Parrot and Olivier in America
law for him to use the respectful form of you , it was a very unusual way for my grandfather to be addressed by a servant.
    "Did no one strike them for their impudence?" I asked.
    As we walked in the fields beside the river, the air was sweet with new-mown hay. There was a stench of drunken peaches in the orchards--why not?--each fallen fruit attended by its circus troupe of bees and gnats and wasps climbing and falling from the pulp. In the midst of this bright maggoty celebration I had now found the secret, as old and musty as a walnut locked inside a woody shell.
    "Why did my father not strike them?"
    My grandfather had been Armand-Jean-Louis de Clarel de Barfleur. His name was the name of his town, his river, his long noble line unbroken to the Normans, and beyond that to Clovis, and beyond Clovis to Childeric, king of the Salian Franks, massing with his warriors in the forests of Toxandria, and who was he to let his life be taken by some drunken sansculottes?
    "It is difficult to explain," my Bebe said.
    Indeed. It was beyond belief. There were only two men from Paris, as far as I could gather. My family had been as timid as the pigeons, I thought. They had let their necks be wrung.
    "Was it to this that they took my grandpapa?" I asked.
    "Where, my child?"
    "This thing ."
    "Yes, that thing."
    As we walked down through the Bottom Hundred the secret quail rose from the grass. I was outraged by my family, and very fierce in my judgment of my father particularly, that he had not drawn a sword and slaughtered his tormentors.
    My lungs were clogged, my heart was disturbed, but my Latin declensions must still be learned. As the day ended, Bebe and I hic-haec-hoc'd our way through the strange pale grass, up to the old mill on whose steps we rested to eat an apple. It was not yet dark, but I could see, through the heavy branches, the golden lights of our home. I understood it then, as for the first time, not as a castle of pride and strength, but as a weak place, a soft thing in the coming night. I saw my grandfather and my father sitting unprotesting in their chairs. I imagined the murderers with their bare bottoms and huge mustaches coming through the gloom along the road from the village, the air dark with stolen wine, the sky alight with burning faggots, oily black smoke curling into the opal sky so that the wispy threads of smoke drew lines on an ancient mirror which should have reflected back heroic scenes--my papa with his sword drawn putting the enemy to flight.
    "I would have smote them, Bebe. I would not have been a coward."
    The dear old Abbe remained silent while we crossed the village road, while the porter unlocked the heavy gate. Then he waited and watched while the servant retreated to his lodge.
    "Bebe, are you angry?"
    I was frightened to feel so alone, to see that he who only ever loved me had ceased to do so. It was time for my bath, but I could feel myself transfixed by his dark eyes while moths brushed against my hair and settled on my shirt.
    When he spoke he did not even say my name. As the color left the sky and the porter closed his door and the light from the gallery windows lay down upon the earth, he lectured me. The infinite universe soon showed itself above us, and my child's opinion was nothing but spilled salt.
    My breathing coarsened but he showed no mercy. My arms itched and my legs ached, but I was too afraid to complain while Bebe told me about the man who had sat at the table on that dreadful morning. This was my mother's father, the great Barfleur, who was no more to me than a name. Barfleur had so loved the king, it seemed, that he hectored him and chastised him when his advisers were leading him to ruin. It was Barfleur who dared instruct the king to tax the nobility, make the Jews citizens, let the Protestants worship legally in peace.
    "This is courage," said Bebe. "It was the Comte de Barfleur who told the king to cut the extravagances at court. He told him to remember the history of

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