The Humble Lover by Edmund White EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Author: Edmund White
- Language: English
- Genre: Literary Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
He said to his very pale, very young companion, “It must be such a thrill to
be a ballet dancer and have hundreds, thousands, of fans applauding you.”
The young man, whose name was August Dupond, said dryly, “Yeah, I
guess it is nice. A dream come true.”
“Did you ever think you’d be a soloist in the greatest company in New
York?”
The boy smiled weakly. “Well, that was the idea. Three classes every
day for years, except for performance days, when I have only one afternoon
class. Now or never, I guess.” He smiled and took a sip of water. “Do you
think they’d have Gatorade here?”
“What’s that?”
“Gatorade. Oh, gosh, athletes drink it. Electrolytes.”
“Gaston!”
“Yes, Monsieur West?”
“Monsieur Dupond would like a Gatra-Aid. I’ll have a champagne
cocktail.
And the usual hors d’oeuvres.”
August said hopefully, “A Gatorade?”
“I’m sorry, jeune homme, but I’ve never—”
“Is there a deli near here?”
“Not open, I fear.”
“Skip it,” August said with a tarnished smile. “Bring me a decaffeinated
tea, please.”
“Tout de suite!” the waiter said. He’d known Mr. West for nine or ten
years and felt sorry that he was always accompanied by these underdressed
youths who invariably ordered a hamburger or spaghetti, had strange food
dislikes like mushrooms, and seldom would eat fish. One boy had asked
him if the Dover sole was chicken.
“I’m so embarrassed they didn’t have your health drink,” Aldwych West
said. He pulled out his agenda with its own gold pencil. “Here, if you’ll just
scribble the name of the drink I’ll have a case delivered tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“We might come back here some day. It’s so close to the theater.”
“Le thé décaféiné pour le jeune monsieur. Et le champagne pour
Monsieur West.”
“Merci.”
“What language are you guys speaking?”
“French. Sorry. It must be very rude—”
“I thought it might be French. Real French. I’m French Canadian.”
“Then you must understand—”
“No. Not really. We speak a funny French.”
“They say that Canadian French is seventeenth-century French, the
purest.”
“Joual.”
“What’s that?”
“I dunno. It’s the name of our language, I guess. It’s ‘horse’ in Canadian
French—Oh, skip it.”
Aldwych handed the black notebook with the gold-edged pages back to
August, who just shrugged and pushed it away.
“Please …”
August blushed. Finally he said, “I don’t know how to write it.” He
paused. “In school we studied real French. We don’t write our joual. Maybe
some people do. But it’s not proper. It’s not real French. In France they have
to subtitle our movies.”
“Of course,” Aldwych said smoothly. “That’s like Zurich, where they
speak Schweizerdeutsch but the newspaper, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, is in real
German.”
“I wouldn’t know. Oh, look, there’s Zaza—you know her!” August
sprang up and hurried over to an Asian girl who was dining with a much,
much older white gentleman.
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