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and you, in the very beginning, it was as if the rue Childebert welcomed me as soon as I walked up the rue des Ciseaux to the rue Erfurth and glimpsed the church’s flank ahead of me. It was distressing to have to return to place Gozlin. Your mother’s affection and your strengthening love drew a protective bubble around me. My mother shared nothing with me. She was too preoccupied with the vacuity of her life, the dinner parties she attended, the shape of her new hat, the twist of a new chignon. Émile and I had learned to fend for ourselves. We became friendly with the shopkeepers and café owners of the rue du Four while we waited for our mother to come home. The “petits Cadoux,” we were known as, and we were offered hot pastry straight from the bakery oven, caramels and tidbits. The Cadoux children, well behaved and meek, in awe of their loud-spoken stepfather.
    I did not know what “family” meant until I met you and Maman Odette. Until the tall square house with the green door on the corner of the rue Childebert became my home. My haven.

 
     
Rue Childebert, June 12th, 1828
Dearest love, Rose of my heart,
This morning I walked down to the river and I sat on the banks for a while and enjoyed the morning sun. I watched the barges puff by, and the clouds surge through the sky, and I felt such a lucky man. A lucky man to be loved by you. I do not believe my parents loved each other at all, I think my mother put up with my father as best as she could, in a courageous, unselfish fashion that no one ever noticed because she barely complained.
When I think of next week, of when you will be mine, of that holy moment, I am overcome with joy. I cannot quite believe that you, the beautiful Rose Cadoux, will become my lawfully wedded wife. I have been to the church at Saint-Germain very many times, I was baptized there, I have attended mass, weddings, christenings, funeral services, I know the church inside out, I know it by heart, but now, in a mere couple of days, I will be walking you out of that church as if for the first time, with you, my wife, on my arm on that glorious day, on the blessed day that I will become your devoted husband. I will take you to the house on the rue Childebert where I was born, I will sweep you through that green door, up those stairs, up to our bedroom, and I will show you how much I adore you.
I have waited for you all my life, Rose. There is not only your regal beauty, your distinction, there is also and above all your altruism, your kindness. And your humor. I am entranced by your personality, your laugh, your adoration of pretty clothes, the way you walk, the gold of your hair, the fragrance of your skin. Yes, I am deeply in love. I have never loved like this. I was ready for a dutiful wife, a wife who would look after me and my household. You are so much more than an ordinary wife, because you are anything but ordinary.
This house on the rue Childebert will be our family home, sweet Rose. I am to be the father of your children. Our children will grow up in this neighborhood like I did, as you did. I want to see them come into their own, with you. I want the years to slip by peacefully, me at your side, within these walls. I am writing this to you in the living room which will soon become yours. This house will be yours too. Everything in it will be yours. This house will be a household of love.
You are loved, Rose, so deeply. You are young still, but such maturity emanates from you. You know how to listen. You know how to care. Oh, your eyes and their quiet beauty, their quiet strength.
I never want to be deprived of those eyes, that smile, that hair. Soon you will be mine, in name and in body. I am counting the days, and my ardent love for you burns through me like a bright flame.
Yours forever,
Armand

 
     
    WHEN I THINK OF the sitting room, I cannot erase certain images from my head. There are happy ones, of course. Coming up the stairs as your bride, the lace soft on my face and