[To Claudia at dinner party] So this couple, the Perriers, they got this salon thing they call R-26. Artist types, some showing work, some just there to be there. Painters, poets...
Photographers?
Yeah, me, okay, I showed a little work, got some love back.
I don't know what he sees in him. He's not that attractive. ]
And a waterfall of pretension bursting forth from his mouthal cavity. Read my mind, grab my nethers. Already doing it.
Sam was late with the bed bellows. Head's in a hat. Working on a new play. It won't happen again, Maitre.
It happened four times!
It won't happen again, Maitre. Eglee?
Catatonic since Santiago has taken up with Celeste again.
And Gustave? Les Toilettes? Back at the lair, hung over from last night, when he split from the pack and over-served himself in the Latin Quarter.
Ran down the street screaming, "I am a vampire! I am a vampire!"
Wheels are coming off this week, Maitre. It's not just Paris giving birth to more genius.
She's giving birth...
...to modernity itself?
[To Claudia] Yes! Sculptors and authors, and photographers and saxophone players. Intermingling, innovating.
[In unison] Collapsing two art forms into one. Coming up with new ones. Meanwhile, everyone's fawning over Picasso, but out there on the Left Bank in shabby hotel rooms and cold water walk-ups, a new generation's ripping apart the old modes. Bursting into new ones.
Suppose I can come off haughty.
[In unison] Everyone's fawning over Picasso, but not me, not Louis du Lac. I'm out in the streets on the barricades with the avant-garde.
Funny.
See, now that I've wriggled inside your voice, pulled it on like a costume, you don't sound all that Chicago to me.
Outside Chicago. We roamed all around.
It's that emphasis on the second syllable, borrowed from the French.
So it's mimicry that you're good at. Like a parrot?
Like a gent with upright downstairs.
Or an organ monkey?
Cajun drawl. I want to test a theory. Say New Orleans!
Or a buffoon! [Santiago hisses with Louis then leaping from seat, popping up besides Santiago pulling his tongue] Anything else you want to say, buffoon?! I couldn't hear you from the other side of the table! But you got my attention now!
Enough! [All guests heads slam on table and whole restaurant goes still]
Take your time. Come on! What?! Spit it out! A-huh.
I said enough!
Good boy.
If you two want to act like fledglings do it in darkness! [Telepathically] Louis, come back!
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