Paris: The Novel

“Style, keen prices, right in the center of the city,” he explained with growing excitement, while Joséphine watched him with fascination.
    “I never knew you could be so passionate,” she remarked.
    “Oh.”
    “I mean, in the head.” She smiled.
    “Ah.”
    “And what does your father think?”
    “He will not hear of it.”
    “What will you do?”
    “Wait.” He sighed. “What else can I do?”
    “You would not go off on your own?”
    “Difficult. He controls the money. And to disrupt the family …”
    “You love your father, don’t you?”
    “Of course.”
    “Be kind to your father and to your wife, my dear Jules. Be patient.”
    “I suppose so.” He was silent for a while. Then he brightened. “But I still want to call my daughter Joséphine.”
    Then, explaining that he must get back to his wife, he got up to go. She laid a restraining hand on him.
    “You must not do this, my friend. For my sake, also. Don’t do it.”
    But without committing himself, he paid the waiter and left.
    After he had gone, Joséphine was thoughtful. Did he really mean to call his daughter Joséphine? Or, remembering a foolish promise made long ago, had he just played a pretty scene, putting her in a position where he could be sure she would free him from that promise? She smiled to herself. It didn’t matter. Even if the latter, it was kind and clever of him.
    She liked clever men. And it amused her that she was still left wondering what he would do.

    The tall woman paused. She was gaunt. Beside her stood a dark-haired boy of nine, his hair cut short, his eyes set wide apart. He looked intelligent.
    The widow Le Sourd was forty, but whether it was the drab clothes that hung loosely from her angular body, or that her long hair was gray and unkempt, or that she had a stony face, she seemed much older. And if she looked grim, it was for a reason.
    The night before, not for the first time, her son had asked her a question. And today she had decided that it was time to tell him the truth.
    “Let us go in,” she said.
    The great cemetery of Père Lachaise occupied the slopes of a hill about three miles to the east of the Tuileries Gardens, from which Father Xavier and the little Roland had departed an hour before. It was an ancient burial ground, but in recent times it had become famous. All kinds of great men—statesmen, soldiers, artists and composers—were buried there, and visitors often came to admire their tombs. But it was not a grave that the widow Le Sourd had brought her son to see.
    They entered by the gateway on the city side, below the hill. In front of them stretched tree-lined alleys and cobbled walks, like little Roman roads, between the sepulchers. It was quiet. Apart from the guardian at the gate, they had the place almost to themselves. The widow knew exactly where she was going. The boy did not.
    First, just to the right of the entrance, they paused to view the monument that had made the place famous, the tall shrine of the medieval lovers Abelard and Héloïse. But they did not stay there long. Nor did the widow bother with any of Napoléon’s famous marshals, nor Corot the painter’s recent grave, nor even the graceful tomb of Chopin the composer. For they would have been distractions. Before she told her son the truth, she had to prepare him.
    “Jean Le Sourd was a brave man.”
    “I know, Maman.” His father had been a hero. Every night, before he went to sleep, he would go over in his mind everything he could remember about the tall, kindly figure who told him stories and played ball with him. The man who would always bring bread to the table, even when Paris was starving. And if sometimes the memories became a little hazy, there was always the photograph of a handsome man, dark-haired and with eyes set wide apart, like himself. Sometimes he dreamed of him. They would go on adventures together. Once they were even fighting in a street battle, side by side.
    For several minutes his mother led him up the slope in silence until, below the crown of the hill, she turned right onto a long alley. Then she spoke again.
    “Your father had a noble soul.” She looked down at her son. “What do you think it means, Jacques, to be noble?”
    “I suppose …”—the boy considered—“to be brave, like the knights who fought for honor.”
    “No,” she said harshly. “Those knights in armor were not noble at all. They were thieves, tyrants, who took all the wealth and power they could.