Chap­ter IV marked a turn­ing point not just in a diary, but in a life long defined by qui­et rit­u­als and soli­tary pur­suits. The once silent haven of man­u­scripts had grown vibrant, filled with the laugh­ter and pres­ence of two young hearts dis­cov­er­ing love. Jeanne and Gelis, with their bloom­ing affec­tion, brought warmth into cor­ners of the house where only the rustling of old paper once lived. The shift was not sud­den but unmis­tak­able, like the slow stretch of sun­light return­ing after a long win­ter. Each morn­ing, as I worked with the cat­a­log of books for the final time, the task no longer felt lonely—it was filled with antic­i­pa­tion. What once was preser­va­tion had now become prepa­ra­tion for some­thing greater, some­thing beyond the self. Let­ting go of these vol­umes, each bear­ing part of my soul, was no longer a bur­den, but a priv­i­lege, because they would nour­ish lives and futures I had come to cher­ish more than my own past.

The tran­si­tion of Jeanne into a poised and inde­pen­dent woman unfold­ed before me as grace­ful­ly as the chang­ing sea­sons. Her fear, once vis­i­ble in the way she held her hands or low­ered her gaze, had melt­ed into qui­et deter­mi­na­tion. Watch­ing her with Gelis, whose calm strength gave her roots, remind­ed me that time and kind­ness grow courage where once there was only sur­vival. I no longer saw myself as a res­cuer, but as a wit­ness to her rebirth. Their love was not loud or dra­mat­ic, but deep and certain—built on respect, shared dreams, and an earnest belief in each oth­er. In those sim­ple, stolen glances between them, I rec­og­nized the very things I had read about but nev­er lived. Their ten­der­ness became the most hon­est book I had ever encoun­tered, and one I was grate­ful to help write, if only through pres­ence and sup­port. My world, once lined only by shelves, had found new dimen­sions in their unfold­ing sto­ry.

Curat­ing Jeanne’s dowry became a process steeped in sym­bol­ism. Each vol­ume I select­ed was cho­sen not just for rar­i­ty or worth, but for the spir­it it carried—truths, myths, and insights meant to live again through their read­ers. It was no longer about guard­ing knowl­edge but gift­ing it, plant­i­ng seeds of reflec­tion and won­der in the soil of a shared life. Let­ting go of these books wasn’t for­get­ting them—it was trust­ing that their pages would be turned with the same rev­er­ence I once had. Some of the bind­ings trem­bled slight­ly in my hands as if reluc­tant to part from me, yet I knew they would be bet­ter served where they could inspire love and learn­ing. There was a silent grace in the act of release, a peace I hadn’t expect­ed. Per­haps this was the final les­son the library had to teach: that knowl­edge kept to one­self dies, but shared, it mul­ti­plies in mean­ing. Jeanne’s hands, once hes­i­tant, now accept­ed these gifts with dig­ni­ty and joy.

The cel­e­bra­tion of their union brought with it emo­tions I had long since set aside. My iden­ti­ty as a schol­ar fad­ed behind the proud role of a father fig­ure. I had not fathered Jeanne, but I had nur­tured her spir­it, and in doing so, I had dis­cov­ered a soft­er, hum­bler ver­sion of myself. The part of me that once resist­ed sen­ti­ment now found com­fort in her hap­pi­ness, know­ing I had been part of some­thing last­ing. Even the moment of temptation—my brief attempt to cling to a few trea­sured volumes—taught me some­thing essen­tial about being human. The ache to hold onto the past is nat­ur­al, but it must be out­weighed by the desire to serve what is to come. And in Jeanne’s lumi­nous future, I saw the endur­ing pur­pose of my life’s qui­et labor.

Step­ping into this unfa­mil­iar sea­son, I no longer feared the absence of rou­tine. A life shaped by dusty man­u­scripts and mea­sured soli­tude was yield­ing to one shaped by morn­ings in the gar­den and qui­et after­noons under open skies. The call of the coun­try­side, once back­ground noise, now rang clear­ly, echo­ing the rhythm of my slow­ing heart and gen­tler days. Fol­low­ing Madame de Gabry’s lead, I imag­ined a life where sto­ries weren’t just read, but lived in full—where nour­ish­ment came not from ink but from earth. The City of Books would always live with­in me, but it no longer defined me. It had served its pur­pose and would now bloom anew through two lives that held its mem­o­ry in their laugh­ter and plans. Sim­plic­i­ty, it turned out, was not emptiness—it was free­dom in anoth­er form.

This new chap­ter didn’t close the past but opened its final pages to mean­ing beyond achieve­ment. Jeanne and Gelis taught me that lega­cy isn’t built by hoard­ing bril­liance but by pass­ing it on with care. In the smiles they shared, I saw my best work—not bound in leather, but in hearts open to love and a future I helped shape. Though I had once feared being for­got­ten, I now under­stood that love makes mem­o­ry eter­nal. Books decay, shelves fall, but kind­ness and belief endure. My sto­ry would be told not in cat­a­log entries, but in the lives nour­ished by the silence I once kept and the hope I dared to give. And in that knowl­edge, I was final­ly ready to live the rest of my days not as a keep­er of pages, but as a man ful­filled.