Christian: We all said we’d help Oscar move house. Caroline promised to clear her schedule Sunday. I said I’d bring Benjamin and Hélène. George was going to bring the boxes. Veronique said she’d send her maid.
Two friends, on narrative.
Cecily: I go through silly extremes. Last year, I worked myself to the bone physically and emotionally. Then, I was a voracious shopper, in glittering boots and Serbian rabbit furs. Then I became a restless housewife, befriended by laundry and experimental stews. The continuum of my life is so fractured, and my dominant personality traits shift so frequently. This is one of the reasons I crave marriage. It seems like necessary connective tissue in the narrative of my life. Thing is, I’m not sure if real life is supposed to have a narrative arc.
Xavier: It’s not. And if we treat ourselves like we’re fictional characters, then it will rarely be with any sort of actual justice or understanding. It will be a series of grand sweeping gestural things, and unrealistic narrativising. Leave that to other people to do about you.
Cecily: But narrative smoothness in life might help. Might help me keep a tabs on how I’m doing as a human. I feel kind of like a fish. A fish with nowhere to go, in a really fancy hat.
Cecily, on education.
Cecily: I have had a good education in cheese, wine, polo, and skiing. Although I still cannot ski. It didn’t help that I started my education on terrifying Swiss slopes that tiny Swiss kids were navigating like Russian ballerinas. And there was my Calvin Klein coat (not made for skiing) weighing me down and heavy around my ankles. I wanted glüwein and a chalet that day, more than I have ever wanted those things in my life.
Xavier: Polo is beyond me, but I do like cross country croquet; the style those Algonquin guys played in the 1920s.
Cecily, on Paris.
Cecily: The streets are romantic, and filled with lovers who don’t even know each other.
A mentor and a student, on whoredom.
Cecily: Under your mentorship I have flourished into a bit of a right whore.
Christian: Beware. Whoredom too spirals into its own squealing mundanity.
To Cecily, on soup.
Christian: Are you saying you consider my soups as vulgar as consommés?
Two friends, on hands.
Christian: Your hands are spindly and alluring.
Cecily: I use them to drive Italian men wild. Yesterday, a man named Marcello bought me a salad just so he could watch my hypnotic nails for an hour. My manicures pay for themselves.
Two friends, on Paris afternoons.
Christian: It’s a lovely afternoon. Let’s go to Place Saint Catherine, to the café with the flirty waiters. Do you know the one I mean?
Cecily: I shall take a punt and guess the café, or stroll around the square until you arrive to guide me to this font of hotness.
Sisters, on dressing.
Delilah: Tell me, are you dressed entirely as Zelda Fitzgerald?
Cecily: How does Zelda Fitzgerald dress?
Delilah: With regard.
Cecily: I am in bed. So I am not dressing with regard.
Delilah: Perfect. Not dressing, with regard. You should know, it’s dangerous leaving punctuation to your adversary.
Two friends, on pain.
Ohan: Pain doesn’t have to harden you. It can create the space for more love to fit inside.
Cecily: I don’t need pain to make room for more love. Pain makes room for more Häagen-Dazs. That’s it.
thedailymails 