Lovers (9781609459192) by Howard (TRN) Daniel; Curtis Arsand Read Free Book Online Page A

reappearing, less essential all at once than what dances and sparkles or sheds its flowers, fades and dies around him, the world and its landscapes and its inhabitants.
    Come and rest.
    A hand on his brow, a little water on his lips, arms that lift him up.
    Take me.

81
    H is rags have been thrown in the fire, he has been deloused, fed, and given a bed in a building where the coachman, the washerwomen and the apprentice gardeners live.
    He will be a gardener. The Comtesse de C. has decided.
    They are curious to know his story. They press him to tell it. He refuses, then yields.
    He will not breathe a word about Balthazar, the miniatures, the stake, or any of those things that are so thoroughly part of him as to be unrepeatable, he will tell them something else, another story. He is still a young man, but he seems older than his age. The cold, the sun, the hunger, the endless walking, the several winters he has been through, have traced small lines on his face. He is as old as his own face.
    They learn that he was a painter of no renown—he shows them the brushes and the pigments, now as dry as twigs or as cracked as mud in summer—they learn that he was married, that he had children, that the croup took wife and offspring from him in the space of a few hours, and that since then he has had only the roads and the woods for companions.
    They are moved by his story. They like him a lot.
    My little gardener, the Comtesse has nicknamed him.
    The servant girls are sensitive to his faded beauty. He is tall and broad-shouldered. He is a man. But something stops them from offering him their beds. He lacks desire, that much is clear.
    They think they are his friends, as if his confidences have woven a bond between him and them, but inventing a life was merely a way to make them leave him alone, then and forever, alone with his silence, his grief, the virtue that has been forced on him by misfortune. No one can gain access to him, that is the way it is, and many find his ardent sadness unsettling.
    Ten years pass as if they were a day.
    He sleeps like an angel. He has forgotten that he was the Angel. He does not dream.
    He is an excellent gardener.
    He marvels at the splendor of the flowerbed. He is its sorcerer. Tulips, and then roses. The box trees are well pruned. They smell fragrant. After pruning, his body gives off a bitter odor. It is his smell, and has been for a long time.

82
    A morning came when the sight of the roses sent him into raptures. That was the morning he realized that Balthazar was losing reality within him. The world existed again. And how good it was!
    He did not rebel against the fading of Balthazar. It surprised him a little, then he accepted the joy overwhelming him, a very old joy now suddenly new-minted, buzzing, filled with sunlight. Yes, it was good. And peace entered him.

83
    A ndré Francartin has fathered four sons and four daughters, equal numbers, like poor people or ogres in fairy tales. His wife is sly and vivacious. She used to be pretty. She and André live in sweet complicity. It is their daily bread. Their lovemaking is regular and restrained. Julienne Francartin has never had any cause for complaint. Her husband is not a violent man.
    André is forty-five years old. He is the Comtesse’s chief gardener. He is in charge of a team of six young men, including Sébastien.
    The Comtesse often stops to talk with him. There is a kind of friendship between them. But she confides in Francartin neither the vagaries of her private life nor the revulsion she feels for Versailles and the Court, nor does he complain about his children’s illnesses or tell her how worried he is about his frequent headaches. In other words, there are no confidences between the two of them, but there is still a certain pleasure in meeting like this in the grounds and talking about seedlings and grafts. She admires him, he respects her.
    No sooner did Sébastien join his group and take up the pruning