Citations

Le plaisir

Jean's friend: You know how it goes. Contempt has always followed possession. To spend your whole life with someone, you don't need lust - which is quickly extinguished - but a harmony of minds, temperaments, and humor.

Narrator: I've always loved the night and darkness. I'm delighted to speak to you in the dark, as if seated right beside you - and perhaps I am.

Jean's friend: I was there the first time they met. Jean Summer hadn't yet settled on landscapes or still lifes, but he hated nudes. He didn't know that the pretty girl was in fact a model. He was captivated by how she walked, her childlike and sensual face, her slightly gaudy elegance, and her divine waist. Her name was Joséphine.

Joséphine - le modèle (segment "Le Modèle"): I don't want your money or your letter or your goodbye! I won't be treated like a tart! It wasn't I who ran after you. You begged me, and you took me, so now keep me.

Narrator: [Introducing "Le Masque"] The crowd flooded in like water into a dam. Regulars from all over Paris, of every class, came for rough, boisterous fun and debauchery. There were shop clerks, pimps, and above all, girls, dressed in the roughest cotton to the finest batiste. Rich old diamond-laden women chasing their youth and poor young girls desparate to have fun, meet men, and spend money. Men in tails, after young flesh deflowered but still desirable, prowled the excited crowd, on the hunt, sniffing out the scent.

Denise - la femme d"Ambroise (segment "Le Masque"): It's not the first time he's landed flat on his face from frolicking around.
Le docteur (segment "Le Masque"): That's a relief.
Denise - la femme d"Ambroise (segment "Le Masque"): Come in. He skipped dinner to be light on his feet and had an absinth to liven his spirits.

Le docteur (segment "Le Masque"): But shy does he insist on dancing like that?
Denise - la femme d"Ambroise (segment "Le Masque"): Why indeed! So people think he is young under that mask. So women take him for a dandy, let him whisper nasty things in their ear. So he can rub against them, with all their scents, powders and pomades.

Denise - la femme d"Ambroise (segment "Le Masque"): All the smartest ladies asked for Ambroise.
Le docteur (segment "Le Masque"): Ambroise?
Denise - la femme d"Ambroise (segment "Le Masque"): That's him. They gave him a fortune in tips. They're all the same. When you like a man, they take him. It's so easy.

Narrator: [Introducing "La Maison Tellier"] Would you like something more cheerful and warm-hearted, even a bit bawdy? A fairy tale for grown ups?

Narrator: [Introducing "La Maison Tellier"] How can I put it without shocking you? It was one of the "houses" - - but very well run. Men went there every night like they'd go to a café . The same six or eight would meet. Respectable men - - shopkeepers, young men of the town, They'd drink and flirt with the girls or talk to Madame, whom everyone respected.

Monsieur Poulain - L'ancien maire (segment "La Maison Tellier"): The men shouting are Englishmen. They're used to brawls. Seems it's like fencing in their country.

Jean's friend: What can one ever say for certain about women? They lie without knowing or intending or understanding. Yet there's a sincerity to their emotions and sudden actions that puts our reason to rout and turns our plans upside down.

Joséphine - le modèle (segment "Le Modèle"): Such is life, my love. Old age and salmon, youth and sardines.

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