Mme Proust and the Kosher Kitchen (39 page)

Under the
chuppah
, the bride stands gloriously tall in a dress that buttons all the way down her back, with a row of a hundred little pearls disappearing into the folds of its great skirt somewhere below her waist. The groom crushes the wedding cup under his foot with conviction, and the guests applaud the splintering sound.

The meal that follows is long and slow, with course upon course of fine meats and creamy sauces presented on big white dinner plates that are decorated with the petals of the pansy and the nasturtium. We seem only to have paused for
a moment, after eating the three or four little mouthfuls of chocolate mousse secreted inside the fold of a golden biscuit shaped like a cornucopia, when the young and eager master of ceremonies approaches a microphone and announces that the dessert table is ready.

Max takes my arm and propels me towards a new room, at the back of the dining hall, where the doors have been flung open to reveal a table that runs the whole length of this long, narrow space. The table is so full I cannot at first comprehend it, but gradually my eyes seize upon individual shapes in this great profusion. There is a dark-chocolate torte with serpentine lines of black icing drizzled across its surface. There is a lemon meringue pie with a glorious white crown flecked with gold where the heat of the oven has toasted it. There is a light, flat cake iced with a pale-green paste that can be counted on to offer the soft, sweet flavours of marzipan. There is a long strudel, its hundreds of papery layers concealing apples and raisins within, and dusted with powdered sugar without. There is a giant layer cake covered with a chocolate icing whipped into peaks that look like little waves on the sea. There are massive glass bowls of fruit salad in which perfect little pastel melon balls of pink, green, and orange nestle beside each other like candies in the jars on a confectioner’s countertop. Beside them, there are plates of petits fours, flat little circles and diamonds with pristine surfaces of pink or white icing, and biscuits, golden discs studded with slivers of almond or tapering tongues softly shining where the dough has been brushed with egg white. There are numerous cheesecakes, bathed in fruit sauces or simply plain, a cracked surface exposed to view with the full confidence that this simple one will be the best, the one that melts in the mouth, delighting the tongue with
the kiss of the sugar and the bite of the cheese. There are three big silverware barques, filled to the brim with candies, each one wrapped in a twist of coloured foil. At the centre of this vast array, mounted on a china pedestal so that it towers over the rest of the table, stands the crowning ornament, the pièce de resistance, the concoction that the French call a
croquembouche
, a stack of cream puffs held together by strands of spun sugar to create a pyramid of soft clouds encircled by a web of gold filaments.

I am usually a greedy eater, forever sampling, loath to forgo any flavour lest the next mouthful prove yet more satisfying than the last. But in front of this laden wedding table I seem frozen, unable to pick anything at all. I stand at the very beginning of the table, in the middle of a queue that is forming both ahead and behind me, holding a white plate onto which I have managed only to place a single ladyfinger.

Max stands ahead of me, reaching across the table to cut into the chocolate torte. He has lost me and does not notice that I stand behind him while others are stepping around me to help themselves. Across from Max, on the other side of the table and just down a few feet, a tall, blond-haired man with a muscular form that looks unaccustomed to its well-tailored suit is standing surveying the scene. As I watch, Max glances up from the knife he is holding and meets the man’s gaze. For a long moment they hold eyes as if they recognize each other.

I look down. My dress is crumpled now, with wide horizontal ridges disfiguring the skirt where it stretches across my belly and thighs. My shoes pinch. I move to the table in front of me and start to pile cakes and sweetmeats onto my plate.

Cheered by the final delivery of our Ruskin to Mercure, Marcel and I have agreed to a triple reform of his schedule, eating habits, and drug use. He is to take three meals a day at regular hours; he is to make sure he is asleep well before dawn and is to rise no later than ten in the morning at which point he will eat a light lunch, followed by afternoon tea, dinner at six, and whatever refreshments he chooses to eat with friends, should he be going out, or if needed, a snack here in the late evening. He will gradually curb his use of Trional, attempting at first to use it only every other day, with a goal of only once a week or in case of very bad attacks. He is to drink no more than three cups of coffee a day. He will begin Friday, after his big dinner at the Pierrebourgs on Thursday night. I have said he can have the dinner party for which he has been pestering me, once he undertakes this reform.

Mme de Noailles dropped in to see me yesterday on her way to visit Marcel in his room, and said the most complimentary things about what her brother has published so far in the
Renaissance Latine
. Said she cannot wait for the second bit this month, and was also, with a wink, praising the anonymous Horatio whose society articles are so enlivening the
Figaro
these days. Such a pretty girl, even if she does talk far too much. I suppose it is a sign of her intelligence, but it is unladylike to never let one’s interlocutor get a word in.

Marie N. came to visit yesterday afternoon, and sat with me while we waited for Marcel to wake. She has decided to settle in Paris for a while, much to our delight, for she has apprenticed herself to a silversmith—a M. Bing, whom she says is very respected in his field. I find it so odd that a girl should work for her living. Marcel says Marie’s parents are perfectly able to support her and settle a good sum on her at marriage, but she seems determined to pursue an artistic career with a diligence and regularity I only wish Marcel would exhibit. English girls are so lively and Marie always radiates energy. Perhaps domestic duties would not be sufficient to occupy her, although were she to have children she would discover soon enough they require every drop of energy a mother can muster.

I told her of Marcel’s plans for reforming his schedule and habits, and she kindly offered to lend whatever support she can.

Disastrous beginning to our triple reform. I pointed out to Marcel yesterday, when he rose at three in the afternoon, that he was already more than twenty-four hours into his new life and had yet to mend his ways. He took it ill, and said now that I had bothered him about it, he was too upset to start that day.

Still, we must persevere, even if the road is difficult and the sacrifices painful. Vice is a false comfort, virtue a true joy. The habits that Marcel must abandon, the behaviours that pervert and seduce, will be trifling
things, barely remembered, let alone regretted, once he has established a healthy life.

Adrien and I have agreed to July in Evian, and perhaps a trip to Montreux in August.

The ever-scheming Antoine is visiting practically every day. He is seemingly unchanged by his mother’s death and his time in Romania. He confided in me that Marcel does not see our Ruskin as real writing, an opinion he has expressed to me himself. I urged Antoine to encourage my little wolf, and he promised he would do that and drop me a note to report his progress in that regard.

Marcel tells me he has abandoned our reforms to prod me in this matter of the dinner, so I have relented and said there will be dinner if there is, immediately after, reform. I know he hates it when I call his friends
cocottes
, but really they are nothing better. None of these young aristocrats work and his latest acquaintance, the Marquis d’Albufera, even keeps a mistress in high style. The idea that the editor of the
Figaro
is going to be impressed by such company is nonsense. It will only affirm Marcel’s reputation as a literary dilettante if M. Calmette meets such people at our table. Marcel can never believe that not everyone in the world is dying to meet a duke or a count, the way he is, and that many hard-working people like his father actually are not the
least bit interested in the talk of the beau monde. Still, since I like nothing less than people who agree to a plan but then carry it out grudgingly, I have kept my thoughts to myself and we are going ahead with a dinner party in cheerful spirits.

Dick will bring Marthe for lunch on Sunday. We must get into the habit.

Apparently I under—or perhaps over—estimated M. Calmette, for he was bowing and scraping Thursday night as though his own achievements were for nothing in the face of a great family name. I expected the editor of the
Figaro
to be a bit more serious in temperament even if it is the society paper, and a little more aloof from the high and mighty since he is always ready to dig up scandal at their expense. But he turns out to be a veritable social climber. One of those who wants to be both the principled outsider and the charmed insider too. After I greeted Marcel’s guests, I retired, but Marcel left me a little note yesterday morning saying it had gone well, he thought, and that the mousseline sauce was in the end the right decision.

Adrien says I must not upset myself so, but what am I to do when Marcel sets out to spite me. We have made no progress on our reform. He has so little strength he must spend every other day in bed, yet when he rises it is to dine with d’Albufera and his lady in some restaurant. Or
last week, Marcel insisted that he must go all the way out to Passy to see the Comte de Montesquiou. He ignores
Sesame and Lilies
, which he promised he would consider as a second Ruskin project while we wait for the proofs on
Amiens
, but will spend a whole day fretting because his new friend, the Duc de Guiche, has not responded to a little letter he sent him last week. This morning he left me a note asking for the little divan in the hall to be moved back into his room this afternoon, but I have told Jean he is not to have it, and I will not respond to any more demands.

Joyous news from Marthe. I must get Marie-Marguerite on the telephone to tell her.

Marcel regaled me with tales of Tuesday’s ball. Although he had ignored the theme—Athens in the time of Pericles, demanding for those who are not classicist—and just went in his regular black tie, the other guests had outdone themselves with robes and wreaths and sandals. Marie was looking exquisite, he said, and had done her hair in the Greek style, all piled up at the crown of her head with ringlets coming down the side. She sat out the dances to keep him company, which I thought was unfair of him, since it is all very well being artistic but the girl must eventually find herself a husband.

He spent yesterday in bed and I do not suppose he will rise today.

The proofs of
Amiens
arrived from Mercure de France yesterday morning and Marcel started in on them as soon as he woke. Within an hour, he had Marie on the telephone with queries. She will call in person today. I am overjoyed to see him so committed to this work. Indeed, we are both greatly cheered by it, and quoted Baudelaire to each other: “Art is long and time is short.”

Adrien tells us that he and his colleagues have been consulted about the Panama Canal, for the yellow fever amongst the workers is so ferocious that the authorities fear it will never get built, and after all those scandals about the money, they can hardly afford more delays. I can see the old doctor straining at the bit, wishing he were still young enough to go running off to South America to investigate, but he must be content to spend these years resting on his well-deserved laurels. I am sure it is only a matter of time before we are informed of his election to the Academy.

Marie is our daily visitor as she and Marcel work their way through the proofs. He has also consulted Robert d’Humières, who did the Kipling and has promised any help he can give. So kind, since he might consider Marcel a competitor of sorts.

Marthe is progressing well now that her bouts of morning sickness are past. She is starting to show just slightly, not so that anyone but a mother would recognize it, but I could not help but notice on
Tuesday that she has surely relaxed her corsets somewhat.

A disaster. Marcel close enough to tears it was embarrassing, according to his father, and Adrien himself was so angry I was afraid he would burst a blood vessel just telling me about it this morning. We have Antoine to thank for this. I have never really trusted his taste for intrigue—such things so easily become malicious. Adrien says Marcel started it when they had not even finished their dessert by telling some story about Antoine singing an off-colour song—the trouble with these tales is that the men will never tell you exactly what transpired for fear of offending—and Antoine decided to take revenge by telling Adrien that last week Marcel tipped the waiter at the Café Wéber sixty francs. Adrien lost his temper—he still has not entirely recovered it this morning—and was made only angrier by Marcel’s evident distress. In the end Adrien abandoned the dinner, leaving the boys to themselves. If only I had been there I might have been able to keep the warring factions apart. Certainly, there would have been no mention of the song in the first place if I had been presiding at the table, although on the whole I think the men are better left to their own devices on these occasions.