Mme Proust and the Kosher Kitchen Read Online Free PDF Page B

praises, saying soon no lady of the Faubourg Saint-Germain will be safe from those eyes. He seems particularly smitten by Jeanne Pouquet, who has been giving little receptions for her girlfriends that he attends.
    I just hope he manages his affections with a little more tact than he has in the past. All ladies want to be admired, to be sure, but Marcel gets himself in such a stew, I believe it frightens people—or worse yet, amuses them. That fuss over the de Benardaky girl back while he was still at school. Kicking about all day just waiting to go and play Prisoner’s Base with her and her comrades on the Champs-Elysées. Her parents were perfectly pleasant people, if a bit exotic, but really, Marie herself was all of fourteen or fifteen. They were far too young to be talking of love, and Marcel was making himself sick over the whole thing. Adrien agreed with me completely that it had to stop before the child lost all control over his emotions. Still, I often wonder if I was right to forbid him seeing her any more. As soon as I did he had the most dreadful attacks, as if to punish me for my firmness. At least, he is old enough now to take a more sensible attitude towards a pretty girl.
P ARIS . W EDNESDAY , F EBRUARY 18, 1891.
    Marcel is making an utter fool of himself over Jeanne Pouquet. And apparently the girl is engaged to Gaston Arman de Caillavet. What her parents must think, I cannot imagine. Marcel thinks he can hide it all from me, but it is obvious to any fool he is in love. Mooning about all day just like he did with Marie de B., just waiting until the next tea or outing. Jacques Bizet did nothing to calm my fears by telling me a little story yesterday, when he dropped by to fetch Marcel and was waiting in the salon while he dressed. Jacques says that last year in Orléans, during his military service, Marcel was always writing to the Pouquets, and proposed mother and daughter should come for a visit. If you please, the young prince was going to rent a nearby château, just a little one, of course, in which to entertain his new friends. Sometimes I wonder if the boy can distinguish between his dreams and reality. Jacques found the story screamingly funny, but I could think it only sad. I will not tell Adrien, it would just make him angry. He is increasingly worried that Marcel is not paying enough attention to his studies.
P ARIS . T HURSDAY , M ARCH 5, 1891.
    I took tea with Uncle Louis yesterday and in the foyer of his building crossed paths with his friend Mme Hayman. I know Adrien sees her at various dinners from time to time, but it has been several years since I have laid eyes on her. Her beauty certainly is not diminishing with age and she does not wear a speck of rouge, unlike most coquettes over thirty these days.
    She may be a demimondaine but she dotes on Uncle Louis more than his late wife ever did, and I am hardly a blushing bride any more to take some high moral line, so I acknowledged her politely, and we wound up having quite a chat. She was telling me of all Marcel’s social conquests. Indeed, he regularly attends her Tuesdays—where he will meet all sorts of dukes and princes, if not perhaps duchesses and princesses. I spoke quite earnestly of his need to study and find the right career, but she only laughed and said, “Madame, that one, the salon will be his career.”
    I told Uncle Louis that I had spoken with her, just in case she mentioned it to him, I would not want him to think there was any difficulty on my part. He is very eager to open the house at Auteuil as soon as possible, and was urging me to come with Adrien and stay around Easter or longer.
P ARIS . W EDNESDAY , A PRIL 8, 1891.
    Well, the Proust household is to be torn asunder over the question of chrysanthemums. Not small French ones, of course. There would be no point destroying a family over those scant blooms. No, it is the large Japanese ones that were all the rage this winter and sought after by every lady from the