Secret At The Opera
Mary Cassatt, In The Loge (1878)
My new friends at
provided a writing prompt in the form of Mary Cassat’s In The Loge (1878). “What do you see?” was the question posed. My answer arrived quickly — a short glimpse.
Mrs. Caussé sat in the first row of the gallery, her eyes fixed on the stage. Her beauty and charm had allowed her to rise from the depths of society to its upper class completely undetected. This was nearly impossible, but Fortune sometimes chooses wisely to give second chances, and hers was marriage to the owner of a respectable publishing house.
Through her binoculars, she saw on stage precisely the person who had drawn her to the Opera that night: her bastard son. She allowed a restrained smile to touch her lips as she cried inside. The one man who knew her secret sat three boxes to her right. She could feel his gaze upon her, his own glasses magnifying her shame, making sure that she that remained frozen.
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