They are drafts, fragments, scattered stanzas and phrases jotted on scraps of paper, in a dense and curling clutter on top of the desk. Dust has collected in their folds.
Much of it is rubbish. The metaphors tend to be overwrought, the sentiments trite. Now and then, though, there is a gleam of something else, something that transcends the rest and strikes the heart all unexpectedly. We hurt the ones we love; and Jehan was in love with language, more than with any of the Angeliques and Honorines and Roses whose names are strewn so profligately through his verses.
Margot Prouvaire has never been sentimental. Black-clad, she has packed away her son's clothes, his books, the playthings he put aside so recently, it seems. She looks at the handful of paper she meant to put in the fire, looks at it a long time in silence.
It's a lot of silly scribbling, just as she always suspected it was; foolish, romantic, unrealistic, like Jehan. Forever unfinished, as he is.
She has shed no tears since the day the news came. She sheds none now, but her hands tremble as she puts the papers into the box with the books.
Much of it is rubbish. The metaphors tend to be overwrought, the sentiments trite. Now and then, though, there is a gleam of something else, something that transcends the rest and strikes the heart all unexpectedly. We hurt the ones we love; and Jehan was in love with language, more than with any of the Angeliques and Honorines and Roses whose names are strewn so profligately through his verses.
Margot Prouvaire has never been sentimental. Black-clad, she has packed away her son's clothes, his books, the playthings he put aside so recently, it seems. She looks at the handful of paper she meant to put in the fire, looks at it a long time in silence.
It's a lot of silly scribbling, just as she always suspected it was; foolish, romantic, unrealistic, like Jehan. Forever unfinished, as he is.
She has shed no tears since the day the news came. She sheds none now, but her hands tremble as she puts the papers into the box with the books.