Since his wife's death, Pierre Jouanest has fiercely withdrawn into himself. Preferring himself to everything and everyone has become his rule of life. Every evening, leaving his dental practice in Paris, he returns with melancholic pleasure to ...
Since his wife's death, Pierre Jouanest has fiercely withdrawn into himself. Preferring himself to everything and everyone has become his rule of life. Every evening, leaving his dental practice in Paris, he returns with melancholic pleasure to his property in Milly-la-Forêt, imbued with the memory of her deceased wife. While he believes himself entirely compelled by the past, a terrible event reveals to him the fragility of his comfort and the futility of his existence. Suddenly, he finds himself moved by the presence, at his side, of the children of his gardener, Miguel. Imperceptibly, a childish and almost magical charm attaches him to these young beings who are nothing to him. This metamorphosis takes on such proportions that, little by little, he becomes prey to a fixed idea. Believing he is acting for the good of all, he weaves, with generosity and stubbornness, the ties of an inevitable drama. This short novel, sober and cruel, is a great novel. The enchanting setting and the quiet happiness of the characters conceal the simmering tragedy for a long time, and beyond the anecdote, it is the whole problem of paternity, true and false (but where is the true one?), that Henri Troyat masterfully evokes, right up to its most demented consequences.
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