one of us, because she was unable to grasp the subtleties of our particular jargon, a fact that we initiates—who recognize one another, like freemasons of refinement—noticed immediately, without comment, but did not dismiss. And we had every right to hold it against her, strange though that might appear, for fewer and fewer people still understood what we were talking about when we talked about such things.
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Oeufs à la Chartres
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Seated next to Charles Ramsbotham, Lou quickly struck up a conversation.
“I believe I heard that you were English. How come you speak French so well?”
“My mother was Swiss and silent,” intoned Charles in a sinister voice that did not discourage Lou in the least.
“Are you married?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you bring your wife with you?”
“Because she is boring.”
Charles’s reply happened to fall loudly into one of those unexpected moments of silence that occur during conversations, and so, after a moment of astonishment, our table collapsed into hilarity in spite of my father’s attempts to restore order. After all, none of us had seen Lady Sally for years because, like an exotic fruit, she did not travel well, given that she cared only—in order of importance—for white wine, gardens, dogs, and horses.
Georgina came nimbly to the rescue. “Edmond, these oeufs à la Chartres are heavenly, perfectly poached and with just enough tarragon. I’m tempted to have more, but that depends on the main course. What will come next?”
“I was wondering the same thing,” added Frédéric. “This sauce is to die for. What is it? Madeira? Veal stock?”
“Help me out, Marcel,” said my father, turning toward the butler. “I’ve no idea what to tell them …”
“Veal stock, Monsieur. And the next course will be dorade, and for dessert, ice cream, I’ll have to inquire about the flavor.”
The episode with the real estate agent had so shaken me that I didn’t feel up to helping my father with his duties as host, and I left the handling of table conversation completely to him. Art was often the chief topic of our dining discussions, and it cropped up all the sooner in this case since Mathias spoke right up in his capacity as a dealer, thus proving he was keeping his eye on the prize.
“Do you buy much?” he asked my father.
While I was guessing whether Mathias would have the nerve to try selling him something before dinner was over, Polyséna began deploring the contamination of the art market by money.
“Money as pollutant, or money as patronage, it’s a classic debate,” my father told her.
In his eyes, Polyséna’s besetting and inconvenient sin was to be both intoxicated by her own learning and stuffed with opinions so conventional that she became the very caricature of a pedant, so my father couldn’t help condescending to her slightly when he focused the argument on money as the sole common denominator of our fragmented societies, and the trendsetter henceforth of an artistic taste forged in the past by European courtly life. Vexed at being caught en flagrant délit de cliché, Polyséna played her trump card, making a daring rapprochement between a Renaissance painter and Damien Hirst in a bold attempt to leave my father speechless.
Frédéric, who had no particular desire to take part again in another discussion on art, turned quietly to Georgina. “So, it seems you live like a deluxe nomad …”
Georgina countered by observing that travel gave her the impression of making some progress. At first, lost in a new city and sometimes even unable to speak the language there, she would feel alone and disoriented, but since she thus had every reason to feel bad, this dispensed with the need to ask herself existential questions and brood over the latent depression that plagued her. Besides, the challenge of establishing herself in a strange place made her feel brave, adventurous, even heroic. And that persuaded her to accept the austerity of her life while awaiting the blossoming of her adjustment to her new home.
I was overhearing Georgina while listening to Polyséna as she developed her theory.
“It was largely for his contacts that Cosimo I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, hired Vasari in 1555 to decorate the interior of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, which displayed works by Michelangelo, Leonardo, Pontormo, and Il Rosso. Why Vasari? Because, like Damien Hirst, he was professionally and socially ambitious. He lacked originality but displayed sound judgment formed by the cultivation of his peers and the demands of his patrons, as well as the