or simply worried that he would commit some gaffe?
Jean-Michel seemed to be studying the napkins and bread and butter plates next to the chargers by César, which we were discussing as the butler replaced themwith soup plates of marbled yellow-glazed faience from Apt. In matters of etiquette, I would have been glad to whisper advice to him, but everything in his manner indicated that he would take my kindness for condescension. Too bad! He could just wonder away. As he would surely do throughout the entire dinner.
Debating, for example, when to begin eating what was on his plate. And he would discover that unlike in the United States, where it is customary to wait for everyone to be served before picking up one’s fork, it is the mistress of the house or the most prominently seated woman at the table who gives the signal, even before all the gentlemen have been served. Sitting on my father’s right, Gay would thus be our “hostess.” The butler would then serve the men, and my father last, who might be left on short rations, moreover, for the platter sometimes offered only slim pickings by the time it reached him.
In the same way, Jean-Michel might well be perplexed by the semicircular salad plates, or the dessert plates that would presently appear with a silver-gilt fork and spoon, along with a finger bowl to be placed with its doily to the left of his dinner plate.
Too
bad for him, I thought again, and then my generous nature recovered its aplomb and made me fiddlewith my bread-and-butter plate, on my left, to show him innocently which was whose.
Laszlo, meanwhile, was grimacing as he bent down sideways and exclaimed, “Can someone enlighten me as to why mosquitoes always attack your ankles? And aren’t they unusually ferocious this year?”
“You’re telling me,” replied Jean-Michel, who started scratching in turn.
Ah, now I’ve got it, I thought, since Jean-Michel obviously had no difficulty smiling and talking with anybody but me. I then put him to one last test, handing him a small bottle of mosquito spray I’d taken from my little evening bag.
“Here, it’s my constant companion. What can I say? Mosquitoes adore me.”
Nothing. No reply. Aside from a feeble smile of thanks before using my spray.
Having no doubt observed my mounting irritation at Jean-Michel’s awkwardness or rudeness (and frankly, at this point I didn’t care which), Laszlo jumped in to rescue me from the lengthening silence. “But the worst time is at night!”
“That’s because like all insects, they don’t sleep,” observed my father, a fountain of information on all creatures great and small. “Sleep only becomes possiblewhen the brain has reached a certain size. Butterflies, for example, do not sleep, whereas whales, orcas, and dolphins sleep with just one brain hemisphere at a time, which allows them to swim without ever stopping.”
“Perhaps he doesn’t like me?” I wondered. But after all, that wasn’t any reason not to speak to me! Just look at that stuck-up stick Laetitia, whose hitherto unsuspected passion for nature documentaries was making my father happy to chat with her. Oh, well, as if I gave a damn! Why should I let a moron like him bother me? I decided to ignore Jean-Michel and join the conversation Gay was whipping up about Marie Antoinette.
“I’m reading a most amusing book by Caroline Weber about Marie Antoinette called
Queen of Fashion
, in which she describes how the young queen used her opinions and prejudices about dress to demonstrate her influence on the court, which she systematically challenged in the realm of fashion.”
“Isn’t that what Louis XIV had already done?” I asked.
“True, and Marie Antoinette was in fact greatly inspired by him. But she
democratized
fashion. First with her overdressed and even over-the-top style with those coiffures, the utterly insane bustles, which had such a success that she made the hairdressers and couturiers of that era rich. Then she
Jean-Michel seemed to be studying the napkins and bread and butter plates next to the chargers by César, which we were discussing as the butler replaced themwith soup plates of marbled yellow-glazed faience from Apt. In matters of etiquette, I would have been glad to whisper advice to him, but everything in his manner indicated that he would take my kindness for condescension. Too bad! He could just wonder away. As he would surely do throughout the entire dinner.
Debating, for example, when to begin eating what was on his plate. And he would discover that unlike in the United States, where it is customary to wait for everyone to be served before picking up one’s fork, it is the mistress of the house or the most prominently seated woman at the table who gives the signal, even before all the gentlemen have been served. Sitting on my father’s right, Gay would thus be our “hostess.” The butler would then serve the men, and my father last, who might be left on short rations, moreover, for the platter sometimes offered only slim pickings by the time it reached him.
In the same way, Jean-Michel might well be perplexed by the semicircular salad plates, or the dessert plates that would presently appear with a silver-gilt fork and spoon, along with a finger bowl to be placed with its doily to the left of his dinner plate.
Too
bad for him, I thought again, and then my generous nature recovered its aplomb and made me fiddlewith my bread-and-butter plate, on my left, to show him innocently which was whose.
Laszlo, meanwhile, was grimacing as he bent down sideways and exclaimed, “Can someone enlighten me as to why mosquitoes always attack your ankles? And aren’t they unusually ferocious this year?”
“You’re telling me,” replied Jean-Michel, who started scratching in turn.
Ah, now I’ve got it, I thought, since Jean-Michel obviously had no difficulty smiling and talking with anybody but me. I then put him to one last test, handing him a small bottle of mosquito spray I’d taken from my little evening bag.
“Here, it’s my constant companion. What can I say? Mosquitoes adore me.”
Nothing. No reply. Aside from a feeble smile of thanks before using my spray.
Having no doubt observed my mounting irritation at Jean-Michel’s awkwardness or rudeness (and frankly, at this point I didn’t care which), Laszlo jumped in to rescue me from the lengthening silence. “But the worst time is at night!”
“That’s because like all insects, they don’t sleep,” observed my father, a fountain of information on all creatures great and small. “Sleep only becomes possiblewhen the brain has reached a certain size. Butterflies, for example, do not sleep, whereas whales, orcas, and dolphins sleep with just one brain hemisphere at a time, which allows them to swim without ever stopping.”
“Perhaps he doesn’t like me?” I wondered. But after all, that wasn’t any reason not to speak to me! Just look at that stuck-up stick Laetitia, whose hitherto unsuspected passion for nature documentaries was making my father happy to chat with her. Oh, well, as if I gave a damn! Why should I let a moron like him bother me? I decided to ignore Jean-Michel and join the conversation Gay was whipping up about Marie Antoinette.
“I’m reading a most amusing book by Caroline Weber about Marie Antoinette called
Queen of Fashion
, in which she describes how the young queen used her opinions and prejudices about dress to demonstrate her influence on the court, which she systematically challenged in the realm of fashion.”
“Isn’t that what Louis XIV had already done?” I asked.
“True, and Marie Antoinette was in fact greatly inspired by him. But she
democratized
fashion. First with her overdressed and even over-the-top style with those coiffures, the utterly insane bustles, which had such a success that she made the hairdressers and couturiers of that era rich. Then she
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