Lovers (9781609459192) Read Free Page A

what more to add, how strange not to be able to describe him more fully.
    You will be a painter.
    To surrender, to yield to the other’s desire, to avoid creating a rift between them, and to think of his father: such a thing has never happened to him before.

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    Y ou gossip. You curse. And then you kill. That is the cruel logic.
What is the exact definition of an abyss, of tragedy, of hell? Anne de Créon writes in her diary.
    Since Balthazar refuses to go to Versailles and scotch the rumors, she will go herself.
    One morning in November 1751, Anne de Créon climbs into her coach. She will precede her son to Court. She will keep her eyes and ears open, she will judge for herself how much hate there is for her child.
    Farewell, make sure you join me soon.
    For the first time, the thought of Versailles fills her with panic. Its gardens, its stables, its salons, its bedrooms—a trap, a nightmare, darkness.

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    S he has gone, but she lurks, something of her remains. He has never thought so much about her. Absent, she is suddenly real.
    Be suspicious of everyone, give up Sébastien, come to Versailles, be my son again, she said to him, shortly before leaving. He fulminates against her voice still echoing around him, endlessly prattling unseen, working hard to turn him away from his love, giving him absurd advice, a fount of common sense and good behavior. He becomes irritable, he is like a caged animal. What to do? He suddenly realizes how much danger he is in. It is possible that he will drag Sébastien down with him, inevitably, he realizes that now. Is he irresponsible? Perhaps. But how to resist certain visions, they will be together, they will experience the flames together.

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    T he wall clock in the dark red salon sounds the hours.
One hour ties itself to the one that precedes it, and another hooks on to the one that follows it, all with a genuinely glacial indifference.
    Yes, it chills the blood.
    And so time passes, time spent brooding on grim thoughts.
    How many hours does one have to be alive before one can speak of a life?
    It is now two years since Balthazar de Créon last set foot on the smallest step of the slightest staircase in Versailles. He is no longer the same as he was then. He is still a prince, but a prince in whom love has been sealed.
    Is it really necessary to go all the way to Paris, to Versailles? In her missives, which are filled with information about Versailles and the King, Anne de Créon maintains that it is, with even more energy and pertinence than when she was queen on her lands.
    Cut through this heap of nonsense they are saying about you! React! Beg an audience with the King! Do what needs to be done. Am I to believe what they say about you? Think of me, think of your name, think of your dead, do not despise them, do not abandon them.
    He writes to her to say that he will go to Versailles. In a week, he and Sébastien will be on the roads. Is she satisfied now?

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    T he coach with its high wheels, its well oiled axles, its restored gilt, is like a large insect. It is weighed down with chests and trunks. In a casket are three miniatures wrapped in velvet. These works show promise.
    Skulls, a statue, a hat on a bench; corn, a horse, someone—a peasant or a vagabond; a basin, a flight of cranes, an avenue, a tree like no known species. To Sébastien’s taste, they ought to be made darker, transforming noon to twilight.
    Don’t spare the horses, coachman!
    The roads are in such a pitiful state, they are constantly thrown against one another.
    Balthazar keeps trying to caress his lover, Sébastien’s only thoughts are for palette, brushes and paint pots.
    Let us never part, Balthazar says, during a halt.

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    L et us never part.
We shall never part.
As in a song that must have already been written.
    A song that means nothing.
    Nothing. A word of which Sébastien is fond.
    Nothing. A word Balthazar rarely utters. The time has not yet come. But it will