The Paris Hours by Alex George

Author:Alex George
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Flatiron Books

24

Paris, 1915: Confidences

OUTSIDE THE APARTMENT, the war raged. Olivier remained stationed at the front. Finding themselves increasingly alone, the two occupants of the apartment at 102 Boulevard Haussmann began to talk more and more.

“Tell me about Auxillac,” Marcel Proust said one afternoon, watching Camille carry the tray of coffee and croissants across the bedroom.

“Oh, monsieur, you’re not interested in where I came from,” she demurred. “I’m a simple country girl from the Lozère.”

He looked amused. “And?”

“You spend your evenings talking to duchesses in tiaras! What possible interest could my childhood be to you?”

“My dear Camille, why on earth do you imagine that those people are more interesting than you? Because they’re duchesses? Or because they wear tiaras?”

“Now you’re mocking me, monsieur.”

“Not in the slightest. It was an entirely serious question.” Proust reached for a croissant. “Most of those women are stupendously boring. They’re obsessed with trivialities, they have no opinions of their own, and they are uniformly dim. An aristocratic pedigree is no guarantee of anything these days, least of all a discernible character.” He took a bite. “You, though,” he said, after chewing for a moment. “I see still waters running deep within you.”

Camille blushed, quite undone.

“Never let anyone tell you you’re boring, Camille. If they tell you that you don’t matter, that you’re of no consequence, don’t believe it for one moment.”

“Oui, monsieur.”

“I like you so very much, Camille! Will you promise me something?”

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

“Be a strong woman. Most of all, be yourself! Don’t ever let anyone tell you what to do. Especially not a man.” He paused, a small smile on his lips. “Except me, of course. You should always follow my instructions to the letter.”

“Oui, monsieur.”

“So, tell me about Auxillac.” He took another bite of croissant.

And so, hesitantly at first, she began to tell stories of her childhood. She was sure that Monsieur Proust would quickly become bored by the tedium of her family’s simple, bucolic life, but he appeared quite enchanted, and asked for more. Once she was sure he was not teasing her, she obliged. She resurrected old family legends that she had heard told around the dinner table countless times as a child. She reminisced about the carefree summers of her youth, and the hard, cold winters. She recalled old friends that she had not thought about in years. Most of them were still living in Auxillac. Sometimes Camille did not know whether to laugh or cry when she thought of them now, so very far away.

Marcel Proust listened to every word, his eyes never leaving hers while she talked. Occasionally he would elicit an extra detail from her, but for the most part he remained silent. He wanted to know about Olivier’s courtship, those long drives along the country lanes with the wind in her hair.

“Ah, youth is wasted on the young, Camille,” he said softly.

He began to tell her stories about his own childhood. He recalled long-ago weekends spent at an uncle’s house in Auteuil, summers at another uncle’s house in Illiers.

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