L'exilée

The narrative evokes an encounter with a queenly, fairy-like woman living in a forest‑surrounded castle; through detailed, sensorial description of her boudoir, dress, manuscript illumination and nearby royal gardens the narrator reconstructs conversations, mourning for a deceased child, and the melancholic atmosphere of exile. Music and remote trumpet calls trigger memories; the sovereign's complex expression alternates between perpetual smile, deep compassion and sorrow. Scenes contrast ornate interiors—treasures, tapestries, eastern costumes, a sacred kiosk—with the surrounding primitive forest, while meditations on beauty, ritual, and loss thread through portraits of domestic rites, artistic labor, and private grief.