Free The House I Loved by Tatiana De Rosnay Page A

saved my life, as Alexandrine did. Saved my life? I can imagine you looking perfectly astonished. I will get around to that later, Armand. I have a good deal to tell you concerning Octave Zamaretti and Alexandrine Walcker. Bear with me, dearest.
    Monsieur Jubert had vanished into thin air shortly after the expropriation decree had been issued. His printing house had a forlorn and neglected air about it. I wondered where he went. I wondered what happened to the dozen workers who came there every day to earn their living. I did not care much for Mademoiselle Vazembert and her crinoline, no doubt she found herself a protector, ladies with those kind of physiques do that with ease. But I already missed Madame Godfin and her stout figure, her smile of welcome as I came in to purchase my tisanes, the spick-and-span shop that smelled of herbs, spices and vanilla.
    It is difficult to imagine that my little world, made of the familiar, everyday figures of our street, Alexandrine and her irresistible window displays, Monsieur Bougrelle and his pipe, Monsieur Helder greeting his customers, Monsieur Monthier and the enticing wafts of chocolate emanating from his boutique, Monsieur Horace’s guttural laugh and constant invitations to sample his latest delivery, were all doomed to disappear. Our colorful street with its low buildings sheltering near the church was to be wiped off the face of the earth.
    I knew precisely what the boulevard would look like. I had seen enough of what the Prefect and the Emperor had done to our city. Our tranquil neighborhood was to be flattened out so that the monstrous, noisy new artery could spring forth right here, just by the church. The enormous width of it. The traffic, the noise, the omnibuses, the throng.
    In a hundred years’ time, when human beings will be living in a modern world that no one can even fathom, not even the most adventurous of writers or painters, not even you, dearest, when you liked to imagine the future, the small, quiet streets branching out like a cloister from the church will be buried and forgotten, forever.
    No one will remember the rue Childebert, the rue Erfurth, the rue Sainte-Marthe. No one will remember the Paris that you and I loved.

 
     
    THERE IS A SLIVER of glass down here, amidst the rubbish Alexandrine did not have time to throw out. I can see my face in it, if I tilt it in a certain fashion, taking care not to slice my fingertips. In age, my face has lost its ovalness, it has become longer, less graceful. You know I am not vain, yet I do take pride in my appearance, I have always been careful about my clothes, my shoes, my bonnets.
    Even in these last, strange moments, I will not look like a ragpicker. I do my toilette as I can, with the water Gilbert brings me, and the perfume I keep at hand, the one the Baronne de Vresse gave me last year, when Alexandrine and I met her at her house on the rue Taranne to go shopping at the Bon Marché. I have heard the rue Taranne is safe, for the moment. But for how long? Will they dare destroy its splendor? Will the ravenous boulevard devour it as well? Swallow it up in one gulp?
    I still have the same eyes, the ones you loved. Blue or green, depending on the weather. My hair is silver now, with the faintest trace of gold. I never thought of dyeing it, the way the Empress does, and that I find so vulgar.
    Ten years is a long time, is it not, Armand? Writing this letter to you brings you remarkably close. I can almost feel you looking over my shoulder as I write this, your breath on my neck. I have not been to visit you at the cemetery for a long while. It is painful for me to see your grave, your name etched out on the stone, and Maman Odette’s, but even more heart-wrenching is the name of our son, Baptiste, just below yours.
    There, I have written his name for the first time in this letter. Baptiste Bazelet. Oh, the pain. The dreadful pain. I cannot let that pain in, Armand. I must fight against it. I cannot surrender to