Just before we leave Celigny for now..

 Those months spent living in the Bossey Institute were, of course, memorable.  The community itself brought together some remarkable people - Clark and Barbara Williamson, my room mate Roy Medley, Tony Mancini - now an archbishop in Canada,  Michael Townsend - who holidayed with us on several occasions in later years, and who was found dead in his house from an unexpected heart attack.... many of them who kept in some sort of touch over the spread of time.   

Memories are full and vivid.    Many years later I returned on a sabbatical visit.  Strangest of experiences.  I would turn into the allée that led to where my room was to be found in the quaint former farmhouse called Petit Bossey, and see ghosts in my mind's eye - some of them still alive.   Walking down through the tree arched road, I could hear laughter and tears.   And I thought how would it be to just have them all back, for a mere glance of time.    As Harriet Vane said in Gaudy Night, No one can bathe in the same river twice, not even in the Isis.

There is one memory among a handful that have persisted.

It was a winter's evening, quite dark and the Chapel was lit by candles.   The young housekeeper - Eva-Marie Schneck - had invited a few friends to listen to some music.   She played the Miserere, by Allegri - the secret music sung in the Sistine Chapel for generations, until the young genius Mozart came to hear it and immediately committed it to manuscript!

It was the first time I had heard it - and in such a place!