is that there are people who require someone to look down upon. It helps them feel secure in their own position. The reasons they choose are rarely the real reasons.” He paused again. “But you should not worry about such things tonight, my dear. We are going to a ball. And whatever Hildegard says, most of Berlin will be there.”

“Most of proper Berlin will certainly not,” I said, in my best approximation of her tone.

Papa looked at me for a moment and then laughed, a genuine laugh, the lines deepening around his eyes. “Most of proper Berlin,” he agreed. “Gott sei Dank.”

The carriage slowed. I could see the building ahead, light spilling from the open doors. Other carriages lined the drive leading to the entrance. Footmen in livery, guests in costume, the blur of masks and candlelight beyond.

Ernst brought the Landauer to a stop. The springs settled. Inside, the evening waited.

Papa offered his hand. “Ready, my dear?”

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Berlin, 1878

“Be still, you wicked girl, or I shall pin your ear instead of your hair.”

I watched Magda in the mirror as she worked, placing each pin with care. Her face hovered above mine in the reflection, as familiar to me as my own. The lines around her eyes seemed deeper now, though maybe I was only just noticing them.

“You’re fidgeting.”

“I am not.”

“You are. You always fidget when there’s an event to attend.” She pushed another pin in, not as gently this time. “Hold still or you’ll end up at the Kostümball with your hair leaning to one side like a ship taking on water.”

I tried not to smile.

At least tonight was a masked ball. I could hide behind the white leather and remain anonymous until the midnight unmasking, when custom demanded we reveal ourselves. Until then, I was no one in particular. That suited me.

The ball was my stepmother’s idea. Everything I did not want was my stepmother’s idea, though I could not entirely blame her. She did not mean me harm. She merely saw me as a problem to be solved. Which was somehow worse.

But one wanted to have purpose in life, and to her, my only purpose was to disappear from this house, where I was a constant reminder of what had come before. My stepmother now had her son Friedrich, three years old and the image of our father. She wanted to get on with building her new family without the specter of the old one haunting the premises. I had felt like a ghost since Papa remarried. Present enough to be an inconvenience, but not substantial enough to matter.

She was trying her best. I knew that. It was her job to find me a good husband, someone who would treat me well and support me in the manner I was accustomed to. Marriage was just what young women like me were expected to do. The world had already decided, and was only waiting for me to relent.

I should help her. I should cooperate.

But I resisted.

“There’s no escaping it,” Magda said, pinning another section with what now felt like unnecessary force. “So you may as well let me make something of you. Most young ladies look forward to a ball.”

“You know I don’t like such things.”

“What things? Dancing? Music? Company?”

“Wearing these dresses. This makeup. Having my hair tortured into submission.”

“This is what young ladies such as yourself do.” She met my eyes in the mirror, her patience wearing thin. “They grow up, get married, and have children who grow up to torment their lady’s maids. We all have our place in this world.”

“I envy you,” I said.

Her hands went still.

“You don’t have these expectations.”

When she spoke again, her voice had an edge I rarely heard. “My dear child, you should not envy the likes of me.”

“But I do. You aren’t treated like cattle to be sold off to the highest bidder.”

“No?” She set down the comb so hard it rattled the washstand. “I work from before you rise until after you retire. I share a room much smaller than this one with two other women. When Herr Knopf no longer needs my services, I’ll get a month’s wages and perhaps a reference if I’m fortunate.” She picked up the comb again. “Don’t tell me I’m free, child. My walls are just different from yours.”

“Ich weiß. You’re right. Of course you’re right.”

Her hands paused on my shoulders. “I know you feel trapped. I’m not saying you aren’t. But there are worse prisons than this one.”

“It’s not just that. I feel so alone here. Sometimes I hear you and the others laughing in the kitchen and I want—” I stopped, not quite sure how to finish.

“You have your teas with the other young ladies. I hear you laughing sometimes. And your Greek and painting lessons.” The Greek lessons were Papa’s concession to my constant begging, indulging my obsession with all things classical.

“But I’m not like them,” I said, my words coming out more forcefully than I intended. “Their interests aren’t mine. They talk about hair and dresses and boys. All things I have no interest in.”

“And what of the young men?” Magda asked, smoothing a blonde strand back into place. Her touch was the only real affection I ever received, apart from the occasional kiss on the forehead from Papa. “Is there not one you’re interested in?”

“Nein. Not particularly.”

“But when you were younger—”

“When I was younger, the boys treated me like one of them. We played games, climbed trees, and had archery contests. Now they look at me in a strange way, as if I’m made of spun sugar and might melt in the rain.”

Magda smiled at her own reflection. “I miss having men look at me that way. You should cherish it, my dear. It doesn’t last forever.”

“But I don’t cherish it. Not at all.”

“You must stop being so willful.” She turned my head to the side, checking her work. “You must learn to like it.”

In the mirror, our eyes met. I looked away first.

“So there are no boys at all you’re fond of?” She began pinning again, slower now. “What about young Herr von Reinhausen?”

I was fond of Otto. But not in the way she meant. He was my friend, perhaps my only real friend, and that was all. In many ways, he had more in common with the other girls than with me. He was a lively sort who always seemed more interested in my hair and dresses than I was. We both liked art, opera, and ballet. We even used to take painting classes together before he began attending university.

He was truly talented. He painted horses beautifully, capturing the lines of their muscles and the shine of their coats. But he always added a man riding the horse, often absent a shirt. I never understood why he didn’t sometimes paint a woman riding the horse, or maybe just the horse.

“Has he never shown any interest?” Magda asked. “Has he ever kissed you?”

“Niemals!” The horror in my voice was genuine.

“Have you ever been kissed?” she persisted.

Several years ago, at a garden party, a group of us young people gathered in the parlor to play Wooden Face. I didn’t yet understand what games like that were for. The rules were simple: stand still and maintain a straight face, no matter what the boys do to make you laugh. If one of them succeeded, you had to kiss him.

I did not laugh. Not once. I stood with my face composed while the boys pulled faces, told ridiculous jokes, and generally made fools of themselves. I felt nothing but mild contempt for the proceedings and was quite proud of myself for maintaining my composure.

It took me some time to understand why everyone else found this so funny. The point, Otto told me later, was not to win. The point was to lose and to be kissed.

Their laughter had been good-natured. It stung anyway.

There had been other games that afternoon. One where a young man had to lower his trousers and show the girls something he oughtn’t. I’d turned my head, mortified, but I’d seen Otto looking. Intently. And I’d thought, if Otto was so interested in looking at something he himself possessed, shouldn’t I have been more interested?

“Nein,” I said. “I’ve never been kissed.”

Magda made a small sound that might have been approval or resignation. “Perhaps it’s for the best. Young ladies who are too free with such things are often talked about.”

I didn’t answer. She was right about everything, of course. My situation was growing more dire, and if I didn’t act soon, my stepmother would eventually choose for me. Perhaps Otto would make a suitable husband. He’d never shown the slightest romantic interest in me, which was comforting. We were good friends. Perhaps he wouldn’t trouble me about kissing and whatever else wives were expected to endure.

Magda turned me around, her hands firm on my shoulders, positioning me so that I faced the window.

Below, a gravel path led to our small garden. The staff still maintained the rose beds near the house, while leaving the patch in back untended. That was Mama’s patch, her sacred space.

They were still respecting it, six years after her death. The ground where she had knelt, hands in the soil, skirts spread around her like petals. Where she had grown what she chose, not because it was fashionable but because it pleased her. Herbs half-hidden among the ornamentals. Walderdbeeren grew along the base of the wall where the stones stayed warm, their earthy sweetness intense in the way of things that belong to forests rather than gardens.

I remembered sitting as a child, fingers stained red, the berries so small it took a dozen to feel satisfied. She would laugh as I ate more than I collected. They’re sweeter when they’re stolen, she’d say, though I was stealing nothing but her attention.

The patch now looked like a monument of neglect. Mama would have hated it.

“Lean your head forward,” Magda murmured, smoothing the silk across my shoulders.

Next week, I would clear away the weeds and tend it myself. I would keep the Walderdbeeren, but make my own choices as to the rest. I would plant what pleased me. I would kneel in the dirt the way she had, let the soil work its way under my fingernails, and I would not care that it wasn’t ladylike.

I loathed that word. Said with a particular inflection, as if being ladylike were the highest virtue a woman could achieve, and applied, it seemed, to most things enjoyable.

In the garden, ladies could direct the staff, suggest plantings, arrange cut flowers in vases. What they could not do was kneel in the earth themselves, dig and plant and tend it with their own hands. That was common labor.

Mama had not cared.

I would not care.

I spent a great deal of time feeling guilty about not feeling what I was supposed to feel. The thought of how much this would irritate my stepmother brought a smile I tried to suppress.

Tending Mama’s garden would not return her to me. I understood that. What I did not understand, not yet, was how it would connect me to her. The soil under my fingernails. The sense that my hands were doing what hers had done.

“Emilie!” Papa’s voice carried up from the entrance hall. “I’ve sent for the Landauer.”

“Nearly finished, Herr Knopf,” Magda called back. She tested the structure of my hair with gentle pressure, then stepped back. “There. Now for the mask.”

She lifted it from the dressing table — a white leather Colombina gilded at the edges, styled after the theatre masks of ancient Athens. I’d chosen it because Athena would not hide her face completely. Athena had no reason to hide.

Magda settled it over my eyes and tied the silk ribbons at the back. In the mirror, the Parthenian Goddess Athena looked back at me. The dress was white silk meant to suggest ancient Greece with a sash of pale gold at my waist. My throat bare because the neckline didn’t need adornment. Through the gilded mask, I saw Mama’s pale green eyes.

My hair was Magda’s triumph. Two hours of work, coiled at the back in the classical manner. A diadem of twisted gold wire and small white stones sat low across my brow. Two soft golden curls at my temples, precisely placed.

“Athena reborn,” Magda said, with pride.

I took one last look in the mirror, gathered my skirt, and moved toward the stairs.

The voices reached me halfway down the hall. My stepmother’s, low and urgent. Papa’s, patient. I paused at the top of the stairs.

“—keep her focused. This is not meant to be a frivolous evening, Heinrich. We need to find her a match.”

“Hildegard, please. Calm yourself. It’s not as urgent as all that.” Papa’s tone conveyed the mild exasperation of a man who’d had this conversation before. “She’s a lovely girl. It’s only a matter of time before a match is made.”

“Not if she refuses to even speak with the young men who approach her. Not if she won’t dance. You must make her socialize. Make her dance with whoever asks. Make her try.”

“You know how headstrong she is, but I promise. I will do my best.”

A brief silence. Then Papa’s voice again, softer. “I do wish you would come with us, Hildegard. It seems a shame for you to spend the evening alone.”

“It would not do.” Her tone was final, the kind that did not allow further discussion. “For me to visit such a home.”

“For the love of God, woman.” Papa’s patience, which was considerable, had found its limit. “All of society will be there. Fürst Bismarck himself will be in attendance.”

“All of proper society will certainly not be there.” Her voice remained perfectly level, which was somehow worse than if she had raised it. “There are families — good families, Heinrich — who will not set foot in that house tonight. And they are right not to. You may tell yourself that it is merely a social occasion. It is not.”

“Hildegard—”

“You attend because it suits your purposes. I do not criticize you for it.” I dared not move until this disagreement between them was settled. “But I will not reduce myself for coin. Just because certain men, my husband among them and apparently Fürst Bismarck, are willing to bear their hospitality does not mean I am required to do the same. Some of us still know what that family is.”

“Hildegard, that is not entirely—” Papa interrupted himself, apparently deciding this discussion was pointless.

“We will miss your company,” he said finally.

“You are very kind to say so,” she said.

As I descended the stairs, I could see the top of my stepmother’s head, her hair dressed simply for the evening. I suspected her absence would be explained away as tending to Friedrich, though my half-brother, who had just turned three, was probably already asleep in his nursery.

Outside, the sound of hooves on cobblestones. The Landauer arriving.

Papa looked up, his face brightening. “Liebling. You look lovely.”

“You have to say that.”

“I don’t have to. I choose to.” He smiled, the lines around his eyes deepening. “My daughter, Athena herself.”

My stepmother turned. Her gaze traveled over me from head to toe and back again, assessing every inch. After a moment she nodded. “Magda did a wonderful job. You two have a wonderful evening.”

It was not high praise, but coming from her, it was enough.

“I do wish you were joining us,” I said.

“Friedrich needs me here.” She smoothed the front of her dress with the flat of her hand, a gesture that closed the subject. “You will enjoy yourselves perfectly well without me.”

I was quite certain we would.

Papa offered his arm. “Shall we?”

I took it, feeling the solid warmth of him through the wool of his coat. We moved together toward the entrance where the footman held the door open.

The Landauer waited at the curb, polished and gleaming in the evening light. The folding hood was drawn back — impractical in winter but perfect for an April evening when the weather held fine. The body was painted black with discreet gold trim at the corners. Ernst sat in the driver’s seat, reins in hand, his livery immaculate.

He nodded as we approached. “Guten Abend, Herr Knopf. Fräulein Emilie.”

“Ernst.” Papa handed me up first, his grip steady as I gathered my dress and stepped onto the small iron step.

I did not know, as I climbed into the Landauer, that I would not return to this house the same as I left it. Looking back, I would change nothing.

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Table of Contents | Introduction | Historical Notes

Sixteen librarians and archivists sat in the main reading room of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, each spaced two meters apart, careful not to breathe too close to one another. Cloth masks hid all but their eyes. The hairs on Jenna’s arms bristled as she scanned the room. She could tell she was not the only one feeling uneasy as she watched her colleagues fiddling with their masks. Outside the room, maintenance workers covered computer banks with white sheets and lined up chairs against the walls.

Dr. Hoffmann, the head librarian, stood before them. Jana remembered her first day six years ago. Dr. Hoffmann had led her through the towering shelves, caressing the leather spines with one hand as she walked. “These books, especially the ideas within them, will endure long after we’re gone,” she’d said.

Now more than ever, Jana wished she could find comfort in the lasting power of the written word and the knowledge stored in the books that filled the library.

But today, Dr. Hoffmann’s shoulders were slumped, and her mask hid any expression that might have reassured her staff.

“We don’t know how long the closure will last.” Her voice echoed in the half-empty room. “Could be weeks. Could be months. Could be longer.”

The room fell silent. No one knew how to respond.

“If anyone lacks a laptop or computer at home, IT will provide one. See Martin before you leave.”

Petra raised her hand from three seats away, flowers on her mask, earnest as ever. “What exactly will we be doing at home?”

“The online catalog will need the most attention. Digital requests will go up, and people will depend on remote access to our online catalog more than ever before.”

A cough from somewhere in the back made everyone flinch.

“However.” Her voice grew a bit more hopeful. “This situation presents us with a unique opportunity. The basement archive has too many volumes that haven’t been cataloged. We’ve probably got books down there that are over a hundred years old. I want each of you to take home as many boxes as you can handle. Go through them and enter them into the system. It’s time we finally caught up on this backlog.”

Jana had been asking to work on the basement archive for two years. Dr. Hoffmann always responded that they were too busy, too short-staffed, or that it wasn’t a priority.

Her hand shot up.

“Can I request the oldest manuscripts?”

Several colleagues turned to look at her. She rarely volunteered for anything.

“The pre-1920 collections,” she clarified. “If nobody minds.”

Dr. Hoffmann nodded. “Sure. Take whatever you can carry.”

Old books excited Jana more than most people did. She loved the faded covers and the smell of old paper. The pages stained by unknown hands. She enjoyed the way Germans wrote in the nineteenth century, and how words had changed meanings or even vanished over time. Sehnsucht meant longing, but also ache and incompleteness. Heimat meant home, but also belonging and the feeling of being understood without words. Each book was a puzzle from another time. She could lose herself in that work for hours, even days.

Even months.

The meeting ended with nervous small talk and half-hearted auf wiedersehens. Jana grabbed a rolling cart from the processing room and headed to the basement. She knew the elevator would soon be crowded as everyone hurried to get their boxes before heading home.

The elevator opened to rows of shelves holding cardboard boxes and old wooden crates filled with books, most of them marked only with cryptic numbers and faded dates. Jana took her time, checking each box until she found the ones she wanted—those with the oldest books. She loaded six onto her cart, stacking them with care.

By the time she wheeled back toward the elevator, most of her colleagues were just arriving.

She hit the down button for the parking garage and waited.

Petra suddenly appeared next to her, pushing her own cart piled high. Her mask had slipped below her nose. Jana shook her head. It will be a miracle if any of us survive this.

The elevator doors opened, and they both began to move.

“Sorry! You were here first,” Petra said, moving her cart to make space.

It was a tight fit, and Jana had to stand pressed against the back wall. Petra’s cart blocked the doorway.

“Well,” Petra said as the elevator lurched downward. “This is it, isn’t it? Who knows when we’ll see each other again.”

Jana murmured something noncommittal.

“I’m going to miss you,” Petra continued.

They shared the same office, but Jana usually kept to herself. Maybe Petra thought they were closer because she never stopped talking. She talked incessantly about her weekend plans, her sister’s new dog, the café that changed its pastry supplier. Jana had learned to make encouraging grunts while Petra rambled on and on. Maybe Petra confused those grunts for real conversation.

“We’ll see each other on Zoom,” Jana offered as a consolation.

Petra’s nose crinkled above her mask. “But that’s not the same.”

No, it’s not, Jana thought, her mask concealing a smile.

The elevator chimed, and the doors slid open to reveal the parking garage bathed in fluorescent light.

Petra went first, pulling her cart backward over the threshold. One of her top boxes tipped. She grabbed for it and missed. The box hit the ground and split, spilling books across the concrete floor.

“Scheiße!” Petra crouched, gathering the scattered books. Most were post-war acquisitions, their covers still bright and clean.

Her hands closed around a smaller volume that had landed apart from the others. Cloth-bound, the color faded, the spine lettering dim yet still legible.

She turned it over and read the title. Her eyebrows rose.

“Oh. This one is definitely right up your alley.”

Jana glanced at an open box on her cart and gave Petra a slight nod.

“Thanks,” Petra said, gently placing the book into the box.

Sophie had taken over the kitchen table, with blueprints scattered around her. A jar of colored pencils sat nearby. She looked up with a smile as Jana shoved the door open with her hip, carrying the first box against her chest.

“Can I help with that?” Sophie asked.

“No, but there’s five more in the car.”

“Christ.”

Jana set the box on the floor near the bookshelf and straightened, pushing her glasses back up. “So. Are we ready for this much togetherness?” Sophie had only moved in the previous month, so her concern was warranted.

Sophie leaned back in her chair, her dark brown hair tied up in a messy knot. She was wearing one of Jana’s sweaters. One she had claimed weeks earlier. “I think so. I hope so. We’ll need to set some rules, though.”

Jana considered suggesting a rule about borrowing clothes without asking.

“Agreed,” Jana said, gesturing at the table. “I see you’ve already staked out your territory.”

“I can move—”

“Don’t. I’ll set up a desk in the corner by the bookshelf.”

Sophie stood and crossed the room, crouching down to examine the box. She picked up the small book that lay on top.

“This one looks old.” She held it up to the window and read aloud. “Der Liebe Lust und Leid der Frau zur Frau, Love’s Joy and Sorrow Between Women by Emilie Knopf.”

She looked up with a smile. “Sounds promising.”

Jana knelt next to her and kissed her softly. “The joy part, yes. We can skip the sorrow.”

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