TO CARVE AN ANGEL FROM MARBLE act one, chapter two
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( september 1831 )
THE LARGE WINDOW IN Madeleine and Andre's shared bedroom granted a perfect view of the Parisian streets just outside their house. Every day, citizens passed by, living their lives, unknowing of the young woman who sat just on the other side and watched them carefully as though their actions were the most important thing in the world. This was how young Madeleine spent much of her time, for she never felt the need to wander the streets of Paris unless it was to take a trip to the library or the gardens.
She enjoyed watching the people. She found it oddly rewarding, for in a way, she could live vicariously through them. To say Madeleine's life was boring would be an understatement; after all, she was but an nineteen-year-old woman who had little money and only a basic education (her dear mother made sure that all of her children could read, if nothing more.) There wasn't much that she could do, apart from working as a seamstress- or much less respectable jobs- and her eldest brother made it clear when she came of age that he did not want her working in a factory.
He had said that the last thing he wanted was to risk his sister getting mistreated by some perverted foreman- which was, sadly, quite a common occurrence.
She found it rather ironic that Leon was aware of the mistreatment of working women, seeming even disgusted by it, yet he frowned upon his sister fighting to make conditions better for her sisters.
It was only a few months after Madeleine's last birthday that she decided to spread her wings and truly get to know the city that she'd lived in for her entire life. Only a month or so later, she found herself in a jail cell alongside a small group of feminists who convinced her that they could make a difference.
Part of her was discouraged because of her arrest. What could she do to truly make a difference? She was young and inexperienced and knew nothing of the real world- yet, after all the time she'd spent staring out that window in her bedroom, she felt as though that was not true. She experienced small parts of life through the interactions she witnessed every single day. Shop owners selling their goods to feed their families, lovers arm in arm enjoying each other's company, young children playing in the streets while their parents watched on lovingly. She witnessed the good, and she witnessed the bad- including the beggars who waited for even the smallest gesture of kindness, the children who never left the streets because they had no home to go to, women who had no choice but to sell themselves to desperate men in order to afford a meal.
Madeleine saw it all, and although she had never truly experienced it for herself, she felt as though she had. It was impossible for someone with a heart as big as hers to simply not care about the lives she witnessed outside her bedroom window.
