Post by subtlecollision on Dec 2, 2008 17:23:40 GMT -5
I'm in need of some thoughts on this... What do you guys think is missing from this story? Does it make sense?
Sharing Words in Revolutionary France
Two rivaling writers wrestle with words beneath one roof, for they are husband and wife.
In spite of Odette Leroy’s ignorance, Renée Simon proposed to her two years ago. In spite of Renée’s intelligence, Odette accepted him. She had determined to dedicate herself to the pursuit of knowledge, but because she could neither find nor afford a formal education, frequented various Parisian salons.
Mme. Benoit, a sparkling conversationalist and salon hostess, awoke this morning to find her daughter ill. Because the guests’ disappointment would have been severe had she cancelled the party, Mme. Benoit insisted that Odette—her apprentice—host the party.
Thus, Odette presently sits at her dinner table with a circle of France’s most renowned artists, writers, politicians, and philosophes. Not one among them participates in gossip or light conversation of any kind, and this proves daunting as Odette struggles to find words to praise M. Poindexter’s manuscript on the benefits of a free market.
A poor hostess, she escapes conversation by occupying her tongue with a warm, honey-soaked crescent roll.
“Mme. Simon,” M. Petit addresses her as if to relieve her of her embarrassment, “I fear I may be a nuisance, but I cannot commend you enough on the excellence of these raspberry pastries.”
“If excessive praise makes one a nuisance, then M. Poindexter will find me intolerable by the end of the night,” Odette beams at her sudden artfulness, “I cannot recall the last time I was so impressed by an essay since reading A Vindication of the Rights of Men..”
M. Poindexter, slightly slouching in his chair, glances up at her with glittering aqua eyes and says:
“I find no fault in you praising my writing, but I wonder that you have not composed something superior. You are young and spirited, and such progressive times as these require the ideas and novelties that only the youth can deliver. The verses you share with us, while vastly amusing, do little to inspire the revolution brewing in the hearts and minds of the many oppressed people who have yet to find a voice in politics. You, my dear, could be their voice. I have often wondered why you do not read your prose to us; my current theory is that your humility will not allow it.”
“I do not attribute Mme.’s reserve to humility,” says the jovial M. Goodrich, “I believe she feels we cannot fully appreciate her ingenuity.”
Odette drops her fork on her plate and, averting her gaze, confesses, “On the contrary, I fear your criticism.”
The guests fall into a silence that, much unlike the previous one, results from their hostess speaking her mind.
***
The salonnières’ conversation loses its liveliness in the journey to Renée’s ears. Occasionally the sound of roaring laughter or passionate argument makes him cringe, but otherwise, he drowns the noise in his loud thoughts. He is searching for something.
His fingers glide over the papers scattered on Odette’s bureau. He spots a few of his own essays lying on top of books and boxes, but he does not read them. Scanning Odette’s epistles, poems, and prose, he feels he has rediscovered that singularity of his wife that all humans retain as part of one’s individuality (and how lovely it is)! Seeing the sonnets she wrote for him as a part of a larger collection, he realizes the writing smells like her—like rosemary—and he places a corner of a manuscript between his lips.
***
The feather on her hat whishing, Odette walks briskly down the hall to her bedroom. She stops at the threshold, more horrified by what she sees than what she expects. The air is thick with smoke. All the candles are lit, and they lavish the room with an awful brilliance. Her sweet, dear husband holds a pile of papers in his hand, sets them afire with a match, and launches them out the window.
“Are you mad?” she demands and darts to the window to watch her blazing papers flutter to the ground.
He does not look up from his work to say, “I was but a moment ago. Presently, I am in my right mind.”
No longer able to watch the rapid disappearance of her ideas, thoughts, and the other representations of her being, she grabs at her writings, but he locks hands with her in a struggle for them. Arms burning with the exertion, she refuses to look him in the eyes. The papers fall to the floor. In one quick-but-not-quick-enough move, she releases him and dives for her writing. He steps on it.
“Give me my writing!” she cries and tries to wriggle the papers out from under his feet.
“These are not your words! In this essay, for example, you would never use the phrase: “endowed with natural rights.” These are the words of the habitués of your beloved salons. Odette, this is not you!” his low, rough voice cracks at the end of the sentence, and his dark liquid eyes further exemplify his passion—a passion that he, unlike the philosophes, abstains from molding to political ends.
She rises slowly to her feet, but he seizes her arms and pushes her to the floor.
“My dear,” she gasps for breath, “Surely it is not criticism that you oppose when you offer it so liberally. Is it my companions who incite your anger?”
“Not the people, but the institution,” he grabs the papers from beneath his feet and, grimacing, tosses them out the window.
She releases a sound intended to express her furor, but more or less resembling quiet blubbering.
“Look at you!” he removes a heart-shaped hand mirror from her bureau and kneels to hold it in front of her.
Red and swollen, her face no longer glows with the radiance she felt in the dining room among her fellow patriots. She stares at her lackluster eyes, and then at her lavender ribbon necklace and heavily painted lips, noting the contrast. She wonders if he thinks her beautiful like this.
He whips the mirror away from her.
“How can you condemn me for conversation?” she wails.
“Four hours of conversation twice a week! And now you bring them into my house!” his voice swells with frustration, giving way to words half-sobbed, half-spoken, “I cannot fathom why you misemploy so much of your time. Speech is not an art. The ideas of others, especially those of lower classes, bear no weight in our world. Writing is about creativity and individuality. The ideologies of your salonnières are stripping away your identity.”
“As if you know who I am!”
“They are putting reckless words in your mouth and rebellious ideas in your head. Excessive chatter will make you lazy and self-indulgent. My dearest Odette, I do not speak as your husband, but as a fellow writer when I say that you have too much talent to allow yourself this indulgence.”
She rises to her feet, meeting his rage with composure, “And your solution is to destroy the products of my talent? To make free thought free-falling?”
With her back to her husband, Odette looks over the remaining pieces of writing—a couple of messy poems and scholarly texts—scattered on the bureau.
“This is my solution: tell them that their opinions are of no consequence—that you do not subscribe to their ideologies—that you have no interests in their affairs—and that you cannot possibly conceive how their company can facilitate your literary career!” he cries, breathing deeply, and adds in a restrained, sarcastic whisper, “Or does this speech want prettiness and thus, will not satisfy your eloquent companions?”
She evades his question, “Someone is coming.”
“Go and shut the door. Meet your guest in the hall,” he commands.
“C,” she murmurs.
“Oh, I abhor the foreign languages, which are yet another evil of the salons.”
“No,” she stands in the threshold, “I mean the letter C. You have burnt all of what we have written so far of the Encylopédie save for the section devoted to C. Yo te odio!” and, she slams the door shut behind her. She leans against it for a moment to calm her agitated breathing, closes her eyes, and opens them to swirls of shadow.
She meets M. Poindexter halfway down the hall. Nose wrinkled and eyes squinting, he wears an expression of great curiosity, and she fears he suspects something is amiss.
“Why did you slam the door just now?” he asks, not unkindly or accusingly.
Wrapping her arm around his, she hastily leads him down the hallway and explains that she often underestimates her strength. A fortnight ago, for instance, she doggedly maintained that she could not lift her mother of pearl jewelry armoire and demanded Renée do it, when, after endeavoring to lift the object, she realized it was as light as a feather.
“What a happy mistake,” he murmurs.
“Indeed, but as you have gathered, it sometimes causes me to overcompensate when I think my strength deficient.”
She tugs at his arm to lead him into the living room, in which the guests have now taken repose, but he does not move.
“Mme. Simon,” he whispers, “You must always defy the deficiencies that… your husband assigns you.”
She gapes at this unwelcome combination of impertinence and intuition, but only says, “I cannot imagine what you are suggesting, but do assure you that Renée harbors an immense confidence in me and my writing.”
“But he does not approve of the salon?”
Because she does not answer, he adds, “Never forget, Mme., that the salon is a symbol of the patriot cause. The salon is an ideal France, where people can find empathy for each other in a free and equal environment.”
Before she can promise him that she will honor his words, they are interrupted.
Upon being “discovered conspiring in the darkened corridor” by Mlle. de Bonnay, Mme. Simon and M. Poindexter join the others in the living room.
“I beg you not to get too comfortable, Mme. Simon. Your absence has not distracted us from your promised recital,” M. Petit says good-naturedly.
“Ah, I am caught,” she jokes, rising from the green velvet sofa and unfolding the paper in her sweaty hands. The fluttery feeling in her chest swells and her throat goes dry. The people around her fall silent. So much is expected of her, but will she deliver? Will the reading of an essay launch her into the realm of political activism? Is she even ready for such a responsibility?
Unable to dwell on this any longer, she silently reads the paper.
“On what subject have you written? I daresay it will be powerful. Women’s rights?” Mlle. de Bonnay asks.
Grinning, Odette apologizes, “Oh no, this author is not worthy to write on such a complex subject.”
“How critical you are! Yet you do not fool me. A good writer knows how to create suspense, and you like to showcase this skill,” M. Petit chuckles.
“I desire no such thing. I have agreed to share this piece only because my guests require it of me,” she offers one last chance for them to protest and, hearing none, reads aloud the barely legible writing with which she has forever struggled. It is her husband’s.
***
“So you see I could not refuse them. They would not believe that I had accidentally taken your writing,” Odette confesses to Renée with a mixture of glee and sorrow.
Sitting at the head of the dinner table amid the chaos of cold crumbs and half-empty glasses, Renée looks with feigned indifference at his wife. Yet she knows he wants to know. All writers do, despite claims that they write only for themselves.
In the kitchen, she pours him a glass of coffee and announces, “There was very little that they wanted to change about your essay, although I think I know how you could improve it. The general consensus was that—that it is brilliant!”
Satisfied, he sips at his coffee.
“M. Poindexter told me that he lately made acquaintance with a patron who would perhaps be interested in publishing your writing. Naturally, I did not tell them that the writing is yours. But when we do tell them, you will be famous! Is that not wonderful? Am I not right? Is conversation not greatly rewarding? Especially outside of one’s social circle? Contradict me if you dare!” Odette shrieks with delight.
Rather than indulge her, he smiles smugly and asks, “What did you say to his offer?”
Renée pushes his coffee toward the center of the table. With a sigh, Odette rises from her seat and takes it from him.
Absentmindedly adding sugar to the cup, she says with alternating anguish and exuberance, “I initially struggled to find the words to accept his offer, for he said his friend would pay a generous sum, and this number was of such an astonishing amount that I utterly lost my sense. Fortunately, I regained enough intellect to tell him that his opinion is of no consequence, that I do not subscribe to his ideologies, that I have no interest in his affairs, and that I cannot possibly conceive how his company can facilitate my literary career!”
Matching the sweetness in her voice to that of his coffee, she adds, “He was very mad, but it does not concern me. My only concern is whether or not I accurately conveyed your feelings on the subject.”
“Touché.”
Sharing Words in Revolutionary France
Two rivaling writers wrestle with words beneath one roof, for they are husband and wife.
In spite of Odette Leroy’s ignorance, Renée Simon proposed to her two years ago. In spite of Renée’s intelligence, Odette accepted him. She had determined to dedicate herself to the pursuit of knowledge, but because she could neither find nor afford a formal education, frequented various Parisian salons.
Mme. Benoit, a sparkling conversationalist and salon hostess, awoke this morning to find her daughter ill. Because the guests’ disappointment would have been severe had she cancelled the party, Mme. Benoit insisted that Odette—her apprentice—host the party.
Thus, Odette presently sits at her dinner table with a circle of France’s most renowned artists, writers, politicians, and philosophes. Not one among them participates in gossip or light conversation of any kind, and this proves daunting as Odette struggles to find words to praise M. Poindexter’s manuscript on the benefits of a free market.
A poor hostess, she escapes conversation by occupying her tongue with a warm, honey-soaked crescent roll.
“Mme. Simon,” M. Petit addresses her as if to relieve her of her embarrassment, “I fear I may be a nuisance, but I cannot commend you enough on the excellence of these raspberry pastries.”
“If excessive praise makes one a nuisance, then M. Poindexter will find me intolerable by the end of the night,” Odette beams at her sudden artfulness, “I cannot recall the last time I was so impressed by an essay since reading A Vindication of the Rights of Men..”
M. Poindexter, slightly slouching in his chair, glances up at her with glittering aqua eyes and says:
“I find no fault in you praising my writing, but I wonder that you have not composed something superior. You are young and spirited, and such progressive times as these require the ideas and novelties that only the youth can deliver. The verses you share with us, while vastly amusing, do little to inspire the revolution brewing in the hearts and minds of the many oppressed people who have yet to find a voice in politics. You, my dear, could be their voice. I have often wondered why you do not read your prose to us; my current theory is that your humility will not allow it.”
“I do not attribute Mme.’s reserve to humility,” says the jovial M. Goodrich, “I believe she feels we cannot fully appreciate her ingenuity.”
Odette drops her fork on her plate and, averting her gaze, confesses, “On the contrary, I fear your criticism.”
The guests fall into a silence that, much unlike the previous one, results from their hostess speaking her mind.
***
The salonnières’ conversation loses its liveliness in the journey to Renée’s ears. Occasionally the sound of roaring laughter or passionate argument makes him cringe, but otherwise, he drowns the noise in his loud thoughts. He is searching for something.
His fingers glide over the papers scattered on Odette’s bureau. He spots a few of his own essays lying on top of books and boxes, but he does not read them. Scanning Odette’s epistles, poems, and prose, he feels he has rediscovered that singularity of his wife that all humans retain as part of one’s individuality (and how lovely it is)! Seeing the sonnets she wrote for him as a part of a larger collection, he realizes the writing smells like her—like rosemary—and he places a corner of a manuscript between his lips.
***
The feather on her hat whishing, Odette walks briskly down the hall to her bedroom. She stops at the threshold, more horrified by what she sees than what she expects. The air is thick with smoke. All the candles are lit, and they lavish the room with an awful brilliance. Her sweet, dear husband holds a pile of papers in his hand, sets them afire with a match, and launches them out the window.
“Are you mad?” she demands and darts to the window to watch her blazing papers flutter to the ground.
He does not look up from his work to say, “I was but a moment ago. Presently, I am in my right mind.”
No longer able to watch the rapid disappearance of her ideas, thoughts, and the other representations of her being, she grabs at her writings, but he locks hands with her in a struggle for them. Arms burning with the exertion, she refuses to look him in the eyes. The papers fall to the floor. In one quick-but-not-quick-enough move, she releases him and dives for her writing. He steps on it.
“Give me my writing!” she cries and tries to wriggle the papers out from under his feet.
“These are not your words! In this essay, for example, you would never use the phrase: “endowed with natural rights.” These are the words of the habitués of your beloved salons. Odette, this is not you!” his low, rough voice cracks at the end of the sentence, and his dark liquid eyes further exemplify his passion—a passion that he, unlike the philosophes, abstains from molding to political ends.
She rises slowly to her feet, but he seizes her arms and pushes her to the floor.
“My dear,” she gasps for breath, “Surely it is not criticism that you oppose when you offer it so liberally. Is it my companions who incite your anger?”
“Not the people, but the institution,” he grabs the papers from beneath his feet and, grimacing, tosses them out the window.
She releases a sound intended to express her furor, but more or less resembling quiet blubbering.
“Look at you!” he removes a heart-shaped hand mirror from her bureau and kneels to hold it in front of her.
Red and swollen, her face no longer glows with the radiance she felt in the dining room among her fellow patriots. She stares at her lackluster eyes, and then at her lavender ribbon necklace and heavily painted lips, noting the contrast. She wonders if he thinks her beautiful like this.
He whips the mirror away from her.
“How can you condemn me for conversation?” she wails.
“Four hours of conversation twice a week! And now you bring them into my house!” his voice swells with frustration, giving way to words half-sobbed, half-spoken, “I cannot fathom why you misemploy so much of your time. Speech is not an art. The ideas of others, especially those of lower classes, bear no weight in our world. Writing is about creativity and individuality. The ideologies of your salonnières are stripping away your identity.”
“As if you know who I am!”
“They are putting reckless words in your mouth and rebellious ideas in your head. Excessive chatter will make you lazy and self-indulgent. My dearest Odette, I do not speak as your husband, but as a fellow writer when I say that you have too much talent to allow yourself this indulgence.”
She rises to her feet, meeting his rage with composure, “And your solution is to destroy the products of my talent? To make free thought free-falling?”
With her back to her husband, Odette looks over the remaining pieces of writing—a couple of messy poems and scholarly texts—scattered on the bureau.
“This is my solution: tell them that their opinions are of no consequence—that you do not subscribe to their ideologies—that you have no interests in their affairs—and that you cannot possibly conceive how their company can facilitate your literary career!” he cries, breathing deeply, and adds in a restrained, sarcastic whisper, “Or does this speech want prettiness and thus, will not satisfy your eloquent companions?”
She evades his question, “Someone is coming.”
“Go and shut the door. Meet your guest in the hall,” he commands.
“C,” she murmurs.
“Oh, I abhor the foreign languages, which are yet another evil of the salons.”
“No,” she stands in the threshold, “I mean the letter C. You have burnt all of what we have written so far of the Encylopédie save for the section devoted to C. Yo te odio!” and, she slams the door shut behind her. She leans against it for a moment to calm her agitated breathing, closes her eyes, and opens them to swirls of shadow.
She meets M. Poindexter halfway down the hall. Nose wrinkled and eyes squinting, he wears an expression of great curiosity, and she fears he suspects something is amiss.
“Why did you slam the door just now?” he asks, not unkindly or accusingly.
Wrapping her arm around his, she hastily leads him down the hallway and explains that she often underestimates her strength. A fortnight ago, for instance, she doggedly maintained that she could not lift her mother of pearl jewelry armoire and demanded Renée do it, when, after endeavoring to lift the object, she realized it was as light as a feather.
“What a happy mistake,” he murmurs.
“Indeed, but as you have gathered, it sometimes causes me to overcompensate when I think my strength deficient.”
She tugs at his arm to lead him into the living room, in which the guests have now taken repose, but he does not move.
“Mme. Simon,” he whispers, “You must always defy the deficiencies that… your husband assigns you.”
She gapes at this unwelcome combination of impertinence and intuition, but only says, “I cannot imagine what you are suggesting, but do assure you that Renée harbors an immense confidence in me and my writing.”
“But he does not approve of the salon?”
Because she does not answer, he adds, “Never forget, Mme., that the salon is a symbol of the patriot cause. The salon is an ideal France, where people can find empathy for each other in a free and equal environment.”
Before she can promise him that she will honor his words, they are interrupted.
Upon being “discovered conspiring in the darkened corridor” by Mlle. de Bonnay, Mme. Simon and M. Poindexter join the others in the living room.
“I beg you not to get too comfortable, Mme. Simon. Your absence has not distracted us from your promised recital,” M. Petit says good-naturedly.
“Ah, I am caught,” she jokes, rising from the green velvet sofa and unfolding the paper in her sweaty hands. The fluttery feeling in her chest swells and her throat goes dry. The people around her fall silent. So much is expected of her, but will she deliver? Will the reading of an essay launch her into the realm of political activism? Is she even ready for such a responsibility?
Unable to dwell on this any longer, she silently reads the paper.
“On what subject have you written? I daresay it will be powerful. Women’s rights?” Mlle. de Bonnay asks.
Grinning, Odette apologizes, “Oh no, this author is not worthy to write on such a complex subject.”
“How critical you are! Yet you do not fool me. A good writer knows how to create suspense, and you like to showcase this skill,” M. Petit chuckles.
“I desire no such thing. I have agreed to share this piece only because my guests require it of me,” she offers one last chance for them to protest and, hearing none, reads aloud the barely legible writing with which she has forever struggled. It is her husband’s.
***
“So you see I could not refuse them. They would not believe that I had accidentally taken your writing,” Odette confesses to Renée with a mixture of glee and sorrow.
Sitting at the head of the dinner table amid the chaos of cold crumbs and half-empty glasses, Renée looks with feigned indifference at his wife. Yet she knows he wants to know. All writers do, despite claims that they write only for themselves.
In the kitchen, she pours him a glass of coffee and announces, “There was very little that they wanted to change about your essay, although I think I know how you could improve it. The general consensus was that—that it is brilliant!”
Satisfied, he sips at his coffee.
“M. Poindexter told me that he lately made acquaintance with a patron who would perhaps be interested in publishing your writing. Naturally, I did not tell them that the writing is yours. But when we do tell them, you will be famous! Is that not wonderful? Am I not right? Is conversation not greatly rewarding? Especially outside of one’s social circle? Contradict me if you dare!” Odette shrieks with delight.
Rather than indulge her, he smiles smugly and asks, “What did you say to his offer?”
Renée pushes his coffee toward the center of the table. With a sigh, Odette rises from her seat and takes it from him.
Absentmindedly adding sugar to the cup, she says with alternating anguish and exuberance, “I initially struggled to find the words to accept his offer, for he said his friend would pay a generous sum, and this number was of such an astonishing amount that I utterly lost my sense. Fortunately, I regained enough intellect to tell him that his opinion is of no consequence, that I do not subscribe to his ideologies, that I have no interest in his affairs, and that I cannot possibly conceive how his company can facilitate my literary career!”
Matching the sweetness in her voice to that of his coffee, she adds, “He was very mad, but it does not concern me. My only concern is whether or not I accurately conveyed your feelings on the subject.”
“Touché.”
;D