Aglaia

Fourteen years in colonial Constantine have transformed the woman who once sailed in the Auvergne: silver threads her hair, her skin has grown golden and transparent, and she governs her household with impeccable, slightly excessive tidiness. Everyone agrees there is no better mother or more charming companion than Madame Maraud, and her husband believes her soul utterly tranquil and open to him. Yet a single earlier incident—an Arab juggler who hypnotized her almost completely in Tunis—hints at a morbid suggestibility beneath her refined composure, a fault line that the arrival of Emile Du-Buis will find.