Relieved to find him so cheerful, I asked him to describe what he was wearing so that I could picture him, all tanned since the last time I’d seen him, and then I closed my eyes, the better to hear his voice and the bright ring of his laughter. After I hung up, I waited impatiently for Marie to come down to breakfast, only to see Frédéric and Mathias appear and discreetly get into a new tiff while pretending to review the day’s obituaries in Le Figaro. Because there was truly no love lost between the old guard and the beau past his prime, a pair as incompatible as clashing colors. With his out-of-date vocabulary, Frédéric persisted in using words like “automobile,” “bathing costume,” “icebox,” “big bum,” and “lady.” He always referred to Juan-les-Pins as a “village,” for example, when that seaside resort no longer bore much resemblance to the shady town square, church steeple, neighborhood bakery, and café-tabac evoked by such a bucolic term. “I’m not going into the village this morning because it’s too full of idiots on Saturdays.”
