Downstairs, I found Moreau sitting in a garden chair in a square of sunlight, in front of the French windows to the living room. It was rather cool out. “Hello,” he said in his sly way. “Sleep well?”—“Yes, thanks. Has my mother gotten up?”—“She’s awake, but she’s still resting. There’s some coffee and toast on the table.”—“Thanks.” I went to serve myself and then came back to him, cup of coffee in hand. I looked at the grounds. I didn’t hear the twins anymore. “Where are boys?” I asked Moreau.—“At school. They come back in the afternoon.” I drank a little coffee. “You know,” he continued, “your mother is happy you’ve come.”—“Yes, that’s possible,” I said. But he placidly went on with his thought: “You should write more often. Times are going to be hard. Everyone is going to need their family. Family is the only thing you can count on.” I didn’t say anything, just watched him absently; he was contemplating the garden. “Listen, Mother’s Day is next month. You could send her your best wishes.”—“What is this holiday?” He looked surprised: “The Maréchal instituted it, two years ago. To honor maternity. It’s in May, this year it falls on the thirtieth.” He was still looking at me: “You could send a card.”—“Yes, I’ll try.” He fell silent and turned back to the garden. “If you have time,” he said after a while, “could you go cut some wood in the shed, for the stove? I’m getting old.” I looked at him again, huddled in his chair: in fact, he had aged. “If you like,” I replied. I went back into the house, put the empty cup on the table, nibbled on a cracker, and went upstairs; this time I went straight to the attic. I closed the trapdoor behind me and walked carefully between the furniture and boxes, making the floorboards creak under my feet. My memories rose around me, tactile now with the air, the smell, the light, the dust: and I dove into these sensations as I had plunged into the Volga, with complete abandon. It seemed to me I could see the shadow of our bodies in the recesses, the brightness of our white skins. Then I shook myself and found the boxes containing my things. I dragged them into a large empty space near a pillar, crouched down, and began sorting through them. There were tin cars, report cards, and school notebooks, youth novels, photographs in thick envelopes, more envelopes, sealed, containing letters from my sister—a whole past, strange and sudden. I didn’t dare look at the photos or open the envelopes; I felt an animal terror growing in me; even the most commonplace, innocent details bore the imprint of the past, of that past, and the very fact of this past chilled me to the bone; each new but so familiar object inspired in me a mixture of repulsion and fascination, as if I were holding a live bomb in my hands. To calm down, I examined the books: it was the collection of any adolescent of my generation—Jules Verne, Paul de Kock, Victor Hugo, Eugène Sue, the Americans E. R. Burroughs and Mark Twain, the adventures of Fantômas and Rouletabille, travel books, some biographies of famous men. I was seized with the desire to reread some of them and, after reflection, I put aside the first three volumes of Burroughs’s Martian series, the ones that had so excited my fantasies in the upstairs bathroom, curious to see if they would still correspond to the intensity of my memories. Then I returned to the sealed envelopes. I weighed them in my hands, turned them over between my fingers. In the beginning, after the scandal, when we were sent to boarding school, my sister and I were still allowed to write to each other; when I received one of her letters, I had to open it in front of a priest and give it to him to read before I could myself; and she, on her side, probably had to do the same thing. Her letters, curiously written on a typewriter, were long, edifying, and solemn:
