Philippe Barrault (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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wealthofnations2022-11-22 01:29 pm
figureheading) wrote in wealthofnations2022-11-22 01:29 pm
Entry tags:
fic: pro patria mori.
Philippe is twenty-three years old when his father dies of a stroke.
This strict, strong man who disciplined him harshly and showed no emotion, ironically brought down by his heart of all things. Phillippe assists his mother in the funeral preparation process, sleeps in a guest room in the old manor, although he has classes in City the next morning. She is inconsolable, has stopped eating by day two and leaves most of the practical matters to him. “You must get married before I die,” she sobs when he tucks her in like a small child. “It’s the only thing he wanted for you.”
Philippe doesn’t tell her that his father definitely wanted other things for him as well, good grades, a spotless image, a career in politics. He doesn’t object that she is barely 50 years old, and she will live a long time to come. Instead, he proposes to Violette the evening before his father’s funeral and she says yes with tears in her eyes. Like his mother, she is a theatrical crier.
The funeral itself is a stoic, cold affair. He almost expects the tears of every guest to turn to ice. That, if nothing else, would’ve been like his father.
The following summer, he marries Violette at the old manor in the country, and his mother is still alive to see it, though only barely. The previous month she got diagnosed with breast cancer, and she hides her baldness beneath a large straw hat while Philippe and Violette exchange vows. Six months later, she too is gone.
Philippe is twenty-four years old.
As he carries his mother’s coffin, Violette walking demurely next to him, he thinks to himself that it feels as if he is burying himself with them. A part of him that they never nurtured, and which won’t be allowed to grow and mature now. There are more important causes in the world, of course. His father taught him. There’s his family name and his mother country. There’s his wife.
Dust to dust, the rest goes.
This strict, strong man who disciplined him harshly and showed no emotion, ironically brought down by his heart of all things. Phillippe assists his mother in the funeral preparation process, sleeps in a guest room in the old manor, although he has classes in City the next morning. She is inconsolable, has stopped eating by day two and leaves most of the practical matters to him. “You must get married before I die,” she sobs when he tucks her in like a small child. “It’s the only thing he wanted for you.”
Philippe doesn’t tell her that his father definitely wanted other things for him as well, good grades, a spotless image, a career in politics. He doesn’t object that she is barely 50 years old, and she will live a long time to come. Instead, he proposes to Violette the evening before his father’s funeral and she says yes with tears in her eyes. Like his mother, she is a theatrical crier.
The funeral itself is a stoic, cold affair. He almost expects the tears of every guest to turn to ice. That, if nothing else, would’ve been like his father.
The following summer, he marries Violette at the old manor in the country, and his mother is still alive to see it, though only barely. The previous month she got diagnosed with breast cancer, and she hides her baldness beneath a large straw hat while Philippe and Violette exchange vows. Six months later, she too is gone.
Philippe is twenty-four years old.
As he carries his mother’s coffin, Violette walking demurely next to him, he thinks to himself that it feels as if he is burying himself with them. A part of him that they never nurtured, and which won’t be allowed to grow and mature now. There are more important causes in the world, of course. His father taught him. There’s his family name and his mother country. There’s his wife.
Dust to dust, the rest goes.