The Paris Novel

Your problem”—he pulled an onion tart from the oven—“is that you always look for reasons to be unhappy.

But I feel as if the world is filled with music I have never heard. I wonder what else I am missing?

What would we say? The wine spoke for itself. We were drinking time, drinking history, tasting the past. You can’t talk about that, and only idiots would try.

Not to me. One lost soul looking for another. Doesn’t that describe us all?

It sounds so much better in French.” “Most things do.

Bookshops made her anxious. Each volume was like an eager animal at the pound, striving for attention, hoping for a home. “Take me, take me,” they called out, until the chorus grew so loud she had to turn and flee.

When fortune smiles, you immediately start to worry about how it will end. Why not enjoy the moment?

Django handed her a heap of parsley and she stood next to him, allowing his rhythm to become her own until they were moving together. In the air, the tang of lemons. The aroma of chicken stock. Beeswax mingling with butter. Chocolate melting into oranges. Her spirits rose with the scents swirling through the kitchen. They spoke little; they had no need. They were a team, their minds melded more effortlessly than Stella had imagined possible. They massaged butter into chickens, boned fish, opened oysters. Django set a flat of speckled eggs on the counter. Next to it, a ceramic bowl. He opened his hands and Stella broke the eggs, dozens of them, across his outstretched fingers, watching yolks separate from whites. It occurred to her that she had tortured herself for no reason. She was happy.

That is the most expensive spice in the world. It comes from the Valley of Flowers, where everyone's hands are red from separating the saffron from the blossoms. Each flower has just three strands, so it takes seventy thousand flowers to make a single pound.

It is a beautiful day. You will walk through the Tuileries to the Seine and along the Seine to the Pont des Arts. Cross the bridge and walk up the boulevard Saint-Germain to Les Deux Magots. Order a glass of Chablis, very cold, and a dozen Belon oysters.

vision she’d had. Volumes were stacked everywhere: on shelves, in great heaps on the floor, in a zigzag line running up a ramshackle flight of stairs. Books owned the space. She took a long, deep sniff; this was not the industrial scent of ink, paper, and cleaning fluid of ordinary bookstores. She took another breath: People had eaten sandwiches and onion soup here, they’d drunk wine and beer as they paged through the books, fallen in love around them. Moving into the shop, she noticed a small blond girl roaming around, picking up volumes with grubby hands. Nobody seemed to mind; nobody stopped her. These books were not destined to sit sedately on tables or be shelved in alphabetical order; these books were meant to become part of your life.

whenever a woman smiles, her dress should smile with her.

Paris, unlike her native New York, seemed capable of savoring the present while appreciating the past.

You have good rhythm and great patience,” he said. “Two of the four things required to make a cook.” “What are the other two?” “Good ingredients. And imagination.

In her walks through Paris, Stella had not seen anything that remotely resembled Le Sauvage. The house seemed to merge with the landscape, walking so lightly on the land it nearly vanished. The interior had the same effect; as they entered, the walls seemed to melt away. It was an astonishing architectural trick, creating the illusion that they were not going inside a building but merely inhabiting a new space.

I’ve always considered courage overrated. It’s responsible for so many of the world’s troubles.

Victorine-Louise Meurent was a favorite of all the major painters of the time. Known as La Crevette—the shrimp—because of her small stature and bright-red hair, she had modeled for many artists of the era.

be not inhospitable to strangers lest they be angels in disguise.

The wine spoke for itself. We were drinking time, drinking history, tasting the past. You can’t talk about that, and only idiots would try.

it: be not inhospitable to strangers lest they be angels in disguise.

These months in Paris had opened all her senses; she now needed so much more.

We were drinking time, drinking history, tasting the past. You can’t talk about that,

Just think: If I had taught you to cook when you were a little girl, we could have made a restaurant together

Stella remembered watching Celia cook, thinking how Olney’s approach was entirely different. Celia would stride into the kitchen like a conquering hero, a warrior intent on subduing ingredients. For her, food was a weapon, and she was interested only in the final result. Olney, on the other hand, was intent on enjoying the journey. Patrick and Baldwin both found pleasure in the kitchen, but for Olney, cooking was much more than that. It seemed that he didn’t just enjoy cooking; he was totally absorbed in it. It must be, she thought, the way he painted, and she understood that he had simply traded his brush for a knife.

But they did not discuss the wine. When she remarked on it later, Jules shrugged. “What would we say? The wine spoke for itself. We were drinking time, drinking history, tasting the past. You can’t talk about that, and only idiots would try.

You disappoint me.” He scowled at her. “I did not believe you could be so lily-livered.

One lost soul looking for another. Doesn’t that describe us all?