conversations

Two Italians, on harems.

Carlo: Nicolas, you should have a harem of men like Cecily. 

Nicolas: No. I have one woman per night and then she leaves. 

Carlo: But really, that’s a kind of harem. 

Nicolas: It’s not! I don’t ever intend to keep my women. 

Two friends, on shirking identity.

Charles: I do not want to be Charles anymore.

Cecily: Charles has light and shade. Sometimes he’s so dryly drôle, at other times wracked with deep malaise, at other times, he simply makes dad jokes. You’re a universe. Don’t deny the world your universe. What does it matter if being Charles hurts you a little? You don’t keep long-term friendships anyway. 

Two friends, on endings.

Charles: I live a double life at best. When, where, and how does it all end? Do I walk into work one day and they’ll all have realised I’m not the person they always thought me to be?

Cecily: You already know your end. It’s preordained. Every moment of your life you have respired as Don Draper, and now you’re questioning whether your writers are going to spontaneously change your course? Hold their hands and walk into that ocean my friend. Buy the world a Coke.

Charles: I want a new story.

Cecily: So did Don. Escape is futile.

Two friends, on being sober.

Arnaud: You are sober?

Cecily: Yes.

Arnaud: And the world is still colourful?

Cecily: Very much so.

Arnaud: Was it an accident, your sobriety?

Two friends, on an orchestra.

Cecily: Yves went to inform his music teacher that he’s staying in Paris so he can be with me forever, instead of joining the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.

Charles: You have a responsibility to the global art world. Just drug him and put him on the Eurostar.