Reference:   Shueisha bunko 3, 71-82 (tankoubon 5);   anime ep.28

[ On their way to Versailles, Oscar and Gerodère come across Sophia with a broken carriage.   Oscar sends Gerodère to Fersen and escorts Sophia to a rest place.   The two chat while waiting for Fersen's aid. ]

Sophia:	Monsieur Oscar, have you ever been in love? Oh, I'm sorry!   A random question like this.   (lit. suddenly) Hee hee ... If I didn't know you were a woman, I'd definitely have fallen hard for you and died passionately in love. Um, really I mean it.
Oscar:	Ah, what an honor! [ ha ha ha ... ] Thank goodness I was born a woman, otherwise I couldn't have resisted taking such a beautiful lady as my wife! Lady Sophia, you may not believe this. Since childhood I have believed myself to be a man. Never had a second thought about it.
Sophia:	Even though I know you're a woman, my heart can't help thumping wildly when you look at me like that. I wonder what kind of man would capture your wonderful heart!

[ Fersen arrives.   After sending Sophia on her way, the two start talking about Louis-Joseph's illness.   Fersen suddenly grabs and holds up Oscar's hair, revealing her to be the mysterious countess.   Astonished and ashamed, Oscar runs away.   Fersen follows and stops her. ]

Fersen:	Oscar ... Does this mean we can never see each other again? Please forgive me. Had I known that you were a woman when we first met, perhaps what's between us would have been turned out differently. Yet I had already promised my life to Lady Antoinette.
Oscar:	{{ Then ... then Fersen ... if Fersen couldn't leave her, he couldn't love someone else. }}
Fersen:	Oscar, I'm so sorry for not realizing your feelings, making you suffer all this time. I know now that we can't see each other in the same way as before. It's just not possible any more. But believe me, Oscar, You are my best friend in France! The dear friend I respect, with whom I share my thoughts and sufferings, the only friend I don't want to lose! I'm glad to have met you.
Oscar:	I knew this day would come eventually. There was just no way to avoid it.
Fersen:	Oscar! Does this ... does this mean the end of our 10 years of friendship?
[ Oscar runs away in tears. ]
Oscar:	{{ Ahhh! Oh God! Why was a brief moment of my youth filled with his thoughts? Why were the three of us born in foreign land and reunited at France? Adieu!   Adieu, Fersen, the dream of my youth, the fleeting thought that once filled my heart with rapture! Ohhh and now!   Adieu, adieu, my old days! }}

 

This scene marks the turning point in Oscar's personal growth and career.   Having said good-bye to her first love and her youth, she steps into womanhood and begins a rocky path towards the French Guards.   At the same time, Fersen's departure allows for the rise of André as a leading man in the latter half of the story.

In the manga, this scene includes an exchange between Sophia and Oscar before Fersen's arrival.   While brief and seemingly irrelevant, I think it increases the dramatic impact of the later exchange.   Like the other young women, Sophia is drawn to Oscar's male disguise and openly tells her so.   What distinguishes her from the other women is her keen observation and relationship to Fersen.

When Sophia first realizes Oscar's true gender, she immediately tells Fersen that a person like Oscar surely won't live for long -- a strange thing to say about someone she barely knows, but one which proves to be powerfully prophetic.   Here she does it again, asking out of the blue about Oscar's love life and wondering aloud what kind of man would capture Oscar's heart.   And lo and behold, the minute she finishes speaking Fersen comes in.   A coincidence?   I think not, at least not on Ikeda's part.*

The scene becomes even more interesting when we consider the fact that Oscar receives two responses from the two Fersens on the same day.   What a shock it must have been!   One cannot love her because his heart is already taken by the time he discovers her real identity.   And the other cannot love her because she mistakes her disguise for her real self.   Yet if Oscar had been the person Fersen and Sophia think she was, both Fersens would have fallen in love with her! *  Poor Oscar, you seem to have aced everything but love.

* Thanks to Hsiao Yin (webmistress of "Love in Versailles") for the tips about Sophia's role in relation to Fersen.

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