I like monsters. A human being never counts so much for me that when he is monstrous, i.e. spectacular, funny and devoid of moral principles. I forgive all the failings of a woman, a man or an animal if the creature in question charms me by its aplomb, its bad faith or its eccentricities. Such principles have sometimes almost made my misfortune without me fortunately realizing it. They could cheat me, steal from me, threaten me, insult me, break things over my head, as long as they provided the raw material I'm so fond of: anecdotes, twists and turns. This principle is true for my friends, it was true until Eva for women.
I don't expect a woman to understand me or even to listen to me. The funniest people pay little attention to others, unless they are driven by the same motives as me. It is more a question of curiosity than of compassion. The marginal choices were not necessarily my favorites. It is a certain way of telling or behaving that seduced me. Ordinary fates have very moving double bottoms. The tidy women are sometimes the most disturbed, it is a truth that the police know of any time. Obviously, beautiful attributes could help - the fact of having several elephants in a forestry exploitation on the side of the Golden Triangle was enough to make me support a woman for several months whereas she was brutal, futile and unfaithful. Another fundamental quality: elegance. Attention, it is not only about wardrobe - even if appearance is a quality and money spent in a compulsive way is attractive -, but about a certain way of behaving.
I applied these bizarre principles with regularity, until Eva, and I feel that I have accomplished them in my love for her. To all kinds of defects, which are for me qualities and which she joins together at the best point, to these colors whose wild harmony delights me, Eva mixes a binder of the rarest, the varnish of a long life extraordinarily filled which confers her the limpidity of certain precious stones or the polish of a very worn wood.
A relic of magic, she has the supreme quality to occupy the ten thousand and one nights that separate us from death: fantasy, a faulty memory, incomplete, even messier than her dressing room, from which she sometimes extracts an anecdote as rare as an antique dress. One spring evening, in Tokyo, we were walking near our hotel during the promotion tour of her film My little princess, and she carelessly told me how she had been kidnapped a few years earlier by four men in Shanghai, in the middle of the street, while she was traveling alone.
I had known her for a year, and this adventure worthy of the Blue Lotus or an episode of a silent film from the 1910s suddenly escaped him, without much comment, as always. Eva is an enigmatic storyteller, the opposite of a fabulist. I still don't have a clear idea of what really happened; all I know is that she was walking alone, in her evening dress, through the streets of Shanghai, looking for the gambling establishments that her grandmother Margareth had once run, and that she was kidnapped and robbed. That's all. I still remember today the alleys of Tokyo, the edges of a park and this story of one East embedded in the other while she walked barefoot, as she often did. The flowers of the night were perfuming our path when she fell silent.
Eva is also a poor man's generosity, undemonstrative but effective. Always ready to share her last pennies, she shows me every day her attachment by preparing our meals. Her taste for cooking, ancient, probably inherited from the great-grandmother who brought her up, was affirmed as soon as she went to the Ddass1, where she prepared a CAP in pastry making. Since we have been living together for two and a half years, she has achieved a number of miracles in this field while remaining chic and untidy. I have long noticed that a certain quality of socialite, of the commensal species, that is to say, one who shares the life of others and takes advantage of their benefits without reducing them, without parasitizing them (this is the difference between the commensal and the parasite in terms of ethology); that these people, who have been around a lot, swiped a considerable number of fine plates and tasted at all the racks are all excellent cooks. The most complex culinary art is elaborated on meeting stoves. Eva has sometimes been a mother, but her cookbook links her to the bohemian species more than to that of Aunt Marie or Mrs. E. Saint Angel.
1. Irina Ionesco, Eva's mother, lost her parental rights while her 12 year old daughter was living alone with her 15 year old fiance.
Eva is faithful, she's the epitome of faithfulness. A loyalty of heart, not of reason. The fidelity of reason is a frequent defect in mature women. It is not simply a matter of a weakening of possibilities, but of resignation. The disasters caused by adultery and betrayal have left scars on all modern lives. Shouting, inconvenient moves, financial drought, boredom of old lovers, fear of the gigolo, threats of suicide, family troubles, possible resentment of children discourage the temptation of adultery in people over 50. To this cynical fidelity, I prefer another one, the fidelity of the outlaw, the madwoman or the ancient heroine, the one based on a simple principle: "If you betray me, you lose your soul. "From the minute I met Eva, even before I kissed her, I vowed never to betray her, even though I had cheated on every woman without exception up to her. Not having any more temptations gives a strong feeling of freedom, it allowed me to find with the other women this camaraderie between sexes which is lacking as soon as one places oneself in the ambiguous domain of seduction.
My only concern is for the future. As I get older, my health will deteriorate and I'm afraid Eva won't be the best nurse. Myopic, clumsy, worried, impatient, she hates sick men, is insensitive to my sufferings, and her troubles always tend to compete with mine. No matter, she will make an interesting widow.
I like monsters. A human being never counts so much for me that when he is monstrous, i.e. spectacular, funny and devoid of moral principles. I forgive all the failings of a woman, a man or an animal if the creature in question charms me by its aplomb, its bad faith or its eccentricities. Such principles have sometimes almost made my misfortune without me fortunately realizing it. They could cheat me, steal from me, threaten me, insult me, break things over my head, as long as they provided the raw material I'm so fond of: anecdotes, twists and turns. This principle is true for my friends, it was true until Eva for women.
I don't expect a woman to understand me or even to listen to me. The funniest people pay little attention to others, unless they are driven by the same motives as me. It is more a question of curiosity than of compassion. The marginal choices were not necessarily my favorites. It is a certain way of telling or behaving that seduced me. Ordinary fates have very moving double bottoms. The tidy women are sometimes the most disturbed, it is a truth that the police know of any time. Obviously, beautiful attributes could help - the fact of having several elephants in a forestry exploitation on the side of the Golden Triangle was enough to make me support a woman for several months whereas she was brutal, futile and unfaithful. Another fundamental quality: elegance. Attention, it is not only about wardrobe - even if appearance is a quality and money spent in a compulsive way is attractive -, but about a certain way of behaving.
I applied these bizarre principles with regularity, until Eva, and I feel that I have accomplished them in my love for her. To all kinds of defects, which are for me qualities and which she joins together at the best point, to these colors whose wild harmony delights me, Eva mixes a binder of the rarest, the varnish of a long life extraordinarily filled which confers her the limpidity of certain precious stones or the polish of a very worn wood.
A relic of magic, she has the supreme quality to occupy the ten thousand and one nights that separate us from death: fantasy, a faulty memory, incomplete, even messier than her dressing room, from which she sometimes extracts an anecdote as rare as an antique dress. One spring evening, in Tokyo, we were walking near our hotel during the promotion tour of her film My little princess, and she carelessly told me how she had been kidnapped a few years earlier by four men in Shanghai, in the middle of the street, while she was traveling alone.
I had known her for a year, and this adventure worthy of the Blue Lotus or an episode of a silent film from the 1910s suddenly escaped him, without much comment, as always. Eva is an enigmatic storyteller, the opposite of a fabulist. I still don't have a clear idea of what really happened; all I know is that she was walking alone, in her evening dress, through the streets of Shanghai, looking for the gambling establishments that her grandmother Margareth had once run, and that she was kidnapped and robbed. That's all. I still remember today the alleys of Tokyo, the edges of a park and this story of one East embedded in the other while she walked barefoot, as she often did. The flowers of the night were perfuming our path when she fell silent.
Eva is also a poor man's generosity, undemonstrative but effective. Always ready to share her last pennies, she shows me every day her attachment by preparing our meals. Her taste for cooking, ancient, probably inherited from the great-grandmother who brought her up, was affirmed as soon as she went to the Ddass1, where she prepared a CAP in pastry making. Since we have been living together for two and a half years, she has achieved a number of miracles in this field while remaining chic and untidy. I have long noticed that a certain quality of socialite, of the commensal species, that is to say, one who shares the life of others and takes advantage of their benefits without reducing them, without parasitizing them (this is the difference between the commensal and the parasite in terms of ethology); that these people, who have been around a lot, swiped a considerable number of fine plates and tasted at all the racks are all excellent cooks. The most complex culinary art is elaborated on meeting stoves. Eva has sometimes been a mother, but her cookbook links her to the bohemian species more than to that of Aunt Marie or Mrs. E. Saint Angel.
1. Irina Ionesco, Eva's mother, lost her parental rights while her 12 year old daughter was living alone with her 15 year old fiance.
Eva is faithful, she's the epitome of faithfulness. A loyalty of heart, not of reason. The fidelity of reason is a frequent defect in mature women. It is not simply a matter of a weakening of possibilities, but of resignation. The disasters caused by adultery and betrayal have left scars on all modern lives. Shouting, inconvenient moves, financial drought, boredom of old lovers, fear of the gigolo, threats of suicide, family troubles, possible resentment of children discourage the temptation of adultery in people over 50. To this cynical fidelity, I prefer another one, the fidelity of the outlaw, the madwoman or the ancient heroine, the one based on a simple principle: "If you betray me, you lose your soul. "From the minute I met Eva, even before I kissed her, I vowed never to betray her, even though I had cheated on every woman without exception up to her. Not having any more temptations gives a strong feeling of freedom, it allowed me to find with the other women this camaraderie between sexes which is lacking as soon as one places oneself in the ambiguous domain of seduction.
My only concern is for the future. As I get older, my health will deteriorate and I'm afraid Eva won't be the best nurse. Myopic, clumsy, worried, impatient, she hates sick men, is insensitive to my sufferings, and her troubles always tend to compete with mine. No matter, she will make an interesting widow.