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Sylvester Bonnard fills his life with philological interests and the collection of rare editions, however the peace of his quiet old age will be disturbed by the search for a rare manuscript and the meeting with the granddaughter of his first and only love, who is an orphan, suffering in hands of her guardians. He will try to save her and will be drawn into the real world, with people and emotions instead of the world of books in which he was entrenched.

The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

Selected Extract

"It's been a while since I've been young. Last year, a colleague of mine at the Institute was complaining to me one day about the hardships that old age brings. "It is the only way we have found so far to live many years," Saint-Bev replied. I chose this way too, and I know what it's worth. The evil is not to live many years, but to see everyone around you perish: mother, wife, friends, children. Nature brings these divine treasures and takes them back with eternal indifference; only in the end do we understand that we did not love, we did not embrace but shadows. But they are such charming shadows! Such a shadow also passed by me: she was the girl I loved when (it seems incredible to me today) I too was a young child. And the memory of that shadow is still, for me, the only truth in life.

The sarcophagus of a certain Christian in the catacombs of Rome has this curse written on it, the terrifying meaning of which I learned in time: "If ever an impious person is found to violate this tomb, let him die the last of his own!" As the archaeologist that I am, I have opened graves, stirred up dirt, to find metal ornaments, molten cloth, and precious gems. I did it out of scientific interest, but I neither lacked respect nor reverence. Away from me, then, is this curse, which one of the first disciples of the Apostles engraved on the tomb of the Christian martyr! But why should such a curse fall on me? I am not afraid to outlive my own; you will always find someone to love as long as there are people in this world."

Alas! The power to love weakens and slowly fades away, just like our other abilities. I see this happening around me every day, and it frightens me. Can I be certain that I have not suffered the same fate? However, I have had the good fortune to come across something that made me feel alive again. All poets speak of the fountain of youth; and indeed, it exists. It is underground and springs up at our every step. And the best part is, you can experience its benefits without even drinking from it!

Now that I have met Clementine's granddaughter, my once-empty life has regained its purpose.

Today, I "taste the sun," as they say in Provence, while sitting in the Garden of Luxembourg next to the statue of Marguerite of Navarre. It is a dizzying spring sun, like strong wine. I sit and contemplate, my thoughts light as foam, springing up and flying hither and thither like sparks, which amuses me. As someone who has published thirty volumes of old texts and collaborated for twenty-six years in the Journal of Scholars, I allow myself to dream. It is a great satisfaction to have finished my work, as best I could, with the limited gifts that nature gave me. My efforts were not in vain, and I helped, even if only a little, in the revival of historical research, which will forever remain the glory of our restless century. I will surely be remembered as one of the ten or twelve scholars who revealed to France its ancient philology. I worked with a new method, which marked a new era, to publish the poetic work of Gautier de Quanci. Now that I have reached a stern and peaceful old age, I feel worthy to give myself this praise. And God, who hears me, knows very well that I do it without pride or vanity.

But I am tired. My eyes are dim, my hands tremble, and I am like the old men in Homer's tales, whose weakness kept them away from the battles. But they sat on the walls, singing like cicadas in the leaves of the trees.