""Eternity"" "Arthur and Julie Bourgeois had five daughters." "Two of them died young." "The other three," "Helene, Henriette and Valentine, were duly married." "Valentine!" "At seventeen, Valentine was engaged to Jules, at his father's request." "Upon reflection, the engagement was broken off." "But Jules was in love and persistent and therefore got his way." "Jules was pure of heart." "Valentine was an instinctive judge of character and loved him to his dying day, and hers." "Less than two years later, Adrien arrived." "He was as calm and careful as his brothers were rowdy and distracted." "In this houseful of men," "Valentine sometimes caught herself imagining a baby girl." "She came at last." "They named her Margaux, after Jules's grandmother." "Valentine loved her to distraction." "She shared more with Margaux from the start, the first fruits of a bond of blood and womanhood." ""You'll grow up, get married and have children but nothing will change the sweetness of being together, you and I," thought Valentine." "Teatime, children!" "Elisabeth brought Valentine yet more fulfillment." "Valentine's life was ordained to begin on a perfect arc, then slowly decay." "All that she won would be taken away and destroyed." "She had her first taste of grief three years before her marriage ended" "The 7th child lived for only a day." "For a few hours, he was called Etienne" "You'll have other children." "Efienneu." "We never got to know him." "We had no time to love him." ""Only a man can talk like that," she thought." "She remembered the vain wait, the long months of dreaming... and now this hollow in her arms." "A missing weight." "A hole of warmth, absent." "Valentine and Jules's marriage lasted twenty summers." "Pierre was born and Jules died a year later." "His memory was always there, engraved in her." "Its vividness would sometimes turn her pale." "She never lost the pain of knowing he was dead, nor the joy of loving him." "Saddened by the prospect of a barren, loveless future," "Valentine braced herself." "She had only her children to cosset her now." "Jules had sown himself in each of them." "She glimpsed him in them." "The twins were shy, as young men without women are." "They would soon be plucked and cast into the soil but nobody knew it." "Neither they nor Valentine, who wished to perfect them, unaware that it was pointless, unaware that no woman would swell from their embrace." ""NOTICE OF DEATH"" "Valentine never knew how their faces looked in death." "Elisabeth, Margaux." "Come here." "Open the door, Margaux." "I'm such a scatterbrain!" "Mother..." "Yes, darling?" "And that night, keeping lone vigil over her child," "Valentine saw clearly what awaited her" "A long life watching others go, unable to restrain them." "This time again, she fell asleep unwillingly, to recover a strength she no longer wanted, but which was in her." "You cheated!" "Elisabeth!" "Mother..." "Would you like to be a grandmother?" "Is there someone you love?" "You know her." "Mathilde!" "Yes." "I often dared to hope for this." "I'm very happy." "Come for a bike ride?" "Now?" "Yes." "All right." "Hold my fingers." "Shut your eyes." "The engagement was small and private." "In a strange new way, the pain of losing a child pierced Valentine again." "Mother..." "I've made a decision." "I ask you to respect it." "I want to be a nun." "Are you sure?" "After Christmas, I'll be going." "Give it more thought." "Her daughter would be childless." "The thought drilled into her." "In the room, only Valentine could see that a female line was being broken" "and that a childless woman lacks the most devastating side of life." "Margaux kept to her decision." "This strong-willed, secretive girl was leaving her loved ones to embrace, pure and naked, the austerity of prayer" "She longed to show her daughter what she was giving up, to tell her that a man's love is less distracted than God's" "Her body, all flux and shifting shapes, became the object of her daydreaming." "She watched it change before her eyes." "When she washed and dried and perfumed it, she felt as if her gestures now meant something different." "Mathilde wanted to tell Henri that this was the easiest, least important time" "After it, everything still remained to be built, or at least not broken." "She thought about it all... their future nights together, the lovemaking, the children that would come, the meals they would share, the two of them, indefinitely face to face, the women he might desire who would not be her," "the things she would dislike about him." "Henri was not an easy husband." "He had a passionate, yet stiff disposition, combined with a liking for peace and quiet, which, if thwarted, could make him brusque and even sharp." "Good evening." "Henri and Mathilde saw Gabrielle and Charles every day." "As they lived in the same building it was easy to pop up or downstairs for a ritual daily chat." "Mathilde felt she had a real friend in Gabrielle and Gabrielle returned to her in equal measure this exclusive bond, woven since childhood and marked by their first taste of a sweetness in life." "Their mothers were sisters whom widowhood had gradually brought close enough again to share a flat." "Look, Mathilde!" "I found some more." "Gabrielle gave birth to a girl, whom they christened Solange." "Mathilde was the godmother, naturally." "She was pregnant herself and eager to discover her own baby as she held her friend's at the font." "When Jules was born," "Mathilde felt herself come to life, too." "The baby made her and gave her a place in the vast unknown." "Are you happy?" "Yes." "Why do you ask?" "Because I'm happy and I want you to be, too." "Charles and Gabrielle's first meeting is worth describing." "Their marriage had been arranged and was settled over lunch." "Have faith." "Charles... is a brilliant engineer and a gentleman." "You will love him." "You know why we're here?" "Yes." "I know." "And do you approve?" "Yes." "Good evening." " Madam and Sir are in the bedroom." " Thank you." "Yes?" "Hello." "Nobody knows what they talked about." "They're all dead now." "But they were together in a bedroom, which was unusual for them, in those days." "I think I'll be destroyed when the first person I love dies." "I don't think so." "After her fifth child," "Mathilde had a second miscarriage." "But one year later, to her amazement, she nursed her first daughter," "Louise." "I'll come back to see how he's doing." "Hello, Charles." "All right, Frangois?" "Mother..." "And so she stayed until the dawn became the day." "And as the daylight bloomed outside, he suddenly seemed still and heavy" "She knew he would soon be taken from her." "The time to give him up was near." "Frangois?" "Frangois?" ""Dinner menu:"" ""stuffed tomatoes"" ""pancakes with..."" "Mother?" "And then it was over." "She pulled herself up, even straighter than before." "And when she bent down to one of her children, it was with a grace that quivered from her wound." "A year later, Margaux died in her convent cell of meningitis, just like Frangois." "Margaux had given Him her youth and life, but God gave her no time to see her mother again." "You know... at every moment," "I can feel in my hands the size of their fragile shoulders," "the depth of their chests, the frailty of their arms..." "They're warm and soft as silk." "With their small bodies and sweet faces, they can build ideas and form sentences that delight me." "I know the exact colour of their hair, the shapes of their bodies... the tint that rings their tired eyes." "Each day, I touch the perfect skin that they all have." "Get washed, children!" "What's wrong, Gabrielle?"