Till we meet again [antikvár]

W^OW could today possibly be her sixtieth birthday, wondered Eve, g g Vicomtesse Paul-Sébastian de Lancel, and the greatest lady in m U the province of Champagne, when, since morning, her spirit had m m been invaded by a sense of sparkling exhilaration, as festive as JL JL an orchard in full bloom, wind-tossed under a holiday sky? Before breakfast she had slipped outside, as she did every morning, to inspect the vines that grew closest to the Cháteau de Valmont, the home of the Lancels. The warm spring of April 1956 had caused an unusually large number of newborn bunches of gr apes to emerge from the buds. Every where in the fruitful countryside, from the two-acre vineyards of the workers to the great holdings of the makers of the Grands Marques of champagne, such as Lancel, Moét & Chandon, and Bollinger, the news of abundance had spread from one freshly green hilltop to another. Her happiness had nothing to do with the possibility of a large harvest, Eve de Lancel thought, as she dressed much later in the day for her gala dinner birthday party. Harvests were always problematical, spring bounty was no guarantee of autumn fulfillment. Today had unfolded with dancing steps because all her family had gathered at Valmont to celebrate with her. Last night, at one minute before midnight, she had been fifty-nine. One minute later she had become sixty. Why was her age today not fifty-nine plus afew hours? Eve asked herself. Did you have to be sixty to know, absolutely, that sixty was a nonsensical number when it attached itself to you, no matter what foolishness it symbolized to the world1 Was this a universal secret, shared by all those who reached sixty only to find that they still felt ... oh, perhaps thirty-two1 Or did she feel younger still, say . . . twenty-fivel Yes, twenty-five seemed just about right, Eve decided, as she confronted herself boldly in the wellAit mirror of her dressing table. She made a rapid calculation. During her twenty-fifth year, her husband was serving as First Secretary of the French Embassy in Australia, her daughter Delphine was three years old, and her younger daughter, Freddy, christened Marie-Frédérique, was only one and a half. It had been a year of maternal worry she would choose never to live over again, she decided gratefully. Freddy and Delphine were both at Valmont, grown women with children of their own, women who had arrived at the cháteau this morning, Delphine from Paris, Freddy from Los Angeles, so surrounded by husbands, children,