Octogenarian Bachelor

To mark the beginning of my third month in France, I spent the weekend on a church retreat in Cevennes, a mountainous region about two hours outside of Aix-en-Provence. We stayed in Monsieur de Cazenove's fifteenth century stone castle, ate cereal and drank English tea in a fifteenth century dining hall with gold-framed portraits of fifteenth-century ancestors, played Apples to Apples with the kids in front a crackling temperamental fifteenth-century fireplace, fell asleep to the muffled piano melody of "Humoresque" seeping through the walls, and floated off to Lala-land on fifteenth-century pillows. 

Still a bachelor in his late seventies (or eighties), Monsieur de Cazenove lives alone, spending most of his time in his petite study room, decorated with Persian rugs and Chinese tapestry, the walls lined with hardback novels, dusty science textbooks from the Enlightenment period ("Lumières"), and Bibles dating all the way back to the 1400s. On his desk rest a glass of red wine and a plate of stale bread and melting cheese. 

After dinner on the first evening, I went on a search for this humble figure and finally found him at the castle entrance digging through another stash of books. I slowly approached him from behind, whispering, "Monsieur de Cazenove?" but he didn't seem to hear me. I cleared my throat and tried again, but to no avail. Finally, I forked up enough courage to shout at the old man: "MONSIEUR DE CAZENOVE." He immediately spun around, and I felt presumptuous. 

I tip-toed forward awkwardly, my fingers laced together, like those of a nervous bride walking down the aisle. His gentle grey eyes looked down at me, waiting patiently for my question. I attempted to smile but my dry lips stuck to my teeth. I smiled again, this time asking: "Est-ce que vous connaissez Wellesley College?" I wanted to know if his family had anything to do with the Cazenove dorm that I had been living in for the past three years. His eyes shifted to the side as he tried to make sense of what I had said. I had most likely butchered every word, even "Wellesley College," which I had tried to pronounce in a French accent. 

"Ah! Wellesley!" I could almost hear the snap of the light switch in his brain, as our language barrier crumbled and fell onto the cold stone steps. "Venez, venez." He beckoned me to follow him. I almost curtsied, but then I remembered that we were in 2010.

Monsieur de Cazenove muttered to himself as he dug through his pile of magazines and newspapers. Finally, out of the sporadic mutterings came an epiphanic "Ah ha!" He handed me a 2006 issue of the Wellesley magazine and told me to flip to page 5.  A black-and-white photo of a smiling Monsieur de Cazenove flanked by two Wellesley women on each side reflected the dim candle light. The girls had studied abroad in France on the Wellesley-in-Aix program and, on their return, had written an article entitled "The Cazenove Connection." 

I've never wondered why I was assigned to the Cazenove dorm my first year, never wondered why I stubbornly wanted to stay in the same dorm. Sometimes, some things in life just remind me of how short-sighted I am as a human being and how far God sees into the future. Sometimes, some things in life remind me of how witty God is. His sense of humour has no comparison.