Lovers (9781609459192) Read Online Free PDF

are harsh and imperious. Poor girl, are you spineless, are your legs of flannel, have you no guts? Why could you not remove the danger, why could you not persuade them to go into exile, in Spain, Italy, even Canada, over there they would name a city after them, the Créons would rule over the New World, but no, it was beyond you, you moaned, you warned, but ineffectually, being a mother was beyond you, it was as if you were paralyzed, you shriveled, a fossilized dragon, that is what you were, and even today, it was all too much for you, you were unable to be a bastion, an insurmountable barrier, you, Anne de Créon, poor girl, they took your son away, and Sébastien, the boy who made you believe in immortality, bowed to his lover’s wishes, do not move, said Balthazar, stay where you are, I beg you, all that love in him, and that insane plea on his lips, and Sébastien did not move, did not intervene between Balthazar and the King’s henchmen, haggard, as if dead, paralyzed, they arrested my child, my handsome, irreplaceable child, and young Faure held a miniature in his hands, the portrait of a shadow, he told me, a strange title, to me it was all twisted and seething, with squirts of red, gray, green, it was obscene, they took away Balthazar de Créon, the last of the line, no more heirs, no more eternity, I implore my voices to merge into one, all my voices in one, all of them, for then I would find the words to move mountains, to melt the hearts of all the judges of France and Navarre, they took him from me, they took him away, they will break his bones, and how then will I recognize him?

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    H e is thirteen years old, Paris-born, unusually thin, and he is devoted body and soul to his mistress, Anne de Créon. For the past six months, he has been carrying all over Paris the missives she writes at every hour of the day, febrile and trusting. He slips through the streets, like a streak of gray in the light, sometimes melting into the light, he is perfect for this job. She has chosen him as her messenger. He carries letters to such and such a great and honorable personage, all reliable friends of the Princesse, mere scribblings, it is said. He can neither read nor write. But to him these letters are more precious than relics. He would like to keep them. They are burning hot between his skin and the cloth of his shirt. They are calls for help, requests for support, begging letters, so the rumor goes.
    The Créon woman, that is what the Princesse is called now.
    There are friends who do not dare remain friends.
    He will kill them one day. He will always love her.
    He will indeed kill a few, later, when the flames of the stake have died down.
    A thirteen-year-old monster.
    God is no more than a decrepit, senile patriarch, asserts Sébastien Faure, and should be buried in a common grave.
    She will never abandon him. To him she is a heavenly creature. She is Madame de Créon.
    She will abandon him, though, when her son is dead, when she has become the slave of an irrevocable madness.
    He will not kill her. He will kill those who have killed her, the immaculate one.
    She will abandon him when she has lost any sense of what it means to live, to abandon, to suffer, to die.
    I am the sublime messenger of Anne de Créon.
    Yesterday, his name was still Jean Cerneau.

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    A nne de Créon looks to Sébastien for support. She sees her son through him. She cannot get enough of this intimacy, fragile as it is, which a shared despair has established between them. She sees in Sébastien all his love for her son, a mutual love, she sees love itself, she understands what love is.
    Tell me about this love.
    She addresses him formally now, like a mark of respect. He is her son’s beloved.
    He always yields to her entreaties. He tells her about their first encounter, how they recognized each other. Then he falls silent. Is what happened next capable of being expressed in words?
    She sees love in this young