Jeanne, Elèn & Paul E-Book

Ruth Vogelsang

• Herausgeber: novum publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 284

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

"I have been waiting for you all my life," crosses her mind as she seeks shelter from a warm summer shower in a café on the streets of Paris and a stranger, who introduces himself as Paul, sits down at her table. But not only does the stranger cross her path, Elèn also meets up with her old friend Jeanne. The significance of these chance encounters only becomes clear to the protagonists in the course of the story, because they have already met each other independently decades ago. The Pyrenees, Paris and Tangier, a village in the south of France and Toronto are the stations where the moving and exciting story of late love and deep friendship, full of connection and destiny, unfolds.

Leseprobe

Chapter one

In the Pyrenees

Jeanne had to flee. She had been hiding in the Pyrenees for over a week because Franco's secret service had become aware of her because she was meeting other members of the local Resistance in Rodriguez's bar. One of her friends was already under surveillance and so in 1975, in the last year of General Franco's regime, she too was caught by his henchmen. There were some nasty fellows among them who also took pleasure in stalking a young woman who was not only attractive, but in their eyes was brazenly and provocatively showing off her independence. That didn't fit in with their world view. Jeanne had just turned 18.

An informant sent her the message that she had to disappear from the scene as quickly as possible because there were plans to take her out of circulation. Everyone in her group knew what that meant. Too many disappeared and the few who came back were no longer the same as before.

Her friends provided her with the essentials: cheese, bread, smoked ham, a few tinned fish and a dark green canvas rucksack. She packed warm clothes, a bar of English soap, toothpaste, underwear, a Swiss Army knife, a map of northern Spain/southern France and a fine satin dress. She didn't know whether she would survive the escape unscathed or even alive and whether she would ever be able to return, but she wanted to preserve one last memento of her womanhood.

A few years ago, she had been hiking in the Pyrenees with friends and they stayed in a hut that seemed half-abandonedbut was owned by the loyal family of her boyfriend at the time. No one would suspect that she would hide there of all places. It was a hut that had never been renovated since the end of the 19th century. A simple, sparse stone building, once a poor farmhouse. A fireplace on the floor in one corner. An old, rickety table, three equally rickety chairs, a chipped black enamel pot, some baked clay crockery, a camp bed. A well in front of the house, with which you had to pump up the water by hand, but it was in working order. Wild apple trees.

She had to go outside for her natural needs. It wasn't comfortable, but fortunately the early fall still spoiled her with summer temperatures and made staying in the hut, however spartanly it was furnished, bearable. She was aware that it would soon become uncomfortable when the first autumn storms arose and rain pelted against the remaining shards of glass in the window hatches. She didn't allow herself to think about that.

She had to feed herself somehow without attracting attention. Days after her arrival, she fell into a deep sleep in the evening, although she didn't do much during the day except collect apples and her thoughts.

In a side pocket of her rucksack, she found a booklet of poems that had obviously been bound by hand. One of her friends had slipped it to her unnoticed. She liked him very much because he was always very courteous and charming towards her, but only now did she realize that he was in love with her. She was infinitely grateful to him for that, because it was his words, his poems, that made her believe in humanity, and she regretted that she had not been able to thank him and had not realized sooner what a wonderful person had been by her side for so long in her immediate surroundings without attracting her attention.

It was still early in the morning. A strange, muffled noise made her jump up, which the springs of the camp bedimmediately acknowledged with a loud squeak. She pulled herself up, looked cautiously out of a window hatch and couldn't really make out what she saw. There was something between the old, overgrown apple trees that looked as if a cloud had settled there. Holding her breath, she tried to focus her gaze. Finally, she realized that it must be a parachute and noticed movement in the bubble of fabric. She saw a man scrambling to his feet, looking around for orientation. Her heart stopped. It wasn't a Franquist, that was clear, but who was he?

He stumbled towards the hut, still slightly dazed. She quickly ducked away from the window, panicking slightly and yet somehow not. Her gut feeling told her that she didn't need to be afraid. Nevertheless, she reached for her Swiss Army knife, which she had hidden under the mattress, and stood behind the wooden door, which only had a bolt in front of it and could not be locked. When the door creaked open and he entered, she jumped on him from behind, held him tight - it must have looked like a hug, she thought later - and held the blade of her knife to his neck. She was fully aware of the ridiculous situation she had got herself into, but she couldn't think of anything better to do. He grabbed her hand in which she was holding the knife, twisted out of her embrace and was surprised to find himself face to face with a small but very energetic-looking woman with sparkling eyes.

"Wait a minute! May I say something before you kill me for good?"

Jeanne heard his fearless, boyish undertone, but it was devoid of any arrogance.

"We might even work for the same firm?"

"Identify yourself!" Jeanne hissed between clenched teeth.

"Is there a password?"

"Sorry?" Jeanne asked, taken aback, but then immediately relaxed.

"You have a beautiful Swiss Army knife," he said in Catalan. "She has a gorgeous figure and well-groomed hands," he thought.

"Would you like some tea?" she asked, a little dazed.

"Thank you. Captain Paul Bernard of the 13th Airborne. Did you have contact with the enemy recently?"

His formal introduction amused her and she spontaneously clicked her heels together, grinned, saluted and replied in an exaggeratedly serious voice: "Allow me, I am Joan of Arc, sent by God to save my people!"

All the tension was now gone from the hut as they both laughed and looked each other in the eye for the first time from person to person, or rather from man to woman.

"Please excuse the joke," she said again in a serious, but now slightly disturbed voice. She had looked him in the eye for a few seconds too long and forgotten why she was actually here, without any civilizing achievements, in robust hiking clothes and rough hiking boots and with hunger in her stomach. She hadn't eaten properly for days. Paul Bernard reminded her that she was a woman and that unsettled her.

"Where I come from, there is constant contact with the enemy. They are everywhere. But it became dangerous for me, I had to flee. Paul Bernard, you seem to have fallen from the sky. Have you brought anything to eat? By the way, I'm Jeanne Ferrari."

"Delighted," he said and added as casually as she mentioned her name: "No, I didn't bring anything edible, because I naturally assumed that you would welcome me with a freshly baked apple tart!"

At first she was taken aback. She hadn't said a word to anyone for days and her communication skills were a little rusty, as she realized herself. But then they both burst out laughing again. Their stomachs growled.

"I'm going to make us some tea," Jeanne said when she caught herself again. "I've seen wild sage, mint and lavender around the house. That will do us good. We've got water and a fire, and if need be I'll throw some apple slices into the tea water. It gives the tea a nice taste and something solid for the teeth. Have you ever hunted rabbits and don't you want to get your parachute to safety first? It could be useful for us and I think I already know what it's for."

She knew that her sense of pragmatism was often the reason why her friends rolled their eyes in annoyance.

"We can't hunt rabbits," said Paul, "but the RAF dropped a small tube of rations, it must have gone down about 3 km from here. In a little valley, I think I could find it. Miss, I'm being very rude: please take my chocolate. I see you're cold?"

"Oh yes, I'm actually cold, now that you mention it, I really notice it! I'm so hungry that everything else has become secondary. I've already used up my small provisions on the way here and for the last few days I've been eating small, wild apples, but they've hardly helped with the growling in my stomach. So, I'm almost a little ashamed to say I'd love to take you up on your sweet offer. Chocolate sounds heavenly! Later, for tea, mmmh! Can I help you retrieve the parachute? A little exercise would warm my limbs. I thought we could take the mattress off the cot and put it on the floor. You could sleep on it and we could put the parachute silk on the metal grid of the cot for me to sleep on. Would you be happy with that? I think it would work for one night.

Oh, one more thing: What connections do you have with the RAF? Why is the RAF dropping rations here and why do you know about it?"

Jeanne was so busy that she didn't notice that Paul was watching her and every time he started to say something, he shut his mouth again because Jeanne wouldn't let him get a word in edgewise. Instinctively, she tried to control the inner excitement that had gripped her in Paul's presence atand whose origin she dared not think of with actionism. She was also still suspicious. Her arousal remained and seemed to drain all energy from her body. Suddenly she felt so weak that she would have liked to simply fall around the stranger's neck and cry on his shoulder in exhaustion.

This was not how she had imagined her life. She was not the brave Joan of Arc of the Resistance who could give herself up completely for political goals. She merely followed her sense of justice and humanity and could not bear the absurd and criminal structures of fascism because they destroyed everything that humanity meant to her. She wanted to dance, make herself beautiful, put on lipstick, go to the movies with her friends and girlfriends, go to the theater, have conversations, fall in love.

She looked down at herself, feeling unkempt and unattractive in the presence of this extremely handsome stranger, whom she liked and whose physical proximity made her strangely nervous. He radiated a pleasant, calm superiority without appearing arrogant. For the first time in days, she felt safe. Not from herself, but from Franco's henchmen. Then she sank to the floor, losing consciousness.

When Jeanne regained consciousness, the cabin smelled of freshly brewed coffee and a fire was burning in the fireplace, expertly lit and emitting almost no smoke. It had become dark outside. White dots danced outside the window. Jeanne was slow to notice that it was snowing. Paul, wearing a dark green sweater, was standing by the fire, over which a grate had been hung, fiddling with a small pan. The smell of scrambled eggs soon joined the smell of coffee. Jeanne closed her eyes again. She was lying on the cot, wrapped in the silk parachute that kept her warm like an effective sleeping bag.

"Ah, there she is again, the godsend," Paul remarked with a grin. "I'm glad to see you a little red-cheeked. You looked all gray the other day." Paul came closer and felt her forehead. "Very good. The fever's down too. You know, I was worried. You're far too attractive to please the saints in heaven. We here in the Valley of Tears need comfort too, not just spiritual comfort." Then he looked at her openly and kindly: "By the way, you must look beguiling in that silk dress you took with you. How did I get the food? Well, you slept for a few days. I set off and found the rations tube dropped by the RAF on the very first evening. Radio included. That's very nice, you know. Unfortunately, we can't do anything for now: it's snowing. We can't leave here without being tracked down. So take your time. It'll be a few days before the thaw sets in."

When she opened her eyes, she was completely disoriented. She didn't know where she was and couldn't really make out anything in the flickering light of the fire burning in the open hearth. Expressionless, she followed his words, which reached her ears in a pleasant sound and whose meaning she only understood after a delay. It's snowing, she heard. Her silk dress, beguiling on her. Why did the voice know about her silk dress and there was something to eat? Yes, food. She wanted to eat. She felt the bulge in her stomach and was terribly thirsty.

She gradually came to and tried to sit up, but she couldn't because she was wrapped in something white. "Kafka," it flashed through her mind. She wasn't a beetle, but she had pupated.

She gave in and let herself sink back into a horizontal position, took a deep breath, consciously opened her eyes slowly and looked into Paul's, who greeted her in a very charming and friendly manner and explained to her once again that she was in a feverish sleep. At the same time, he helped her to free herself from the caseof umbrella silk in which he had wrapped her to keep her warm.

"Thank you," she said, "thank you for looking after me. How long have I been away? ... But what is this? ... What am I wearing? It's clearly fine-rib underwear for a man! You mean bastard! How dare you! ... And do I understand that correctly? You went out to look for the RAF drop while I lay unconscious in this cocoon? All alone?! I could have been eaten by wolves! I could have been found by Franco's people and God-knows-who! I could have died!" she exclaimed in a trembling voice, half desperate, half indignant, and tears welled up in her eyes, reflecting anger, fear and shame, but also a little gratitude.

Paul was glad that the little rebel had regained her strength, but he briefly wished for the calmness of her breathing rhythm during her recovery sleep and the girlish face that deep sleep had painted on her features.

He did not answer her questions, understanding that it was not easy for a woman like her, as the silk dress suggested, to be confronted with situations that were certainly not foreseen in her life plan. Struggling alone in an inhospitable area, always afraid of being betrayed, trusting the wrong people, meeting men who could do her violence ... he understood that she was panicking. He handed her tea, sat down next to her on the cot and very gently placed one hand on her back and the other on her shoulder facing him.

"Have a drink. The tea will do you good and then you can eat. Do you like rusks? I've heated some water over the fire so you can freshen up. Don't worry, I'll go out of the hut while you do your toilet."

Jeanne gratefully accepted the tea and the rusk. With every sip and every bite, the colorcrept back into her cheeks and the confidence with which she generally approached everything slowly returned. She gradually regained confidence in this man at her side, whom she hardly knew, but whose presence gave her an extremely pleasant vibe. Not least because it occurred to her that he had told her that she must look bewitching in her silk dress. The fact that she was wearing his underwear, the long trousers even with an opening, was in stark contrast to this and under other circumstances she would have sunk into the floor with shame, but here it hardly mattered.

But the important thing was how they would spend the night. Laying the thin mattress on the dirty floor was not an option, especially as they would have to spend some time in the hut because of the snowfall so as not to leave any tracks. They sat quietly together for a while while she drank her tea, nibbled on a rusk and sighed repeatedly. Suddenly she stood up nimbly. "What's that sizzling in the pan there?" she asked, moving towards the stove. As she did so, the oversized men's underpants slipped down, revealing part of her naked hip. She didn't notice, nor did she notice that Paul's eyes were following her and couldn't take their eyes off her.

During the whole time that the snow surrounded the hut, Paul and Jeanne had not become closer than on the first day. She had soon recovered, however, and now often sat up in her bed. Paul had slept on moss that he had collected under the trees in the nearby forest. He secretly looked at her with pleasure, but they both avoided touching each other.

After about two weeks, the snow clouds cleared and a thaw set in. Soon the snow had melted. Paul looked out. It was time. "Jeanne, I have to leave you alone for a while now. When the bridge is blown up, I'll get some equipment from here and then leave quickly."

"There's no question of you going alone," Jeanne said firmly. "I may not be able to blast, but I cankeep an eye on the area and also carry something." Her eyes flashed. She looked him straight in the face. Paul looked at her for a while. Then he made up his mind. "All right, we'll go at dusk. The bridge is about five miles from here. We can do it in one morning."

The bridge was barely guarded. It was made of stone and had two pillars, under which a small stream flowed. Occasionally, a military vehicle could be seen patrolling the bridge. Then everything was quiet again. This would change as soon as the dynamite had taken effect. Paul was therefore busy with an escape plan, which he carefully discussed with Jeanne. As dusk fell, Jeanne guarded the detonator at the edge of the forest while Paul attached the explosives to the two pillars and then unrolled the cable. "Good," Paul said as he inserted the insulated ends of the two wires into the detonator and screwed them tight. "As soon as everything goes off here, we'll split up. Jeanne, it's been an honor," he said, shaking her hand and looking her in the eye. "Under different circumstances, I would have liked to see how the silk dress would have looked on you. Good luck."

Jeanne returned his manly grip and tried to look brave. "Paul," she heard herself say, "When it's all over, July 14th, Montmartre, the 'Papillon'. Are you coming?"

"Yes, I'll be there ... God willing." Then he let go of her hand, forgot his restraint and took her firmly in his arms, holding her for three breaths before releasing her again and turning to the detonator to trigger the blast. With a last, fleeting glance into her eyes, he moved away with quick steps.

She looked after him until she could no longer see him, then she began to tremble, shuddering from the cold force that came over her with the awareness that she was on her own again, and from the reverberations of the powerful detonation that engulfed the bridge in a cloud of rubble and ash, making any return impossible. Jeanne picked up the rucksack that stood packed next to her. For abrief moment, she thought she couldn't carry the weight and wanted to give in to the urge to sink powerlessly to her knees, but determinedly she pulled herself together, blocked out all thoughts and energy-sapping doubts and bravely took one step in front of the other, always heading north. Soon she would reach the border with Andorra, only then would she be safe for the time being. Hour after hour she walked, carefully putting one foot in front of the other, along stony, narrow paths. It was now always uphill and her rucksack was increasingly heavy on her back and her feet were aching. The more arduous the climb became, the less she was able to suppress the fact that her heart was also heavy.

The days with Paul in the hut, the closeness they felt to each other, even though they only spoke the bare minimum to each other. Even though they both avoided touching each other - and when they did, they both pretended not to notice. Although they secretly watched each other out of the corner of their eyes, their glances quickly scattered when they did meet. Although their voices became soft, warm and tender when they did start talking. They explained to each other again and again in an effortlessly sober tone that it could be dangerous for them if they knew more than each other's names and if they allowed closeness. Now it pained her that they were both sacrificing everything to reason and both had to try their luck alone to escape these bad times. She couldn't lose herself in her desires. She had to go on, on and on. Night would soon fall. A place to sleep had to be found.

Just in time before nightfall, Jeanne found one of these small huts, built stone on stone by goat or sheep herders, which protected animals and people from the sun, rain and cold. A low entrance provided sufficient protection. She was lucky. The small shelter was lined with brushwood, straw and even tufts of sheep's wool. Exhausted, she lay down on the ground andrested her head on the rucksack to which she had tied the military blanket that Paul had given her and which now offered her protection against the cold. She was so exhausted from the climb that she fell asleep immediately. She could no longer hear the approaching voices. A dazzling light shone on her face, abruptly waking her from her sleep, which was soaked in dark dreams, as if they already contained a premonition. Rough male hands nudged her, pulling her up into an upright seat. Scowling faces crowded through the opening, staring at her, and in one of them menacing features moved around the mouth until he began to shout at her.

What she was doing here. He wanted to know her name. He knew her. He had seen her with the resisters. He had her on his wanted list. He knew for sure. She should finally tell him her name, he would find out anyway!

She couldn't see anything, he was waving a flashlight in front of her face and all she could see was black. She was overcome with panic. She recognized the voice. Someone from her village. One who was particularly known for his loyalty to the line and brutality. She was lost. Franco's people. They had tracked her down.

That night burned itself into her soul, but she was never to say a word about it. There were no words for what had been done to her, the unspeakable. She lost her tongue over it. She fell silent and never again did a word of Catalan cross her lips. In fact, it was as if the language had been completely erased. She no longer understood it.

She was abducted and when she came to, maltreated, with blood on her thighs, she found herself in a small, dirty prison, dressed only in her torn silk dress and an old army jacket over it. One of the men must have taken pity on her and saved her from the firing squad, as it was customary to make no fuss and shoot so-called traitors immediately. Mercifully, they had even let her keep her rucksack.

For six months she remained in the hole where the bandits had locked her up, gave her the bare minimum of food and paid her no further attention. The little booklet she carried with her, with the poems written in English, helped her to keep her wits about her. She clung to them, sentence by sentence, word by word, letter by letter.

Then, one day, the door opened and someone in civilian clothes told her she was free. They handed her a tied package of clothes and sturdy shoes, a banknote and let her go.

There she was. From one minute to the next, under an open, blue summer sky, not knowing what was happening to her. Her eyes had to adjust to the brightness and as her voice was still too weak to speak - no sound came out - she didn't dare speak to a passer-by. At a newspaper kiosk, she looked at the magazines and daily newspapers on display and learned of the dictator's death. His successor, the future King Juan Carlos, issued a general amnesty for all political prisoners. It was clear to Jeanne that she wanted to leave the country, whose language she no longer spoke, immediately and, besides, no one was waiting for her. She had tragically lost her parents in an accident at a young age and her grandmother, with whom she grew up, died at the age of 82, a year before she had joined the Resistance group. She went straight to the train station and bought a ticket to France, Toulouse.Her destination was Paris, Montmartre. Café Papillon.

Chapter two

Café Papillon - Paris

Jeanne had now been in Paris for six months. She immediately found work at the Café Papillon in the 18th arrondissement. Her French was a little bumpy at first, but that soon improved. Hardly any of the guests noticed that she wasn't French. She wanted to see Paul again, as they had agreed, and so she combined the practical with the useful. She had to live, pay rent, eat and what could be more practical than working in the place where she had arranged to meet Paul.

When she started working as a waitress, she expected him every day, but he never showed up. Or they missed each other. She gradually forgot that she originally worked there because of Paul and thought about what she wanted to do with her life. Many men made advances to her, but she didn't make anything of them and her male acquaintances never went beyond flirting. She surprised herself that she was able to flirt at all. It was probably the French language that took away her inner terror and gave her ease in dealing with the guests. She was happy. She didn't think about Catalonia, and if thoughts of the past did try to take hold of her, she shooed them away and threw herself even more into work. She had had long enough to come to terms with what she had experienced, she told herself.

Jeanne lived modestly, saving her wages and the tips she received in abundance, because she applied to the Sorbonne to study political science. She didn't really know why she chose political science. Surely it had to do with the fact that it seemed obscene to her that a few powerful people could stir up nations against each other and destroy entire societies justto enforce their power interests. She wanted to understand how this worked and have something to counter it.

It was July 14. National holiday in France. A shimmering hot summer's day. People in an exhilarated celebratory mood roamed the streets. Everyone seemed somehow out of control. The leaden heaviness of the post-war years finally seemed to be dissipating.

All hell was breaking loose in the café. Jeanne whirled from one table to the next, almost as if she were dancing, following her own choreography. She laughed at the guests' jokes and kept making funny comments herself. She was in high spirits because she had been accepted to the Sorbonne. She knew that all the doors to a carefree life would now open for her. She would not waste time and energy on anyone or anything that could stop her on her way. She could already see herself as a student strolling through Parisian parks with books and folders under her arm, sitting down on benches to study texts and feeling wonderful. She didn't even notice that she had remained standing dreamily between the tables of the outdoor seating, looking at passers-by without seeing them, balancing a tray of cleared dishes on her left hand, until she was startled by the shouts of a guest: "Mademoiselle, s'il vous plaît?"

The English-sounding dialect amused her. There was nothing funnier than English people speaking French, she thought casually and turned to the table of the gentleman who was calling.

"What would you like, sir?" she asked, while at the same time stacking the remaining cups and glasses of previous guests on her tray without looking the guest directly in the face, which was not usually her style. Normally, she treated every guest as courteously as if there was no one more important than the person she was serving at the moment. Of course, this had a tremendously positive effect on the tips she received, but she didn't do it for that reason. It was simply her way of staying centered, not getting caught up in acarousel of thoughts and being completely with herself. She felt that everyone should be truly seen by someone once a day, even if it was only for a brief moment. She was sure that every day she gave a certain percentage of people the only moments of the day of true attention and this thought satisfied what she called her "internal statistics".

But today, on National Day, in the heat and the hustle and bustle of the celebrations and the high frequency of changing guests, she did not remain true to herself, her thoughts kept wandering into still very hazy visions of the future.

"Mademoiselle, excuse me, may I take you out of your thoughts and ask you to serve me a cortado?"

Jeanne startled. When she heard the word cortado, her whole body froze. She held on to her tray and brought the clinking glasses to a state of frozen silence in a split second.

"Why is an English-speaking guest ordering a Spanish coffee drink in the middle of Paris?" it flashed through her mind and her eyes flashed to his.

Paul rose very slowly from the bistro chair with very controlled movements, seeing that Jeanne was on the verge of losing control of her body. She had already sunk to the floor in front of him once when she was in a state of emotional overload. He carefully took the tray from her.

"Please don't do that, I'll be fine! Give me the tray back! My shift will be over in half an hour, then we can talk. By the way, we don't serve cortado here. What else can I serve you?"

She didn't understand why she was so cool and distant. A normal reaction would have been to be pleased that he had come as agreed. That she would have been happy to see him again, that she might even have thrown her arms around his neck, but he seemed strange to her. As if he was a different person to the one she had spent over two weeks with in the barren hut in the Pyrenees, just asshe had become a different person. She didn't know what he had experienced. In fact, she knew nothing about him at all. To be honest, she didn't even know why, as an Englishman - or was he an American? - he was involved in Catalan Resistance affairs at all. She remembered that she never got an answer to her question about what he had to do with the RAF either, and she wondered why she herself never asked about his background.

But at the time, she was simply happy not to have to spend the fearful nights after the first few days on the run alone and to feel safe. Any deeper questions might have led to further uncertainty and confusion, which she would not have been able to cope with in the latent state of shock she was in. At the time, she didn't know what a person was capable of enduring, let alone herself. The fact that he was no longer at her side when she actually needed his protection was like a shadow on her soul that she had not dared to see until now. But now it showed itself and she shuddered.

"Jeanne, no problem, it doesn't have to be a cortado, just bring me an espresso and water, please. I'll wait for you, for the end of your shift, okay?"

Of course, he did not miss her distant, almost dismissive behavior. He put on a friendly, warm-hearted expression, but his eyes remained impassive and scrutinized her insistently. He was somewhat surprised that his presence caused such a negative change in her mood. He had already been sitting there for a while, marveling at her as she nimbly and light-footedly weaved her way between the tables and the moving guests, elegantly balancing her tray and exuding an enchanting aura of cheerfulness. Perhaps it wouldn't be quite as easy to win her over to his cause as he had imagined. Whether his boyish charm could win her over was no longer a matter of course for him.

Paul felt a quiet disappointment creeping up inside him. He had not returned for love, but he had never forgotten her, his "Joan of Arc, sent by God to save her people", her bravery, her courage, her hidden despair, from which, strangely enough, her superhuman strength grew, her youth, her friends, her family, her home, her leaving behind her entire, hitherto sheltered existence. She was certainly the most remarkable young woman he had ever met.