A reading from the Gospel according to Francois

 A reading from the Gospel according to François  

Sherwood Forest

Uncle Albert has been here since Friday. That was the day I came home. Friday. Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and now Wednesday.

     He is up early every morning, dressed and sitting at the kitchen table when I come down. At least, he is up earlier than I am. I am not up early at all. I go to bed early, but I get up late.

     He is up, dressed, sitting at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper. This morning I asked him if there was anything interesting in it. He shook his head. “It’s the same old sadness,” he said. “The world has forgotten how to be merry.”

     We drink coffee and eat toast and jam for breakfast.

I have another cup of coffee after my nap. We sit at the kitchen table again, and Uncle Albert reads to me several of La Rochefoucauld’s sentences. He reads the French, then he translates.

La plupart des amis dégôutent de l’amitié, et la plupart des dévots dégôutent de la dévotion. I’m going to turn this around, he says: Just as most pious people make us lose our taste for piety, most of our friends will make us lose our taste for friendship.

Dans la vieillesse de l’amour comme dans celle de l’âge, on vit encore pour les maux, mais on ne vit plus pour les plaisirs. In the last stages of love as in the last stages of life, it is no longer the pleasures we live for but the pains.

Rien n’empêche tant d’être naturel, que l’envie de la paraître. Nothing prevents our being natural so much as the desire to appear natural.

La plus véritable marque d’être né avec de grandes qualités, c’est d’être né sans envie. The surest sign of having been born great is having been born without envy.

After our coffee and La Rochefoucauld, we go into the living room, and we listen to music. There are music channels on the television. We listen to Latin, and we listen to Big Band.

     Before too long, Roz will come home and ask us what’s for dinner, then she will laugh. We all go into the kitchen, and Uncle Albert and I do what she tells us. I think they are merry, and I try to join in.

     Last night we had eggs and toast and bacon and fruit cocktail. And then we merrily washed the dishes, and merrily we dried them; then we put them away.

01.11.17