ONCE UPON 24 TIMES: STORY XI

Story the Eleventh:
Princess of Cups (Page of Cups)
The Little Mermaid

Glittering Nymph, Eyes Bright with Wonder

Joline, Éponine, you two already know: when I turned eighteen, I donned my officer's uniform and we decided to celebrate my coming of age on the yacht. Colourful lanterns and pennants lit up the masts in the evening like decked Christmas trees, only Venus shone brightly above, and we were already in international waters, no land being seen anywhere, worlds away from mum and dad, all of us young and carefree. Indeed I was a charming young fellow, the loveliest person on deck, with those large dark eyes and that fluttering hair the same midnight shade, reaching out a friendly right hand and smiling to everyone as my favourite operatic tunes filled the evening and night with harmonies.
As those eighteen fireworks candles were fired, turning the night into brightly-coloured day for an instant, sowing the sky full of fire flowers, and loud hoorrays rang in my passage into adulthood, we hadn't seen the impending storm clouds. We were all, from the captain and Yours Truly even to the lookout, all flustered with flowing cups.
Then, as we steered course for home, lightning flashed (turning night to day in a more sinister way), rain poured down, it all soon turned to clamour and chaos... and, as the waves tossed and tore at our nutshell, one of them packed my ankles like a liquid rope, tearing me down into the dark deep below.
It was icy cold.
Within an instant, all the strength in my limbs wavered, failing; right in the moment when my strength failed, I could barely keep myself afloat in those fierce currents; my beautiful eyes were weary and they shut, expecting the last goodbye that was the only thing left to expect... and pale parted lips let out precious bubbles of air, cold liquid darkness streaming down into my lungs. I was to surrender everything...
Then, I rose. Carried to the surface, I gasped and breathed for air. For how long did my eyes remain shut? How deeply unconscious was I? All I could remember from this unconsciousness was my head being kept above the water's surface, that at dawn the storm had ceased (surely, not a trace to be found of the wreck), the glowing red radiant sunrise bringing life back to this weary face, or at least seeming to bring life back as it coloured my cheekbones, even though my eyes remained shut; and someone kissing my forehead and eyelids, kissing this beautiful noble brow time and again and stroking my wet hair away from my fringe to keep my face clear, patting my cheekbones...
Pealing bells suddenly began to sound and a lot of young girls came running through the garden, In the end, my eyes opened but for an instant. To see you, Joline, giving me first aid; my ankles bandaged and my head turned to the side, to expel all of that saltwater. You sat down beside me, on terra firma, and touched my face, cupping it; I opened my weary eyes and smiled. Twice my eyes opened but for an instant ere the lids shut, exhausted by such a slight effort.  Soon Yours Truly had come to himself and was smiling at everyone around him. When I was revived, I smiled at everyone... but right then, quite unexpectedly, my eyelids failed once more.
Joline then called for real doctors, and I was brought in a stretcher to her bedroom, where I awakened. In a convent or boarding school on a foreign shore, overlooking a beach of grassy dunes, green pine forests, and some kind of church or finishing school where young girls roamed in a fertile garden, among rose arbours and citrus in bloom.
In the background there was a range of high blue misty mountains whose tops, rising to the blue day sky, were scattered with snow, their ice caps lying there like white swans in repose. Nearer to the shore there were beautiful green pinewoods, not so thick like those of my own northern lands, but rather flooded with sunlight; all around the whitewashed walls of the finishing school. Orchards of citrus trees --bitter orange, lemon, clementine-- grew in its garden and there were tall Phoenix palms at its entrance. The shoreline edged into a little bay here, beyond the dunes (this was the coast where I had come to) and was dead calm but very deep, waters as tranquil as they were deep, and the coastline skirted some chalk cliffs, below which dunes of white shell-sand were spread. Here it was that I lay down on a dune and she had been taking care that my head lay above the tideline (and above the rest of my body) in the bright sunshine, my head receiving the warm light of the sun. Pealing bells then began to ring in the large whitewashed convent, and a group of maidens went out into the gardens. It did not last much until the youngest girl came along. She was startled for a moment by what she saw, but then recovered her senses, equally suddenly, and called over more people. Soon many others approached, all-female students as well as teachers of both sexes, and, opening his eyes, Yours Truly had come to himself and was smiling at everyone who surrounded him. When they had taken me into the great whitewashed walls, consciousness had slipped once more.
Soon, when I returned home (indifferent to everyone's elation at the fact that I was still alive), I would yacht along the coast, with opera music and the usual colourful lanterns and pennants; or spend hours on my own, staring at the magnificent full moon that reflected itself in the glittering deep below the cliff that overlooks my bedchamber balcony. Our mansion, as you know, various marble staircases, one of which is actually hewn into the limestone cliff and descends all the way down to the ocean. Magnificent cupola domes of crystal glass crown the estate, four at the corner towers and the fifth in the middle in a quincunx arrangement, and among the neoclassical columns of the porch there are marble deities that seem to be alive: Aphrodite of Knidos, Apollo Belvedere, a Hades abducting Persephone replicated from Bernini's in the Vatican... The walls of the splendid halls are covered in tapestries of classical myths, silken curtains, and the most beautiful paintings, with subjects also lifted from the literary classics. In the central courtyard there springs a beautiful jet d'eau fountain with a rainbow effect, the high-pressure stream that it shoots reaching nearly up to the inside of the ceiling crystal glass dome.
Even though my parents had tightened up security after the wreck, that did not hinder me from yachting along the shore, as long as my few friends and me were close to land, accompanied by a string quartet and my best opera singers on board. Sometimes one of us saw something white flutter in our directions among the reeds in a lagoon; the cellist and the primadonna always spoke of merfolk, while it was most surely a swan flapping wings and stretching neck out. "Ever the doubting thomas!" And "Ever the realist," I would always reply. Ditto whenever our yacht was tailed by a person-sized, spindle-shaped underwater form, and my rational explanation always involved either a harbour seal or a porpoise.
The fisherfolk have always said that I was so good, though it was merely noblesse oblige on our side, but society did not share the same views. Someone cold, aloof, always on the defensive. Expectations like only those an only child of rank can know.
As I have said before, for many evenings and nights I found myself alone on that marble balcony, in the light of the moon, most frequently when it was full, watching the tide rise and silver ripple on the dark waves, while denying that what reached the ocean and me was actually mirrored sunlight.
For four or five years I never heard of my dear Joline, locked away from the outside world, sworn to chastity and to perfect her learning. Detached and intellectual, yet loving, outspoken... telling stories by my bedside as I recovered. Free, cheerful, outspoken, clever, looking at me with that rebellious and defiant air of yours; I instantly fell head over heels in love with you.
Then, when I was no longer a stripling, I discovered you, Éponine. That girl of a child down on the shoreline cliff, a maiden in her mid-teens innocently wrapped in sail canvas. Surely a castaway whose voice had been wrested from her by the shipwreck.
"Wie geht es dir? Comment allez-vous? ¿Cómo va?" No reply she gave, nor in any other language either. Neither to this question who she was, and how she had gotten to that shore.
My speechless little castaway with deep azure eyes that spoke louder than words... whose steps wavered as I first took her by the hand... You couldn't speak, and still you needn't as much as breathe a single note. Taking you by the hand, I realised that you walked light as a feather, movements admirably graceful, though your ascent up the cliff-hewn staircase was at least slightly hard.
I dressed you, Éponine, in silk and satin, remarking that you preferred a coat and breeches to a gown and petticoats. The next day in the morning, we had you fitted for a page's dress. So you mostly wore un costume d'homme, a man's outfit, which had been tailor-made for you, sewn on our commission out of aqua silks and sapphire velvet, so you could go horseback riding as our instructor, the same instructor of my childhood, had taught you... and ever rode your pony straddling on horseback, one leg on each side. Riding through scented sun-dappled springtime lindenwoods, where the green branches  brushed or even hit our shoulders and little finches sang or chirped among the lush foliage of new fresh leaves, or darted between the green spring boughs. Or climbing on foot up steep mountain ranges together, without ever losing our smiles, I leading and she laughing and following uphill, till we stood on the permafrosted peak watching our doll-castle mansion on the seashore, and cumulus clouds that passed beneath our feet, sailing below us as if they were flocks of swans migrating, taking flight to distant lands, as you listened wide-eyed and greedy-eared to my stories and observations. We were all right with this arrangement, my parents and I. Every now and then, I daydreamt of Joline in a man's outfit (what would she look like?), only to see my little blue-eyed castaway in blue instead. Always silent, yet always full of pluck and resourcefulness, free spirit challenging assumptions.
At the opera, you looked sad as the primadonna who starred as Persephone sang her duet with Hades. All those good-looking singers dressed in costumes of silk and gold came to perform before our noble family, ie Yours Truly and his august parents, so I smiled and clapped my hands and even threw my buttonhole carnation at the primadonna, as soon as the duet was finished. That childish pout! I bet you were slightly jealous! However, Éponine... in the dance afterwards, you seemed to soar, or swim, in the waltz across the ballroom, as gentlemen and ladies began to dance freely to the rhythm of that enchanting waltz. Just raising both your arms and standing on tiptoes, just like a ballerina, floating above the marble floor with unearthly grace and lightness. Walking on air. No one had ever seen anyone dance like that ever before; each and every single one of your movements revealed all of your childlike beauty as you did not cease to pirouette without seeming the slightest light-headed... and, what's more, your aquamarine eyes spoke more eloquently to the hearts than the lyrics and the tunes and the singing voices in all the songs in all the operas ever written. Everyone was fascinated, my little castaway... so I told everyone that I wanted you to stay always by my side. And thus, we were even allowed to share a bedchamber, your sapphire velvet-covered futon at my bedroom door, no matter what they said about a young man taking up a female valet. Truly, you were the loveliest child ever seen upon land. Everyone who saw you said: "She's so pretty, so graceful. 'Tis such a pity that she cannot speak."
Was I the Hades to your Persephone?
Sometimes, when I couldn't sleep, I saw you, Éponine, going down the staircase hewn into the cliff and dipping your feet into the ocean water, as if to cool and soothe them, as if to heal their sores, while sitting on the last step. So did you do every night while I slept alone in my room. No matter how cold the water might be. Such pluck... You could also swim like a porpoise, like an orca. Even in the icy December. Always ready for adventure. Never afraid of the water, neither of oceans nor freshwaters (in spite of the wreck you had suffered), as seen also when we went out for a sailing trip with the new yacht, the one I conveniently named Joline...
"Mistress?" They whispered the word, Éponine, but though I loved you, more for each day after day, you were always a child, five years my junior, never meant for serious fun (that thought did not even flash in my head); but rather as a merry child, a sister or a friend. A confidante. Clasped you in my strong arms and kissed that lilywhite high brow of yours... as I thought of Joline. The look in your blue eyes, far more innocent than her emerald orbs, so expressive that I understood.
And still I had to tell Éponine the truth, with a forlorn look in my eyes. "You remind me of someone you look like, in a country far away. She saved my life after a shipwreck; I only saw her once or twice then and never saw her again, and perchance I shall see her nevermore..." Of my eighteenth birthday out on the wide blue, the day that should have been my last one. The waves and currents that tossed me upon the shore, not far from that sacred nunnery that had become a finishing school for young ladies. The youngest of all the novice schoolgirls, Joline, found me on the beach and nursed me back to consciousness. She saved my life. I merely saw her as in a dream, for my eyes shut as instantly as they had opened. I was only able to see her twice, but she is the only person in this world whom I can love. "What ever happened to her? I know nothing. I was only able to see her twice... She was the only one I could have ever loved and I will ever love upon this world. But you, my dear little one, resemble her, and you are within my heart like her mirror image; you nearly make her image fade from my heart and soul. She belongs to the sacred, she is consecrated to the Faith, and you resemble her to an astonishing degree. The fates must have sent you within my reach in her stead. Thus, we shall never part!"
Chance takes some really interesting twists and turns.
Like, I thought you, Joline, were sworn to be estranged forever from the world and sworn to chastity. That you belonged to the sacred and would never leave from there, nor even set a foot outside. And that we should, thus, never see each other again.
While Éponine was by my side, I still missed you dearly. I missed those emerald orbs that shone with wit, the fact that you were rarely seen without a book or a puzzle at hand, how learnedly you discoursed, the fact that you had an answer for everything. Someone I could share my opinions with, engage in lively conversation with, earnest discourses, my intellectual equal. Someone mature, a young adult, serious fun.
Then the whisper went about. That the time had come for yours truly to get married; thus, my parents had betrothed me to this foreign noblewoman called Joline, whom I had never seen even a portrait of.
At first, I thought it was only a namesake. Who knew the secret thoughts of the rightful heir, but himself? At best, the speechless maiden whose long golden hair I stroked and played with, whose head I lay to rest upon the middle of my chest, straight upon my heart, could even guess...
"I have no other choice than to accept this. They say she is very beautiful and kind, but I don't want to marry someone I've never met. I am the rightful heir, my parents and hers wish for the betrothal, and thus they have decided that we two should meet and get to know each other... but they will never constrain me, never force me to stoop for her will. I would never know how to love her, never be able to love her, since I will never love anyone except one who resembles the fair novice Joline who saved my life, whose features you make me recall; because she surely looks nothing like that maiden from the convent. And, since until now I haven't found anyone more like her than you, Éponine, whose image nearly makes hers grow pale within my heart, my poor little azure-eyed castaway with eloquent orbs... in spite of your eternal silence, I would rather have you to wife. Your eyes speak in such a lovely language!"
I said that to her a fortnight before everything changed. A month ago, Joline. Though it feels like an eternity ago.
Within a few days, trumpets were sounding fanfares, and regiments were holding reviews with formations full of throbbing drums, fluttering flags, glittering bayonets; pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war. Now there was a tennis tournament, now Orpheus and Eurydice, and soirées followed upon soirées while soldiers stood with waving banners and glinting bayonets. There was feasting every day; fêtes and soirées followed one after another, every day brought new entertainments in preparation to welcome the bride; all days were celebrated with banquets, dances, sports tournaments, theatrical premières... yet she did not attend any single one of them. Joline. She was still to be found in the sacred enclosure, where she was being educated to become the noblewoman expected of her rank. They said she was raised in sacred ground on the coast of her land, to fulfil an oath her mother had sworn while expecting her, and in that sacred convent, which doubled as a finishing school, she had learned all the courtly graces and all the virtues of royalty. People said that she had to come from a sacred ground far away where she'd been schooled in royal virtues.
Night after night my lord father arranged fresh entertainments for our guests---balls, concerts, theatricals, and mock-fights were all on the varied programme. My little castaway and I had to appear merry and delighted with the entertainment, although impatience and doubts tortured me in many ways. Éponine alone was in her element, like a duck to water, and played her part apparently well; she went into merry-making heart and soul, which is absolutely necessary for the success of any undertaking. She kept my parents and their court in continual roars of laughter or applause by her performances. She took every liberty with my old man; pulled his hooked nose, took his powdered wig crown from his head, put it on her own, or rather her head through it, so that the golden curls appeared dancing on her face. Eventually, encouraged, I would take the wand of command, and, flourishing it around, assume the airs, and give commands to everyone at the table, and so forth.
Next morning, when at breakfast the day's amusements were broached, then, eventually, I caught that rumour as our eyes caught sight of the mast of her yacht.
However, when the bride strode upon the gangway plank...
It felt like a gunshot right between the eyes.
Éponine was forgotten like a character in a dream. I never expected that you were the bride, my Joline. That the fates had thus entwined our threads of life. Mortal eyes had never in a life seen so lovely a person in general, or so beautiful a maiden in particular. Her complexion was radiantly pure, she had skin fine and delicate, and behind her long, dark eyelashes smiled a pair of dark green eyes.
"Joline... It was you... all along!!!" I ran up the gangway towards your fine and agreeable figure, with translucent skin, and, 'neath long auburn lashes, two emerald orbs that shone with so much kindness and grace; my arms outspread, my eyes swimming in unchecked tears. "It was you who saved me... when I lay bereft of life, dying, left for dead like a done-for corpse, a hair's breadth from breathing my last, upon the dunes on that lonely shore!!"
And I clasped you to my heart, drawing my bride, covered in blushes, into my arms, realising that you were of flesh and blood, drying up my tears on your flaming auburn crown of hair, as you recognised me as well and blushed-flushed with modesty, warming my uniform and shirt and heart. The heart I wore upon my sleeve.
Everything was, thus, the best we could wish.
"If I were to die now, 'twere to be most happy!" I quoted. "The best that I ever dared hope for, what I desired most in this life, what seemed too impossible, has become reality... I know it is! I remember it so well. What I never even would have dared to dream has occurred! Can you believe it? We can be married tomorrow! Rejoice in my happiness, and share my happiness, my little castaway, who are closer to me than anyone!"
I encouraged Éponine to share our happiness, but my little confidente, after kissing her soft lily-like right hand, shyly turned away from us, with tears in her downcast, large blue eyes. Though she was smiling, I could see it was a brave face. And still I paid no heed to it.
And soon, after some most lively discussions on literature and music of the present day, and according to the agreement between both our houses, we announced (Joline and Yours Truly) officially our resolution to take one another to husband and wife. And thus, all the fanfares were pealing, all the drums were throbbing, the whole apparatus of warfare was displayed even more than the day of your arrival.
Heralds went about on horseback announcing the betrothal, journalists motioned towards us to look into their cameras, on every altar incense was burned in swaying golden recipients and scented candles in costly silver candelabra... in the end, as bride and groom, the two of us entered the church hand in hand --Yours Truly in ceremonial uniform; you, Joline, in white silks with a white lily crown--, held one another's hands, slipped rings into left ring-fingers, and both our houses received the wedding blessing from Monsignor Runius. The pair said their vows, "I do" at unison, and the nave erupted into overwhelming applause.
I will never forget the kiss that you gave me then, wrapping me in a cocoon of white lily-crowned gauzy tulle veil (even though it is the bridegroom who is expected to kiss the bride!)...
Of course Éponine was there too, among all the high society and officers and courtiers and journalists and acolytes. She was a bridesmaid, the maid of honour to be more precise; clad in white silken gold brocade, carrying Joline's airy tulle veil and her satin gown-train off the ground. She held the first place in the ceremony excluding us, the third place --after the bride and the groom--. The nuptial music was mostly by Bach, with the exception of the customary Wagnerian "here-comes-the-bride" wedding march at the end of the sacred ceremony, with all the showers of rice and petals that rightfully belonged to such a main event.
Supper was over, the desserts cleared away, and the brandy was doing its duty of making everybody merry. On that very same evening, the honeymoon took place. At twilight, all three of us went on board the sailboat now named after my unexpected and intelligent young wife, with a smile and a voice as warm as springtime. Free, cheerful, outspoken, clever, with that rebellious and defiant air of yours; I instantly fell head over heels in love. The cannons along the cliff were fired in salute, and all the flags of the other boats on the docks fluttered in the evening breeze. Cannons roared, flags waved...
And thus we set sail. Since the weather was fair and everyone was sober --and a lovelier night sky you might never had beheld before in the middle of the ocean--, right on deck they had raised a magnificent tent of purple-gold brocade, where the fortunate couple, the two of us young newlyweds, cushioned in luxury, were to spend the still, tranquil, and especially cold open-sea night together.
My ordinary bunk was now all Éponine's: both you, Joline, and I were in the mood for serious fun. For being undressed in the dark, with the stars (and hopefully not the lookout) for our witnesses. The two of us. My hands lost in your petticoats, perspiration coursing down our spines. And your clever eyes of emerald green reflecting my dark midnight orbs, reflected in them as well.
With the evening breeze swelling our sails, on such a calm that one might have taken the ocean for blue land, our keel glided softly over transparent blue waters, so tranquil that they seemed far more frozen than liquid; and as night fell, the sailors were lighting, upon the masts, colourful lanterns among the pennants... just like on that day I turned eighteen. The day our threads of life entwined. That night, there was a wonderful party. Joline and I danced for hours, everyone else dancing merrily on deck as well. We were deeply in love already. We were both of us still dressed, and I motioned to Éponine to join the dance; you, my dear wife, had only heard of the maiden's light feet and never seen them in motion. She just whirled herself into the dancing and mingled herself with us, swerving and dipping, and everyone marvelled, filled with admiration, for she had never danced so wonderfully before; she seemed to be soaring in mid-air, just like a songbird flying low before a storm. There was a standing ovation in awe all across deck after her riverdance and jig performances; even tough sailors whistled in a tune that I knew spoke of lust for the flesh. Lots of acclaim and applause, for no one had ever seen anyone dance so ethereally.
Everything was mirth and fun, and all three of us never ceased to dance or to laugh. The partying went on till after midnight, the revels lasted until one o'clock or so, as I kissed you, my lovely lady wife, and you played with my beautiful raven locks, as curly as springs. Yours Truly kissed and caressed his delectable bride, and she stroked his soft dark hair and then, arm in arm, I took your hand, you entwined an arm in one of mine, and we two retreated and peered out into the starry, moonless springtime night together.
"How wonderful the stars are," I said to you, dear Joline, "and how wonderful is the power of love!"
Then, your left arm around my waist and my right arm on your shoulders, we retreated and went to our rest, headed for the resting bed under our magnificent brocade tent. Once there, after you had drawn the tent-curtains shut, my hands slipped under your petticoats. I ripped your corset open as you unbuttoned my uniform's coat and shirt.
Something hardened between my legs. A feeling that I had never had with Éponine.
Our serious charade lasted for how long? Intoxicated with the poisonous draught of love; it was exciting, fiery, unquenchable. Until both of us sank down, exhausted, undressed, under the covers, with your head against my chest.
Outside, on board, silence had come, all became hushed with not even a wave lapping at the hull; only the lookout was wide awake.
The hot auburn head of a mature young woman resting upon the middle of my chest, listening to my steadying heartbeat, as I ran fine fingers through her soft hair and, as I lay dreaming, whispered in my dreams the name "Joline..." Then I felt a quick kiss, a peck, on my untroubled forehead, but paid no heed at the moment to that detail. The lovely bride sleeping pleasantly with her head on my chest... Yours Truly tossed and turned in his bed, murmuring his bride's name in his dreams, for only she was in his thoughts. "Joline, Joline..." Ah! Only she, only you filled all my thoughts! Even in sleep, you were in my thoughts. In my dreams, in those dreams where I called you by name. Ah, only you alone were in my thoughts!
We woke up as the first dawn crept up the waves, startled by the lookout's loud:
"WOMAN OVERBOARD!!"
Gasp!!
At once, we were in nightshirts and on our feet, outside through a tent-curtain that was surprisingly half-parted, and through which faint rays of soft pink sunlight filtered in.
The morning sky was softly pink with light on the horizon, the rosy fingers of Eos opening the doors for the sun-chariot, and so was the tide below; the rays of the rising sun spread more and more across the eastern skies. At dawn, on board, bustle and noise had returned. Both Yours Truly and his lovely bride were soon looking for her and gazing woefully at the billowing clouds of white foam, for we knew that she had thrown herself into the waves.
We didn't have to search far and wide.
There, overboard, lay Éponine. Unconscious, her eyes shut, her golden locks a halo around her pale heart-shaped face, her limbs tangled in a thicket of kelp, her coat and breeches drunk on brine and pulling her towards the deep... gaping, chanting old nursery tunes with what little voice she had left ever since the shipwreck (this was the first and the last time I heard what her lilting speech sounded like), as one incapable of her own distress; as she disappeared within, as if she had dissolved into azure liquid herself. Into currents the colour of her eyes.
Racked with guilt, I could only stare in dread as I put on the bravest face I would ever put in a lifetime.
The morning breeze planted a kiss upon my young lady wife's forehead and loosened, slightly, her auburn chignon. She reacted with a true lady's sensibility and sensitivity, understanding the sorrow of the broken-hearted damsel.
"I am the innocent cause of your misfortune... Pardon me...!" you pleaded, Joline, half in tears. I did not know why, and neither did you, and it was for the first time in your short life... but the saltwater streaming down your cheekbones was not spray from the waves.
Then the same breeze seemed to smile at me, mussing my raven fringe and whiskers, before it softly filled our sails and flitted up through and among the rose-pink cotton candy clouds.
My little voiceless maiden, now vanished into thin air, had just said her fondest last farewell.
(Upon her bunk, we had discovered a little scroll that appeared to be a suicide letter. It was addressed to Joline and said the following: "Dearest Joline, you are forgiven. Under the great arch of the heavens, there is no woman more fortunate than you. May you thus be forever." The handwriting, though written in ink blurred by tears, was distinctly Éponine's!)
Our sailing proceeded smoothly, without any storms, as if some gentle spirit of the air were watching from above. If merfolk really existed, why could sylphs not?
As we landed back home, Joline requested un costume d'homme, des vêtements d'homme, a page's suit, ein Knabentracht, en mandsdragt, en karladräkt, des habits d'homme, un traje de hombre, un vestit d'home, a man's costume, a man's outfit, a man's dress, men's clothes made for her so she could go horseback riding astride, having learned to ride ponies at the finishing school but finding her habit and later her petticoats uncomfortable; and the next morning she was accordingly fitted for a page's dress. She now wears emerald-green breeches and a peridot-green riding-coat to match the colour of her bright eyes, through which her wisdom and wit so clearly shine, and her flaming hair in a queue tied back with a ribbon at the nape of her neck. It fits her even better than the gown and chignon.
After all, my head and my virility may be all hers, but half my heart is still Éponine's... and it hurts to have shattered that half myself.
(Even though I listen to Joline right now about the look of discomfort on her husband's face; she says I look anything but like a successful lover, and enter into the enjoyments with about as much zest as others themselves. "During the day you often disappear, and on your return look more dejected than when you left, in spite of your efforts to appear merry.")
Wounded hearts heal overtime, Joline says, her arms around my slender waist. Now that she is expecting, I feel that both of us cannot be more fulfilled. It's finally healing at the end of the day.
If it's a girl, we agree, we'll call her Éponine.


ANNOTATIONS:
The prince's (here, lieutenant's?) POV for the Little Mermaid story was one that I have thought of for ages. Thinking of, for instance, Lacombe's Madame Butterfly as told by Franklin Pinkerton.
The name of the (ex-mer-?)maid Éponine is for her counterpart Éponine Thénardier in Les Misérables, while the more mature, speaking bride Joline is named after the Dolly Parton song.
I would also like to thank Oscar Wilde and William Shakespeare for providing some inspiration. Also because the drowning and dissolving Éponine at the end is clearly Ophelia as painted by Millais (It's never clear in this tale if Éponine is a former mermaid or simply a little mute castaway from foreign shores, but Hamlet's fiancée plays a lead role in the inception of this tale!).
The ending, with Joline's remark about wearing un costume d'homme - des habits d'homme and the narrator remarking that his head and his virility are all Joline's, but his heart is still half-Éponine's (clearly in mourning)... is brilliant.
Consider SurLaLune's annotation for H.P. Paull, who translates "en mandsdragt" as the ambiguous "a page's dress" (via "ein Knabentracht", most certainly):
34. He had a page’s dress made for her, that she might accompany him on horseback: While Mrs. Paull chose the word page's dress to describe the page's costume, the outfit ("mandsdragt") is really a uniform for a male page. The little maid is crossing gender lines by wearing men's clothing and going horseback riding with him (Tatar 2002, 302).
Maria Tatar's own translation has "a page's costume," echoing H.P. Paull, and she provides the following annotation:
47. The prince had a page's costume made for her. Critics who bemoan the self-effacing nature of the mermaid often neglect to note that she is also more adventurous, spirited, and curious than most fairy-tale heroines. Cross-dressing is a sign of willingness to cross boundaries and to take risks in order to see the world.
While the FutureLearn course, which has "a man's costume" in the John Irons translation, states the following:
"He brings her home and is not insensible to her beauty. He does notice that her eyes are eloquent, but [···] then he has a man’s costume sewn for her [···]  We might say that in (the second of) three different ways he tries to protect himself from her. The prince loves a girl who looks like her, (but who is sworn to chastity)."
A Literary Translation course, that employs the Erik Haugaard translation which uses "men's clothes," has the following remark, on the same line: 
the man's outfit created for her: desexualize the maid, friend zoned (however, since the "-dragt" is rendered as "outfit" - I think another source would have been Marte Hvam Hult, who renders "a man's outfit" in her translation.)
Definitely, as a feminist, I rather agree with Maria Tatar.