Now I have to apologize because I need to say a little about me. So you will understand a little bit more my concern.

I'm nobody, which is very fine with me. I'm not a psychologist, not a journalist, not a cinema critic. I'm an ordinary Frenchman, rather older than River when he died. I'm not a depressed or a jumping teenager. I don't collect photos of actors or actresses. I don't hang them in my flat walls in Paris (this is actually not the truth, I've got two wonderful black and white photos of River above my piano but I swear, they're the only ones!). I'm more an operamaniac and a Wagnerite (not an illness but somebody who loves Wagner's music) than a heavy metallist or a progressive rock and roll fan as River was. I also like literature. He was not known to have been an assiduous reader.

In short, I've nothing much in common with the daily life of a successful young actor in the US except the basic human needs. To be complete, I must add I eat meat and I like it even though, since recently, I cannot help thinking of River for half a second each time I eat some. Silly, isn't it? And I must be very clear, no way I could quit cheese!

To finish with that, and I'm sure you'll understand what I mean, let me tell you I sometimes drink wine as a good Frenchman, but I could count on my fingers the times I was really drunk. I've smoked maybe 10 tobacco cigarettes in my whole life when I was sixteen and that's all about me and drugs (no pride, no shame, just a fact).

I could have also thought my being French would have been a kind of shield because of education and culture differences. Up to now I believed the only link between River and France was the second name of his sister Rain, the beautiful name of our Jeanne d'Arc or Joan of Arc, (not an easy name to bear, River, like yours?). But I recently read that River was approached to play Arthur Rimbaud, one of our best 19th century poets whose life has many similarities with River's (but let's not swallow any nonsense, he died of cancer!). Furthermore it was said the Henry Miller book "The Time of the Assassins" would not have left him, wherever he went during this last year. I'd be very happy if this last story was true. Maybe just a too beautiful one, but real or not, we are ready to accept it and this is interesting enough in what it says about our love and consideration towards River.

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