Beyond the boundries of the ordinary world of lives and houses, unguessed, undreamed of in their commonsence philosophy, lies the vast realm of the improbable; a world too disordered, so it would seem, to hold together for a fortnight, let alone for several years. And yet these lives, these houses continue to maintain a precarious equlibrium in defiance of all laws of man and nature. All the same, persons who base their calculations on the inexorable pressure of the fore of circumstances assume, correctly, that such lives are doomed. The world owes its enchantment to these curious creatures and therir fancies; but its multiple complicity rejects them. Thistledown spirits, trajic, heartrendering in their evanescence, they must go blowing headlong to perdition. And yet, all started harmlessly, in childish games and laughter... Thus in rue Montmartre, three years, monotonous and unremittingly intense, passed by, Elisabeth and paul, incapable of growing up, went on rocking their twin cradles. Gerard loved Elisabeth. Elisabeth and paul adored, devoured each other. regularly once a fortnight, after some nocturnal quarrel, Elisabeth packed a bag and was off to live in a hotel. Night after stormy night, followedby heavy-lidded mornings; then the long afternoons on which they drifted, drowsey, blind as moles. Sometimes Elisabeth took Gerard for her escort, while Paul went hunting on his own; but nothing that they saw or heard belonged to them as individuals. They were inexorably compelled to carry back the sweets they rifled, to feed the common store of honey. They had no inkling, this orphaned penniless pair, that they were outlaws, living on borrowed time, beyond the battle, on fate's capricous bounty. It seemed to them no more than natural that Gerards's uncle and the doctor should continue to provide for them. Wealth is an inborn attitude of mind, like poverty. The pauper who has made his pile may flaunt his sdpoils, but cannot wear them plausibly. These children had been born so rich that nothing in the way of worldly riches could possibly have changed their lives. Had thery inherited a fortune overnght, they would have been imune from it. Indolent, frivolous, they werre the living refutation of the Puritian ideal, the living examplar of these words of the philosopher; vital essences, volatiles, indifferent, drinkers at the sacred fount. They had as little instinct for planning, study, jobhunting, wire-pulling as a pampered lap dog has for guarding sheep. In the newspapers they read the crime reports and nothing else. Uncontainable in any social framework, they were of that tribe that New York reforms at home and banishes for choice to Paris. the above text a passage from the book, child
I've read it and also seen Coctau's film of it - which is great. Have to say one of my fave characters is the Doctor!
