AN: This takes place sometime after the epilogue, but how far after is up to interpretation.
Francis visits Henry's grave just once in the years following the funeral. It's a long drive to St. Louis, but Francis feels he owes it to Henry to say goodbye in person. For all his faults-and surely premeditated murder was a fault-Henry had played a large role in Francis' time at Hampden, more so than he could ever have imagined.
As he wipes a smudge of dirt off the headstone and straightens the bunch of dying flowers that rested against the marble, he wonders how long it had been since someone had tended to the grave. It was disconcerting to think that a figure so grand as Henry (his intellect, his magnetism, his faults-they had all been grand) could be forgotten so soon. Henry was supposed to be immortal, forever adjusting his glasses and making reproving remarks in Ancient Greek. He was not supposed to be one of them. (That night, the night the farmer died, Francis thought he had seen Dionysus. Afterwards he would convince himself otherwise, but in those woods he could have sworn he had been in the presence of a god, a god that had taken the form of Henry.)
He remembers the funeral. He remembers the emptiness he felt, how the world had seemed to be lacking, as if Henry had been mixed into each aspect of existence and with his departure had taken a piece of everything with him; nothing was left whole.
Francis takes a cigarette from his pack and fumbles with the lighter for several moments before it catches. The damage to his tendon had been irreparable, and Francis had been left with a permanent reminder of what he had attempted-and failed-to do. (The next time he would not fail.)
The wind is bitter and unforgiving. Francis pulls his jacket tighter around himself and says to the stone (for he is having trouble imagining that Henry is really there below the earth):
"L'âcre amour m'a gonflé de torpeurs enivrantes.
Ô que ma quille éclate! Ô que j'aille à la mer!"
[Sharp love has swollen me up with heady langours.
O let my keel split! O let me sink to the bottom!]
Francis turns to leave; he has a drive to make, three letters to send, and a boat to sink.
Notes
The quote is from Rimbaud's poem 'Le Bateau Ivre' (The Drunken Boat), the same one Francis uses in his suicide letter to Richard. The stanza from which both quotes come is as follows:
Mais, vrai, j'ai trop pleuré ! Les Aubes sont navrantes.
Toute lune est atroce et tout soleil amer :
L'âcre amour m'a gonflé de torpeurs enivrantes.
Ô que ma quille éclate ! Ô que j'aille à la mer !
But, truly, I have wept too much! The Dawns are heartbreaking.
Every moon is atrocious and every sun bitter:
Sharp love has swollen me up with heady langours.
O let my keel split! O let me sink to the bottom!