Charles de Gaulle: A Private Life

1969, Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises

The phone does not ring as it once did. That is the first truth of this house now. One notices the silence not because it is complete but because it is selective. A car on the road below, a door shut somewhere in the village, Anne moving lightly in the next room, and then nothing from Paris unless Paris wants something ceremonial. My hands still obey me, though not indefinitely. Strength goes sooner than I care to admit, especially in the afternoon, and there are moments of fatigue that arrive like an order not to be argued with. Colombey smells of wood smoke, paper, old furniture, and country air that would be restorative if one had not spent a life breathing politics. They are domesticating me already. The general returned home. The old man in retirement. The voice fallen silent of its own accord. Nonsense. France has answered, yes, but the answer has not ended the appetite to simplify, and simplification is a final insult I have no intention of accepting quietly.