Chateau de Crosville (II)

31st May 2022

Jouy-le-Moutier

Dear Rhona,

I decided to release myself from the burden of writing these long letters to you whilst on my journey. Perhaps I could have juggled the two if I were a more able man. The two being the writing and the video-making. I thought at the beginning that there would be plenty of time during my stops, that I could jump between the two exercises, but at every pause, the journey continued. There were things to do and people to see.

Such as at Rouen, where I stayed three nights and thus was given two days to produce maybe three or four videos. But the pull of the city was too great. The intermittent walks along its charming streets and the idea of a book read in a cafe with a beer distracted me without regret. Plus, there was lunch with Madame Dizengremel.

But I have arrived on the outskirts of Paris, Jouy-le-Moutier, and have been welcomed into a home. My boots have been removed and they are now resting by the front door like a dog expectant for a walk. I might have walked those leathers a thousand kilometres (I don’t know yet, I have to sum up my paths), yet they bear few injuries. Ah, my become two old friends, Marat and Louis, my left and right boot, they served me without complaint even when I lost a rivet with each of them, they patiently waited until I had found a cordonnier (cobbler). They are content now, looking beyond the wooden terrace, past the old pommier and the red and pearly-pink roses in the bushes, to the valley of the Oise.

Rhona, I have taken myself almost away from those liberal hours. My feet are almost upon the footstool. However, my mind is presently intent on recalling the finished stage and thus the continuation of its narrative (the one you have been itching for). It is frustrating, I had drafted my next letter to you, but it seems that I have misplaced it. No bother, I suppose here I shall go onwards. I have coffee and time, and I have the ambience around me for the thought of the telling.

I wanted to finish my words on Chateau de Crosville, particularly the sharing of its jewels. If you remember, I had been put up for two nights by the chatelains, the Garibagniatis. Last time, I described to you a lot about food, I want to finish that line whilst I still have it. The second evening, Paolo held out a bottle of water before me and said that tonight, no alcohol. Dinner was as comforting as the evening before, yet we had leftovers; Michèle had reheated in the oven a roasted rabbit, just for me. There was a salad, a dressing, and a wooden rondel in the middle of the table tumbling with cheeses.

Our conversations were sincere and wide-ranging. Paolo spoke with a command that puts one into thinking that he had once been a sergeant in the army. Perhaps he had inherited his father’s and his grandfather’s brawn. They had fought in the wars. His grandfather was in the first, in the bloodied and stone-splintered trenches of the Alpine front. His father was a mountaineering partisan in the second, was captured by the Germans and put into a camp. I could see the grit of those two men in the eyes and the stature of Paolo.

Read the rest of this letter at my Substack: https://dominicdebonhomie.substack.com/