One evening, months later, he found a letter tucked between its pages. The handwriting was slanted, the ink the color of dried copper. It read simply: “—If you listen, the pipes will tell you where they ache. —C.” Marcel’s stomach filled with something like homecoming. He understood, then, that Cauvin had been less a person than a practice: the discipline of attention, the habit of listening to the small complaints of materials.
