[A couple goodbye letters]
To my Marquis,
I've been granted a rare opportunity. I know that. I hope you will not miss the paper -- I would have borrowed anyone else's, but this seems more special. I'm sorry I couldn't see you just once.
I want you to know I don't blame you or the Abbe. Thank you for one last story -- and I don't mean the one you spoke through the walls that night. I've read a copy of what the Admiral calls your 'file'. I hope you don't mind. It's just such a treat to find a story of yours that comes with a happy ending.
It's come to a satisfying middle, but I don't think it's quite finished yet. It would also read a lot better if your hand had been the one that wrote it. Will you do this for me? If you'll write it, I promise I'll read it.
I'm proud of you. You really are a genius.
Take care of the Abbe. Take care of each other. You two are the only home that either of you have got left.
Mademoiselle Jones made a photograph of me. There's one for you and one for the Abbe.
With Love,
Madeleine
--
To my dearest Abbe,
You deserve real happiness, and I think you can find it here if you'll just go out and look for it. Above all things I am glad things turned out how they did, because it meant I could spend this precious time with you.
You must stop following the Marquis' old footsteps. He's fought his own battles, and you need your own. You have to know that you have done all you could, and sinking this far down has not made things better for you. Having passed, you must know by now that you've gone as far as you can this way. It's time to go forward again -- if anything knowing that if you do well here then there may yet still be another chance for you to see me. Perhaps permanently.
Write if you must, Abbe. But write about your time here. Write to talk to God, and when you can't talk to God, you can talk to me. I promise that in my own way, I'll hear you. I'll read you.
Enclosed is something that Mademoiselle Jones calls a photograph. Keep it close.
Please forgive the Marquis, and more importantly forgive yourself. I blame neither of you.
With Love -- always with love,
Madeleine
I've been granted a rare opportunity. I know that. I hope you will not miss the paper -- I would have borrowed anyone else's, but this seems more special. I'm sorry I couldn't see you just once.
I want you to know I don't blame you or the Abbe. Thank you for one last story -- and I don't mean the one you spoke through the walls that night. I've read a copy of what the Admiral calls your 'file'. I hope you don't mind. It's just such a treat to find a story of yours that comes with a happy ending.
It's come to a satisfying middle, but I don't think it's quite finished yet. It would also read a lot better if your hand had been the one that wrote it. Will you do this for me? If you'll write it, I promise I'll read it.
I'm proud of you. You really are a genius.
Take care of the Abbe. Take care of each other. You two are the only home that either of you have got left.
Mademoiselle Jones made a photograph of me. There's one for you and one for the Abbe.
With Love,
Madeleine
--
To my dearest Abbe,
You deserve real happiness, and I think you can find it here if you'll just go out and look for it. Above all things I am glad things turned out how they did, because it meant I could spend this precious time with you.
You must stop following the Marquis' old footsteps. He's fought his own battles, and you need your own. You have to know that you have done all you could, and sinking this far down has not made things better for you. Having passed, you must know by now that you've gone as far as you can this way. It's time to go forward again -- if anything knowing that if you do well here then there may yet still be another chance for you to see me. Perhaps permanently.
Write if you must, Abbe. But write about your time here. Write to talk to God, and when you can't talk to God, you can talk to me. I promise that in my own way, I'll hear you. I'll read you.
Enclosed is something that Mademoiselle Jones calls a photograph. Keep it close.
Please forgive the Marquis, and more importantly forgive yourself. I blame neither of you.
With Love -- always with love,
Madeleine