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Paris: The Novel

Paris: The Novel

Titel: Paris: The Novel Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: Edward Rutherfurd
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cottage,” said Marie. “That sounds even more charming. Does it have a thatched roof?”
    “When Americans like Hadley speak of a summer cottage,” her brother explained, “they mean something different. I’ve seen a photograph of the Hadley summer cottage. It’s a huge shingle house on a rocky coastline, with the sea on one side and a lake on the other.”
    “It’s a pretty nice place,” Hadley admitted. “The sun comes up over the sea and sets over the lake. It’s wild but comfortable.”
    “Do you row on the lake?” Marie asked.
    “I do.”
    “He rowed for his university,” Marc told them. “You can see he’s built to be an oarsman.”
    The conversation turned back to the delights of Malmaison after that. But on the way back, though she tried not to look at him, Marie to her surprise found herself imagining Hadley rowing across the wild American lake, his shirt open, and his thick mane of hair blowing in the wind.
    One other member of the party was also lost in thought on the journey back, but his concerns were very different.
    He was thinking that he now had four days to learn to play chess.

    Fox’s first evening visit was a great success. Before the meal he chatted easily with Marie and her mother, and played with the puppy just as if he were a member of the family.
    At dinner, he talked delightfully about his childhood in England and holidays up in the wilds of Scotland. The conversation turned serious for a little while when he and her father discussed the latest vicious quarrels in the newspapers over the Dreyfus case. But he then told a story of two brothers getting into a fight over Dreyfus and suing each other, which was so absurd that they were all in fits of laughter.
    Afterward, he and her father had their game of chess. It was a close thing, they both agreed, but in the end Fox prevailed. This pleased her father even more than if he’d won.
    “I want my revenge next week,” he demanded.
    “I could manage Wednesday or Friday, but not Thursday,” Fox replied. “On Thursday I go to the opera.”
    “Wednesday, then,” said Jules, with a quick glance at his wife.
    “Dinner will be at eight,” she said with a smile.
    Two days later Marie was amused to see her father reading a chess manual.

    Marie went to see her aunt that weekend. Unlike the rest of her family, Aunt Éloïse chose to live in a quarter that was not fashionable. The apartment lay just south of the university Latin Quarter near the Luxembourg Gardens, but it was large and light, and the walls were hungwith paintings, mostly of the Barbizon school and the Impressionists that had followed it, all of which she’d bought herself over the years. She was delighted to see Marie and wanted to hear all her news.
    “What of Monsieur de Cygne?” she asked.
    “We have heard nothing recently. My father says that he took extra leave to deal with his father’s affairs and the family estate.”
    “And what do you feel about him?”
    “It is flattering that he may have taken an interest in me.”
    “And that he may again.”
    “He is very agreeable, but I hardly know him. That is all I can say.”
    “You have no other prospects at present?”
    “If I have, nobody has told me. Aunt Éloïse,” she went on, “will you please tell me if my father and Marc have quarreled.”
    “What makes you think they have?”
    “Marc never comes to the apartment anymore, and Papa doesn’t want me to visit his studio.”
    “You’d have to ask them if they’ve quarreled. I might not know. Perhaps your father doesn’t think you should disturb Marc in his work.”
    “But I never see him.”
    “Well, you can certainly meet him if he comes here, or if I take you both out. Your father cannot object to that.” She paused. “If we go out, I may ask him to bring his American friend. I think he’s a good influence on your brother. Would you mind?”
    Marie’s heart missed a beat.
    “I don’t mind. Monsieur Hadley seems nice enough.” She shrugged. “As far as I can tell.”

    In the coming weeks she met Marc several times at her aunt’s. He was usually with Hadley.
    She noticed that Hadley’s French was getting very fluent now. Not only that, he was picking up all kinds of the idiomatic expressions the French love. Instead of saying, “To return to the subject,” for instance, he’d say:
Pour revenir à nos moutons
, “To return to our sheep.” He might say, “He bores me stiff.” But he might also say
Il me casse les

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