A Plea for Eros

every French film I saw had that man in it. His fame was incontrovertible. The actor entered the hotel. Unlike many movie stars, he did not disappoint off the screen. He is a very large man, a formidable man, and he burns with energy. Clad in a leather jacket, his motorcycle helmet tucked under his arm, he headed toward us, his gait determined but galumphing. Depardieu exuded nothing so much as testosterone, an unvarnished, out-of-the-street maleness that, to be honest, bowled me over. From the corner of my eye, I noticed the manager of the hotel notice who had just entered his establishment. Visible but controlled excitement could be seen on his features. His face made it eminently clear that the closer Depardieu came to us, the higher our status rose in that hotel. His sharp eyes never left the celebrity. The actor arrived at our table in the lobby. He greeted my husband, the two other people with us, and me. I remember that he boomed my name with pleasure, shook my hand with the powerful grip I had expected, and seated himself. The maitre d’hôtel rushed over. Posture erect, chin up, scrupulously attired in his expensive dark suit and elegant tie, he tried to maintain his equanimity. He did not succeed. In his joy he began to flap his arms just a little, as if he were trying to propel himself off the ground. Then, with a dignified nod of his head in the direction of the famous one, he asked him for his drink order. Mr. Depardieu casually ordered a glass of red wine. The manager turned abruptly on his heels and speed-walked off to get it. He did not take anybody else’s order. He forgot us.
    As I watched him leave, I thought of Franklin Pangborn. Franklin Pangborn had been reborn in that hotel lobby, and I was there to witness his inspired silliness. The poor manager behaved in a ridiculous manner, but I felt sorry for him, too. He had breached his own rigorous standards of etiquette and had made a fool of himself. But then we all make fools of ourselves from time to time. And that, I suppose, is at the bottom of this rambling but sincerely felt tribute to the Pangbornian.
    1998

Eight Days in a Corset

    LAST SUMMER, I WORKED AS AN EXTRA IN THE FILM VERSION of Henry James’s novel
Washington Square.
I am not an actress. Agnieszka Holland, the director, is a friend of my husband’s and mine, and the person she was really interested in was our daughter, Sophie, who was cast as one of Mrs. Almond’s children. Under a blasting June sun, Sophie and I arrived in Baltimore for a fitting. Sophie was dressed first, and she looked as pretty as a young heroine in any book. One of the two wardrobe women handed me a corset, a hoopskirt, and a petticoat, which I put on, and then she tightened my stays. They searched for a dress long enough to fit me, and I climbed into it in front of a long, wide mirror in the changing room.
    Within a few minutes, I felt faint. I began to suffer from the feeling I always have when I am faint—acute embarrassment. This time there was the added burden of fear: that I would crash to the floor in front of my eight-year-old daughter. I began to sway, dropped, but did not black out. I wish I could say that they cried, “Loosen her stays!” hurried out for smelling salts, and waved my ashen face with a fan. But they didn’t. They kindly brought me water and grapes as I recovered. I joked about filling the role too well, about becoming in a matter of minutes the classic image of a swooning nineteenth-century lady, and yet I don’t believe it was the corset. I had almost fainted in front of a mirror once before—in a yoga class. That time I was wearing dance tights and a sweatshirt. My teacher was correcting my posture, and without warning I collapsed and found myself breathing deeply with my head between my knees.
    Mirrors are where I check myself—for parsley stuck in my teeth, for blemishes and dirty hair—where I ponder which shoes go with which dress. But every once in a while, they become something more than that—the site of a body I know will eventually give up the ghost. As in fairy tales and folklore, the mirror displays for an instant my ghost double, and I don’t like seeing her. It is a moment when I am a stranger to myself. But a foreign reflection in a mirror is not always a shock. There is something appealing about transformations, and clothes are the fastest route to leaping out of your own life and into someone else’s. The whalebone corset I wore for eight days