The Châtelet Apprentice by Jean-François Parot Read Free Book Online

copper-coloured, then black, and the shrunken flesh had now hardened into the outlines of a death mask. His feelings of tenderness were disappearing before this decomposing object that could no longer be his guardian. He had to collect himself in order to put aside this impression, but it came back to him several times before the body was placed in its coffin on Saturday morning.
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    On Sunday the weather was fine and cold. In the afternoon the coffin was borne on a stretcher to the nearby collegiate church. In vain Nicolas looked for Isabelle in the crowd gathered there.
    He followed the hymns and prayers without thinking, withdrawing into himself. He examined the stained-glass window above the high altar which portrayed the miracles performed by Saint Aubin, the patron saint of this holy place. The great Gothic arch of predominantly blue glass and stonegradually lost its radiance as the winter shadows lengthened. The sun had disappeared. In the morning it had revealed itself in the glow of sunrise; it had shone in splendour in the glory of midday and now it was declining.
    Every man, thought Nicolas, has to go through the cycle of life like this. His gaze fell once more on the coffin draped in a black cloth decorated with silver flames that shimmered in the dim flicker of the candles around the catafalque. He felt overcome once more with sorrow and loneliness.
    The church was by now smothered in darkness. Inside, as happens in winter, the granite was weeping. The smoke from the incense and the candles mingled with the moisture oozing from the dark walls. The Dies Irae rang out like a final cry of despair. Shortly, pending a permanent burial place, the sad remains would be set down in the crypt near the twin recumbent figures of Tristan de Carné and his wife.
    Nicolas reflected that it was precisely here that he had been abandoned; almost twenty-two years previously Canon Le Floch had found him and taken him in. The idea that his guardian was returning to the earth at this very spot was in some mysterious way a consolation.
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    Monday was bleak and Nicolas felt the after-effects of the journey and his grief. He could not decide whether to visit the marquis who, after the service, had repeated his desire to see him.
    Fine, oblivious to her own suffering, tried her best to take his mind off things. Yet despite all her efforts to cook him his favourite childhood dishes he would not touch them, making dowith a piece of bread. He spent part of the day wandering through the marshes, staring at the sea-line merging into the pale horizon. He was overcome with a desire to go away and forget. He even went as far as the village of Batz, climbing up to the top of the church spire, as he always used to with Isabelle. He felt better up there, cut off from the world, looking out over the marshes and the ocean far below.
    When he came home, soaked through, he found Master Guiart, the notary, waiting for him with his back to the fire. He asked Nicolas and Fine to listen to the reading of a very short will, the main provisions of which lay in the final section: ‘I die without wealth, having always given to the poor the surplus that God was willing to grant me. The house I dwell in belongs to the chapter. I pray that providence sees to the needs of my ward. To him shall be given my gold repeater watch, to replace the one stolen from him recently in Paris. As to my possessions proper – clothes, furniture, silverware, paintings and books, he will understand that they be sold to procure an annuity at the rate of one in twenty for Mademoiselle Joséphine Pelven, my housekeeper, who for more than thirty years has devoted herself to my service.’
    Fine was crying and Nicolas attempted to console her. The notary reminded them that the young man had to pay the servant’s wages, and the doctor’s and apothecary’s fees, as well as for the hangings, chairs and candles for the funeral. Nicolas’s savings were fast