Prologue
Introduction
le 30 mai 2014
As I look outside, the wind blows carefully, and flakes of white begin to descend softly from the sky. My sad reflection appears from inside the window, watching me carefully with melancholic and vapid eyes.
A rare sight here—snow is—especially this time of year. I expected it to rain, joining in my tears, as it sometimes does this sad, forlorn day. At those moments, I wonder whether I have control over the forces of nature that work together with me. I know I don’t, but sometimes I like to pretend I can will the sky to be cheerful or sad when those moods fully construct me.
Mornings always instill in me my usual mood—paradoxical cheerfulness mixed with loneliness and melancholy, the feeling that washes over me as I take my usual walks among the flowers, wishing there were someone there with me to share in their joys. That mood returns to me now, weighing down my heart with its all-too familiar presence. Especially because I am alone now among the sleeping world as I look outside…
But today is no ordinary day, as the calendar and state of the world force me to remember. Feeling compelled by the fragile jewels, full of comforting light, slowly covering dear Paris in purity, I take up my old journal. And, leafing through its depressed, worn pages, I remember. I remember it all.
