Noir French Quotes

Cherchez la femme, Bucky. Remember that.

I wouldn't presume to define noir - if we could define it, we wouldn't need to use a French word for it - but it seems to me it's more a way of looking at the world than what one sees.

Voilà!” said the artist, in perfect fucking French.

Le monde appartient À la femme africaine combattante, Ambitieuse, éduquée et indépendante. À celle qui ne craint ni la douleur ni la solitude. À celle qui, vêtue d'un esprit de tonnerre, Équipée de sang de guerrière, Éffraie l'échec.

It’s French,” she said. “They designed it like a zoo—you know, keep ’em in, but give everyone a good look at ’em...

L'espoir s'envole, la résignation toute noire, s'abat lourdement sur l'âme.

Je le vis, je rougis, je pâlis à sa vue ; Un trouble s’éleva dans mon âme éperdue ; Mes yeux ne voyaient plus, je ne pouvais parler; Je sentis tout mon corps et transir et brûler : Je reconnus Vénus et ses feux redoutables, D’un sang qu’elle poursuit tourments inévitables ! Par des vœux assidus je crus les détourner : Je lui bâtis un temple, et pris soin de l’orner ; De victimes moi-même à toute heure entourée, Je cherchais dans leurs flancs ma raison égarée : D’un incurable amour remèdes impuissants ! En vain sur les autels ma main brûlait l’encens ! Quand ma bouche implorait le nom de la déesse, J’adorais Hippolyte ; et, le voyant sans cesse, Même au pied des autels que je faisais fumer, J’offrais tout à ce dieu que je n’osais nommer. Je l’évitais partout. Ô comble de misère ! Mes yeux le retrouvaient dans les traits de son père. Contre moi-même enfin j’osai me révolter : J’excitai mon courage à le persécuter. Pour bannir l’ennemi dont j’étais idolâtre, J’affectai les chagrins d’une injuste marâtre ; Je pressai son exil ; et mes cris éternels L’arrachèrent du sein et des bras paternels. Je respirais, ŒNONE ; et, depuis son absence, Mes jours moins agités coulaient dans l’innocence : Soumise à mon époux, et cachant mes ennuis, De son fatal hymen je cultivais les fruits. Vaines précautions ! Cruelle destinée ! Par mon époux lui-même à Trézène amenée, J’ai revu l’ennemi que j’avais éloigné : Ma blessure trop vive aussitôt a saigné. Ce n’est plus une ardeur dans mes veines cachée : C’est Vénus tout entière à sa proie attachée. J’ai conçu pour mon crime une juste terreur ; J’ai pris la vie en haine, et ma flamme en horreur ; Je voulais en mourant prendre soin de ma gloire, Et dérober au jour une flamme si noire : Je n’ai pu soutenir tes larmes, tes combats : Je t’ai tout avoué ; je ne m’en repens pas. Pourvu que, de ma mort respectant les approches, Tu ne m’affliges plus par d’injustes reproches, Et que tes vains secours cessent de rappeler Un reste de chaleur tout prêt à s’exhaler.

The world of French crime films is a particular place, informed by the French love for Hollywood film noir, a genre they identified and named. But the great French noirs of the 1950s are not copies of Hollywood; instead, they have a particularly French flavor.

She taught them all a song. Learned from a para on French leave from the fighting in Algeria: Demain le noir matin, Je fermerai la porte Au nez des années mortes; J’irai par les chemins. Je mendierai ma vie Sur la terre et sur l’onde, Du vieux au nouveau monde . . . He had been short and built like the island of Malta itself: rock, an inscrutable heart. She’d had only one night with him. Then he was off to the Piraeus. Tomorrow, the black morning, I close the door in the face of the dead years. I will go on the road, bum my way over land and sea, from the old to the new world. . . .

He began as a minor imitator of Fitzgerald, wrote a novel in the late twenties which won a prize, became dissatisfied with his work, stopped writing for a period of years. When he came back it was to BLACK MASK and the other detective magazines with a curious and terrible fiction which had never been seen before in the genre markets; Hart Crane and certainly Hemingway were writing of people on the edge of their emotions and their possibility but the genre mystery markets were filled with characters whose pain was circumstantial, whose resolution was through action; Woolrich's gallery was of those so damaged that their lives could only be seen as vast anticlimax to central and terrible events which had occurred long before the incidents of the story. Hammett and his great disciple, Chandler, had verged toward this more than a little, there is no minimizing the depth of their contribution to the mystery and to literature but Hammett and Chandler were still working within the devices of their category: detectives confronted problems and solved (or more commonly failed to solve) them, evil was generalized but had at least specific manifestations: Woolrich went far out on the edge. His characters killed, were killed, witnessed murder, attempted to solve it but the events were peripheral to the central circumstances. What I am trying to say, perhaps, is that Hammett and Chandler wrote of death but the novels and short stories of Woolrich *were* death. In all of its delicacy and grace, its fragile beauty as well as its finality. Most of his plots made no objective sense. Woolrich was writing at the cutting edge of his time. Twenty years later his vision would attract a Truffaut whose own influences had been the philosophy of Sartre, the French nouvelle vague, the central conception that nothing really mattered. At all. But the suffering. Ah, that mattered; that mattered quite a bit.

Victor Noir. He was a journalist shot by Pierre Bonaparte," St. Clair says, as if that explains anything. He pulls The Hat up off his eyes. "The statue on his grave is supposed to help...fertility." "His wang us rubbed shiny," Josh elaborates. "For luck." "Why are we talking about parts again?" Mer asks. "Can't we ever talk about anything else?" "Really?" I ask. "Shiny wang?" "Very," St. Clair says. "Now that's something I've gotta see." I gulp my coffee dregs, wipe the bread crumbs from my mouth, and hop up. "Where's Victor?" "Allow me." St. Clair springs up to his feet and takes off. I chase after him. He cuts through a stand of bare trees, and I crash through the twigs behind him. We're both laughing when we hit the pathway and run smack into a guard. He frowns at us from underneath his military-style cap. St. Clair gives an angelic smile and a small shrug. The guard shakes his head but allows us to pass. St. Clair gets away with everything. We stroll with exaggerated calm, and he points out an area occupied with people snapping pictures.We hang back and wait our turn. A scrawny black cat darts out from behind an altar strewn with roses and wine bottles,and rushes into the bushes. "Well.That was sufficiently creepy. Happy Halloween." "Did you know this place is home to three thousand cats?" St. Clair asks. "Sure.It's filed away in my brain under 'Felines,Paris.

place; it’s a mind-set. A strange coincidence: for my project on roots, I was reading a staggering book from 1980 called Le Corps noir (The Black Body) by a Haitian writer named Jean-Claude Charles. He coined the term enracinerrance, a French neologism that fuses the idea of rootedness and wandering. He spent his life between Haiti, New York, and Paris, very comfortably rooted in his nomadism. The first line of one of his experimental chapters is this: “il était une fois john howard griffin mansfield texas” (“once upon a time there was john howard griffin in mansfield texas”). I was stunned to find the small town that shares a border with my hometown in the pages of this Haitian author’s book published in France. What in the world was Mansfield, Texas, doing in this book I’d found by chance while researching roots for a totally unrelated academic project? The white man named John Howard Griffin referred to by Charles had conducted an experiment back in the late 1950s in which he disguised himself as a black man in order to understand what it must feel like to be black in the South. He darkened his skin with an ultraviolet lamp and skin-darkening medication and then took to the road, confirming the daily abuses in the South toward people with more melanin in their skin. His experiences were compiled in the classic Black Like Me (1962), which was later made into a film. When the book came out, Griffin and his family in Mansfield received death threats. It is astounding that I found out about this experiment, which began one town over from mine, through a gleefully nomadic Haitian who slipped it into his pain-filled essay about the black body. If you don’t return to your roots, they come and find you.

THIS IS A BOOK ABOUT FRENCH CINEMA, specifically the women of today’s French cinema—a subject as vital as life and as irresistible as movies. Yet many Americans, unfamiliar with French film, will hear “women of today’s French cinema” and immediately imagine something forbidding or austere. Other more refined cineastes may know and appreciate the French movies that play at art houses and arrive on DVD in this country, but they can’t know the full story. They are not in a position to know that what they are seeing is just a hint of something vast and extraordinary. The full story is that for the last two decades France has been in the midst of an explosion of female talent. What is happening in France today is a blossoming of female brilliance and originality of a kind that has never happened anywhere or at any period of film history, with but one glorious exception—in the Hollywood of the 1930s. Indeed, today’s Hepburns, Davises, Crawfords, Garbos, and Stanwycks are not American. They’re French. They are working constantly, appearing up to three or four times each year in films geared to their star personalities and moral meaning. These films, often intelligent, personal, and insightful investigations into what it means to be human in the twenty-first century, are the kinds of films that many Americans want to see. And they wonder why no one is making them. But people are making them, just not in the United States. Moreover, women are not only working in front of the camera in France but behind it, too. Important actresses are writing and directing films, and many of the country’s biggest and most acclaimed directors are women. Truly, this is a halcyon period, happening as we speak, and to miss this moment would be like living in 1920 and never seeing a silent comedy, or like living in 1950 and never seeing a film noir. It would be to miss one of the most enriching cinematic movements of your time. Yet most Americans, virtually all Americans, have been missing it.

The store smells of roasted chicken and freshly ground coffee, raw meat and ripening stone fruit, the lemon detergent they use to scrub the old sheet-linoleum floors. I inhale and feel the smile form on my face. It's been so long since I've been inside any market other than Fred Meyer, which smells of plastic and the thousands of people who pass through every day. By instinct, I head for the produce section. There, the close quarters of slim Ichiban eggplant, baby bok choy, brilliant red chard, chartreuse-and-purple asparagus, sends me into paroxysms of delight. I'm glad the store is nearly empty; I'm oohing and aahing with produce lust at the colors, the smooth, shiny textures set against frilly leaves. I fondle the palm-size plums, the soft fuzz of the peaches. And the berries! It's berry season, and seven varieties spill from green cardboard containers: the ubiquitous Oregon marionberry, red raspberry, and blackberry, of course, but next to them are blueberries, loganberries, and gorgeous golden raspberries. I pluck one from a container, fat and slightly past firm, and pop it into my mouth. The sweet explosion of flavor so familiar, but like something too long forgotten. I load two pints into my basket. The asparagus has me intrigued. Maybe I could roast it with olive oil and fresh herbs, like the sprigs of rosemary and oregano poking out of the salad display, and some good sea salt. And salad. Baby greens tossed with lemon-infused olive oil and a sprinkle of vinegar. Why haven't I eaten a salad in so long? I'll choose a soft, mild French cheese from the deli case, have it for an hors d'oeuvre with a beautiful glass of sparkling Prosecco, say, then roast a tiny chunk of spring lamb that I'm sure the nice sister will cut for me, and complement it with a crusty baguette and roasted asparagus, followed by the salad. Followed by more cheese and berries for dessert. And a fruity Willamette Valley Pinot Noir to wash it all down. My idea of eating heaven, a French-influenced feast that reminds me of the way I always thought my life would be.

SCENE 24 “Tiens, Ti Jean, donne ce plat la a Shammy,” my father is saying to me, turning from the open storage room door with a white tin pan. “Here, Ti Jean, give this pan to Shammy.” My father is standing with a peculiar French Canadian bowleggedness half up from a crouch with the pan outheld, waiting for me to take it, anxious till I do so, almost saying with his big frowning amazed face “Well my little son what are we doing in the penigillar, this strange abode, this house of life without roof be-hung on a Friday evening with a tin pan in my hand in the gloom and you in your raincoats—” “II commence a tombez de la neige” someone is shouting in the background, coming in from the door (“Snow’s startin to fall”)—my father and I stand in that immobile instant communicating telepathic thought-paralysis, suspended in the void together, understanding something that’s always already happened, wondering where we were now, joint reveries in a dumb stun in the cellar of men and smoke … as profound as Hell … as red as Hell.—I take the pan; behind him, the clutter and tragedy of old cellars and storage with its dank message of despair–mops, dolorous mops, clattering tear-stricken pails, fancy sprawfs to suck soap suds from a glass, garden drip cans–rakes leaning on meaty rock–and piles of paper and official Club equipments– It now occurs to me my father spent most of his time when I was 13 the winter of 1936, thinking about a hundred details to be done in the Club alone not to mention home and business shop–the energy of our fathers, they raised us to sit on nails– While I sat around all the time with my little diary, my Turf, my hockey games, Sunday afternoon tragic football games on the toy pooltable white chalkmarked … father and son on separate toys, the toys get less friendly when you grow up–my football games occupied me with the same seriousness of the angels–we had little time to talk to each other. In the fall of 1934 we took a grim voyage south in the rain to Rhode Island to see Time Supply win the Narragansett Special–with Old Daslin we was … a grim voyage, through exciting cities of great neons, Providence, the mist at the dim walls of great hotels, no Turkeys in the raw fog, no Roger Williams, just a trolley track gleaming in the gray rain– We drove, auguring solemnly over past performance charts, past deserted shell-like Ice Cream Dutchland Farms stands in the dank of rainy Nov.—bloop, it was the time on the road, black tar glisten-road of thirties, over foggy trees and distances, suddenly a crossroads, or just a side-in road, a house, or bam, a vista gray tearful mists over some half-in cornfield with distances of Rhode Island in the marshy ways across and the secret scent of oysters from the sea–but something dark and rog-like.— J had seen it before … Ah weary flesh, burdened with a light … that gray dark Inn on the Narragansett Road … this is the vision in my brain as I take the pan from my father and take it to Shammy, moving out of the way for LeNoire and Leo Martin to pass on the way to the office to see the book my father had (a health book with syphilitic backs)— SCENE 25 Someone ripped the pooltable cloth that night, tore it with a cue, I ran back and got my mother and she lay on it half-on-floor like a great poolshark about to take a shot under a hundred eyes only she’s got a thread in her mouth and’s sewing with the same sweet grave face you first saw in the window over my shoulder in that rain of a late Lowell afternoon. God bless the children of this picture, this bookmovie. I’m going on into the Shade.

SCENE 24 “Tiens, Ti Jean, donne ce plat la a Shammy,” my father is saying to me, turning from the open storage room door with a white tin pan. “Here, Ti Jean, give this pan to Shammy.” My father is standing with a peculiar French Canadian bowleggedness half up from a crouch with the pan outheld, waiting for me to take it, anxious till I do so, almost saying with his big frowning amazed face “Well my little son what are we doing in the penigillar, this strange abode, this house of life without roof be-hung on a Friday evening with a tin pan in my hand in the gloom and you in your raincoats—” “II commence a tombez de la neige” someone is shouting in the background, coming in from the door (“Snow’s startin to fall”)—my father and I stand in that immobile instant communicating telepathic thought-paralysis, suspended in the void together, understanding something that’s always already happened, wondering where we were now, joint reveries in a dumb stun in the cellar of men and smoke … as profound as Hell … as red as Hell.—I take the pan; behind him, the clutter and tragedy of old cellars and storage with its dank message of despair–mops, dolorous mops, clattering tear-stricken pails, fancy sprawfs to suck soap suds from a glass, garden drip cans–rakes leaning on meaty rock–and piles of paper and official Club equipments– It now occurs to me my father spent most of his time when I was 13 the winter of 1936, thinking about a hundred details to be done in the Club alone not to mention home and business shop–the energy of our fathers, they raised us to sit on nails– While I sat around all the time with my little diary, my Turf, my hockey games, Sunday afternoon tragic football games on the toy pooltable white chalkmarked … father and son on separate toys, the toys get less friendly when you grow up–my football games occupied me with the same seriousness of the angels–we had little time to talk to each other. In the fall of 1934 we took a grim voyage south in the rain to Rhode Island to see Time Supply win the Narragansett Special–with Old Daslin we was … a grim voyage, through exciting cities of great neons, Providence, the mist at the dim walls of great hotels, no Turkeys in the raw fog, no Roger Williams, just a trolley track gleaming in the gray rain– We drove, auguring solemnly over past performance charts, past deserted shell-like Ice Cream Dutchland Farms stands in the dank of rainy Nov.—bloop, it was the time on the road, black tar glisten-road of thirties, over foggy trees and distances, suddenly a crossroads, or just a side-in road, a house, or bam, a vista gray tearful mists over some half-in cornfield with distances of Rhode Island in the marshy ways across and the secret scent of oysters from the sea–but something dark and rog-like.— J had seen it before … Ah weary flesh, burdened with a light … that gray dark Inn on the Narragansett Road … this is the vision in my brain as I take the pan from my father and take it to Shammy, moving out of the way for LeNoire and Leo Martin to pass on the way to the office to see the book my father had (a health book with syphilitic backs)— SCENE 25 Someone ripped the pooltable cloth that night, tore it with a cue, I ran back and got my mother and she lay on it half-on-floor like a great poolshark about to take a shot under a hundred eyes only she’s got a thread in her mouth and’s sewing with the same sweet grave face you first saw in the window over my shoulder in that rain of a late Lowell afternoon. God bless the children of this picture, this bookmovie. I’m going on into the Shade.

Sur le siège˚, il a oublié˚ son petit manteau˚ noir. Louis prend le manteau et appelle : « Monsieur ! Vous avez oublié votre menton˚ ! le siège: seat oublier: to forget le manteau: coat le menton: chin

Les économistes n'avaient cru possible qu'une guerre courte, parce qu'ils ne comptaient qu'avec l'argent réel. S'il n'existait que l'argent réel, il y a beau temps que cette guerre aurait fini de l'absorber. Mais les peuples ont appris à la nourrir avec de l'argent fictif, avec ce qu'ils appellent le crédit. Comme les joueurs dans les récits d'autrefois, tâtant leurs poches vides, se disaient soudain : « Mais c'est vrai ! j'ai une bague… j'ai un champ… j'ai une maison. Qui m'empêche de les jouer aussi ? » les peuples, tout en se ruinant, se sont aperçus qu'ils étaient bien plus riches qu'ils n'avaient jamais soupçonné ; et qu'après avoir transformé tout leur argent réel en canons et en obus, ils pourraient transformer en argent fictif la terre, les forêts, les maisons, les ports, les rails, les réverbères.., donc en faire aussi des canons et des obus.

If any city was a study in noir et blanc—be it black-and-white photography, film, or literature—Paris was it. The French versions of all three techniques were born during the Age of Romanticism. So was the concept of the daredevil avenger-antihero of the noir crime novel genre, the so-called polar, a Parisian specialty I learned to love.

Nuit-Saint-Georges, a French pinot noir from a sub-region of Burgundy’s Côte de Nuits. All I can tell you is that it was a profound taste revelation! Ever since that night I have loved

De la partie la plus noire de mon âme, à travers la zone hachurée me monte ce désir d'être tout à coup blanc. Je ne veux pas être reconnu comme Noir, mais comme Blanc. Or [...] qui peut la faire, sinon la Blanche? En m'aimant, elle me prouve que je suis digne d'un amour blanc.

With the end of the American Revolution, ambitious European and American planters and woud-be planters flowed into the lower Mississippi Valley. They soon demanded an end to the complaisant regime that characterized slavery in the long half century following the Natchez rebellion, and Spanish officials were pleased to comply. The Cabildo - the governing body of New Orleans - issued its own regulations combining French and Spanish black codes, along with additional proscriptions on black life. In succeeding years, the state - Spanish (until 1800), French (between 1800 and 1803), and finally American (beginning in 1803) - enacted other regulations, controlling the slaves' mobility and denying their right to inherit property, contract independently, and testify in court. Explicit prohibitions against slave assemblage, gun ownership, and travel by horse were added, along with restrictions on manumission and self-purchase. The French, who again took control of Louisiana in 1800, proved even more compliant, reimposing the Code Noir during their brief ascendancy. The hasty resurrection of the old code pleased slaveholders, and, although it lost its effect with the American accession in 1803, planters - in control of the territorial legislature - incorporate many of its provisions in the territorial slave code. Perhaps even more significant than the plethora of new restrictions was a will to enforce the law. Slave miscreants faced an increasingly vigilant constabulary, whose members took it upon themselves to punish offenders. Officials turned with particular force on the maroon settlements that had proliferated amid the warfare of the Age of Revolution. They dismantled some fugitive colonies, scattering their members and driving many of them more deeply into the swamps. Maroons unfortunate enough to be captured were re-enslaved, deported, or executed.

bête noire French n. (pl. bêtes noires pronunc. same) a person or thing that one particularly dislikes. French, literally ‘black beast’.

femme fatale, film noir, carte blanche, cause célèbre. When the French-speaking Normans conquered England, French became the language of official institutions and practices. That happens to be the area where we find a large number of noun-adjective phrases today. Terms like attorney general, heir apparent, body politic, notary public, court martial, fee simple, and ambassador plenipotentiary all belong to the domain of officialdom. As does time immemorial, which originally referred to time “out of memory,” or before recorded time, a concept that mattered in considering whether certain customs had the force of law.

It's as if some master perfumer and necromancer had foreseen all the broken promises of your life to come, all the pangs of unrequited love and unreturned letters; the torment of watching a phone that never rings; the bright expectancy of fresh hope at breakfast, in ruins by sunset ... it was as if he took all these things and blended them into a single fragrance and called it whatever the French is for Disappointment — Désolé or Chagrin or something.

In other words, you’re justifying the Hundred Years’ War.’ ‘More or less. For it enabled our two peoples to become deeply interdependent, allowing the most fruitful of intellectual exchanges.’ ‘You mean, the French are “anglicized” without knowing it.’ ‘And the English have assimilated their Continental experience from that time much more than you think. But this is what I was leading up to: the Englishman is essentially a mystical being. And, because he’s scrupulous, he’s apprehensive. And therefore susceptible to everything that might be interpreted as a superhuman manifestation, whether it be a legend of esoteric significance - as in this case - or an event of peculiar resonance. Don’t forget, all the official bodies in Paris — parliament, clergy, and especially the university — were in favour of the English at the period I’m talking about.’ ‘Of course!

Sophie was smiling at the baby, who was making a determined play for the cat’s nose. Vim expected the beast to issue the kind of reprimand children remembered long after the scratches had healed, but the cat instead walked away, all the more dignified for its missing parts. “He must go terrorize mice,” Sophie said, rising with the child in her arms. “You’re telling me that cat still mouses?” Vim asked, taking the baby from her in a maneuver that was beginning to feel automatic. “Of course Pee Wee mouses.” Sophie turned a smile on him. “A few battle scars won’t slow a warrior like him down.” “A name like Pee Wee might.” She wrapped her hand into the crook of his elbow as they started across the alley. “Elizabeth gets more grief over his name than Pee Wee does.” “And rightly so. Why on earth would you inflict a feminine name on a big, black tom cat?” “I didn’t name him Elizabeth. I named him Bête Noir, after the French for black beast. Merriweather started calling him Betty Knorr after some actress, which was a tad too informal for such an animal, and hence he became Elizabeth. He answers to it now.” Vim suppressed the twitching of his lips, because this explanation was delivered with a perfectly straight face. “I suppose all that counts is that the cat recognizes it. It isn’t as if the cats were going to comprehend the French.” “It’s silly.” She paused inside the garden gate, her expression self-conscious. He stopped with her on the path, cradling the baby against his chest and trying to fathom what she needed to hear at the moment. “To the cat it isn’t silly, Sophie. To him, your kindness and care are the difference between life and death.” “He’s just a cat.” But she looked pleased with Vim’s observations. “And this is just a baby. Come.

Les malheurs ont leurs symptômes comme les maladies, et il n'y a rien de si redoutable en mer qu'un petit point noir à l'horizon. P 123

Je tenais dans mes bras une superbe danseuse d’un théâtre d’Italie, venue à Paris pour le Carnaval ; elle était en costume de Bacchante, avec une robe de peau de panthère. Jamais je n’ai rien vu de si languissant que cette créature. Elle était grande et mince, et, tout en valsant avec une rapidité extrême, elle avait l’air de se traîner ; à la voir, on eût dit qu’elle devait fatiguer son valseur ; mais on ne la sentait pas, elle courait comme par enchantement. Sur son sein était un bouquet énorme, dont les parfums m’enivraient malgré moi. Au moindre mouvement de mon bras, je la sentais plier comme une liane des Indes, pleine d’une mollesse si douce et si sympathique, qu’elle m’entourait comme d’un voile de soie embaumée. À chaque tour on entendait à peine un léger froissement de son collier sur sa ceinture de métal ; elle se mouvait si divinement que je croyais voir un bel astre, et tout cela avec un sourire, comme une fée qui va s’envoler. La musique de la valse, tendre et voluptueuse, avait l’air de lui sortir des lèvres, tandis que sa tête, chargée d’une forêt de cheveux noirs tressés en nattes, penchait en arrière, comme si son cou eût été trop faible pour la porter.

Au royaume qui est le nôtre, nous ne connaissons aucune distinction de rang, d'honneur, d'âge ou de force. Ce qui nous est commun, c'est un corps en proie à l'insoutenable torture de brûlants désirs, un coeur souffrant à la folie de la solitude. Ces cœurs affolés deviennent à minuit comme des bêtes féroces échappées de leur cage qui se lancent à la poursuite de leur proie toutes griffes dehors. A la lueur de la lune rougeoyante nous ressemblons à des somnambules, marchant sur l'ombre des uns et des autres, entamant une course insensée autour du bassin, sans trêve ni repos, tournant et retournant à la poursuite de l'énorme monstre de ce cauchemar jamais achevé d'amour et de désir. Dans les ténèbres, je posai le pied sur les marches de la terrasse qui surplombait le bassin et entrai dans le rang comme saisi d'une transe hypnotique ; sans le vouloir, je tournai autour de la pièce d'eau, encore et encore. Dans le noir, je vis défiler des paires d'yeux assoiffés d'espoir, enflammés de désir, consumés d'angoisse et de peur, comme autant de lucioles se heurtant les unes aux autres. Si épaisse, si sombre que fut la nuit, je sentis avec acuité un regard qui se portait chaque fois sur mon visage, telle une comète qui m'aurait heurté de plein fouet et brûlé la face. Je me sentis mal à l'aise, mon coeur palpitait, mais je n'avais aucun moyen d'éviter ces yeux. Le regard pénétrant se montrait si soutenu, si pressant, comme s'il attendait de moi le salut, comme s'il me suppliait pour je ne sais quoi. ~ p 33-34

Notre royaume ne connaît que la nuit noire. Il ignore le jour. Dès que le ciel s'éclaire, notre royaume se cache, car c'est un Etat on ne peut plus illégal : nous n'avons ni gouvernement ni constitution. Nul ne nous reconnaît ni ne nous respecte. Notre nation ressemble à la cohue d'un rassemblement de corbeaux. ~ p 11

Métamorphoses la nuit je veux l'enrouler autour de moi comme un drap chaud elle avec ses étoiles blanches, avec sa malédiction grise avec ses bouts ondoyants, qui traquent les coqs des jours, je pends dans les charpentes aussi raide qu'une chauve-souris, je me laisse tomber dans l'air et je pars en chasse. Homme, j'ai rêvé de ton sang, je te mords jusqu'à la blessure, je me love dans tes cheveux et j'aspire ta bouche. Au-dessus des tours émondées les cimes du ciel sont noires. De leurs troncs dénudés suinte de la résine vitreuse vers des coupes invisibles de porto. Dans mes yeux marron demeure le reflet, Avec mes yeux marron doré je pars chercher ma proie, je capture poisson dans les tombes, celles qui se tiennent entre les maisons je capture poisson dans la mer : et la mer est une place plus loin avec des mats brisés, des amours noyés. Les lourdes cloches du navire sonnent venant de la forêt des algues. Sous la forme du navire se fige une forme d'enfant, dans ses mains du limon, au front une lumière. Entre nous les eaux voyagent, je ne te garde pas. Derrière des vitres gelées luisent des lampes bariolées et blanches, des cuillères livides coulent dans le bol, glace multicolore ; je vous appâte avec des fruits rouges, faits avec mes lèvres je suis un petit en-cas dans le gobelet de la nuit.

I presented boudin noir aux pommes for my final dish. A traditional French preparation by all accounts, but I added my own creative style. I sourced the meat myself—the blood and even the sausage casings too. And Chef Matis said it was the most flavorful saucisse he’d ever had. I wonder how he’d feel about my secret ingredient?

pronunciation that was completely incorrect. I’ve never been to France, but I did take a semester of French in college, and I know how to say rouge, thanks. “Don’t get to go to many five-star restaurants, I assume?” he asks, smugly sipping his water. Optimism: slipping. “I’ve heard the steak is good,” I say,

Je m'appelle Café. Je suis une addiction. Je suis noir. Et je viens de la terre. Parfois, je suis du sucre. Parfois, j'ai un goût amer. Mais je suis forte, quand même. Et je te rends actif et énergique. Je m'appelle café, et je suis ta dépendance.

La nuit était d’une beauté surnaturelle, couleur de mûre noire, les fumées blanchâtres de l’usine Coors s’y dissipaient à gros bouillons, inversant les valeurs de lumière comme sur un négatif photographique.

There is something about the first frost that brings out the caveman--- one might even say the vampire--- in me. I want to wear fur and suck the meat off lamb bones, and on comes my annual craving for boudin noir, otherwise known as blood sausage. You know you've been in France for nearly a decade when the idea of eating congealed blood sounds not only normal, but positively delightful. When I was pregnant, my body craved iron in silly amounts. I could have eaten a skyscraper. It's a shame that it's not on the French pregnancy diet--- forbidden along with charcuterie, liver, and steak tartare. It's true that boudin noir is not the sort of thing I'd buy at any old supermarket. Ideally, you want a butcher who prepares his own. I bought mine from the mustached man with the little truck in Apt market, the same one I'd spotted during our first picnic in Provence. Since our first visit, I'd returned many times to buy his delicious, very lean, saucisses fraîches and his handmade andouillettes, which I sauté with onions, Dijon mustard, and a bit of cream. I serve my boudin with roasted apples--- this time, some Golden Delicious we picked up from a farm stand by the side of the road. I toasted the apple slices with olive oil, sprinkled the whole lot with sea salt, and added a cinnamon stick and a star anise to ground the dish with cozy autumn spices. Boudin is already cooked through when you buy it, but twenty minutes or so in a hot oven gives it time to blister, even burst. I'm an adventurous eater, but the idea of boiled (or cold) boudin makes me think about moving back to New Jersey. No, not really. I admit, when you first take it out of the oven, there are some visual hurdles. There's always a brief moment--- particularly when I serve the dish to guests--- that I think, But that looks like large Labrador shit on a plate. True enough. But once you get past the aesthetics, you have one of the richest savory tastes I can imagine. Good boudin has a velveteen consistency that marries perfectly with the slight tartness of the roasted apples. Add mashed potatoes (with skin and lumps), a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, and wake me in the spring.

She read everything. Russian epics, French confections, American noir, English tabloids had at one time or another taken their place in a wobbly pile beside the bed. Nonfiction was too much like school, she said. Experimental literature left her cold and annoyed and despairing for the so-called modern craft. She had lost count of how many times she had read Wuthering Heights.

of French in college, and I know how to say rouge, thanks. “Don’t get to go to many five-star restaurants, I assume?” he asks, smugly sipping his water.

Coming out of that Easter service, I felt hopeful and very happy. My heart felt at peace. It was inexplicable. What Vanya was felt about faith was the same thing I felt on that day. Whatever he was trying to describe, I could sense that finally. Out of my newfound faith, I had hope for what the future lay ahead. All the negative memories of my life went away, like mud washed down the river. I only felt positive about the future, looking forward to the days to come. It was the bright early morning of a new sunny day. Outside, the sky was beautiful. “Christ is Risen!” I confessed out loud, finally. “Christ is Risen, Indeed,” echoed a silent voice within. Epilogue: I like to think that the few lines above are the epilogue of the book to this days Faith as what makes “my heart go on” no matter the depressive moments that I now can feel, Faith gives me the courage to endure all kind of difficulties. One should always remember this small poem of mine. “God is for everybody” God is for everybody For the Russian For the French For all the others Even if they don’t wanted it. God is for everybody Not, only, for the Muslims Not, only, for the Christians Not, only, for the Buddhists Not — Even — only, for the Jews Not for one particular religion God is for everybody Especially for the one that do not want it.

We go on and on about wild berries versus cultivated ones, about what constitutes good white chocolate and if it matters what kind of butter you use. According to Dolores, butter with low moisture and high butterfat makes all the difference. She suggests Amish block butter or something called Plugrá, a bastardization of the French phrase plus gras, meaning "more fat." Only the French, I think, would add fat to their butter. I can't believe I care about butter. Before cooking class I wouldn't have given a tinker's dam, yet here I am wondering whether I can sneak over to Whole Foods to buy some for tonight. Dolores says it's fantastic on French bread, with a good Pinot Noir. "Ooh," I hiss, licking my lip. Then the awful truth hits me. I have become a foodie!