The next day, I understood French. Standing by the curb in my bathrobe and slippers on a frosty morning, looking for the paper in the shrubs, I saw the sparkling blades of grass and heard the crystals crunch beneath my feet in a suburb of a suburb of New York City—all right, Jersey—and realized I’d been narrating the scene to myself in French. “That’s miraculous!” I said, or, for those of you to whom this has also happened, “C’est miraculeux!” My waking and rising had been like any other. I folded back the covers like a turnover, slid to the floor, and folded them back: bed made. I folded back my wife’s covers next, and pulled her panties down as I do three times a week, then folded her covers back, and started thinking about coffee, but a trick of moonlight framed and presented her certain loveliness to me, somewhat smudged and softened, highlighted where it mattered most, in the eye area. “Comment très beau vous êtes!” is how I believe I phrased the feeling I felt. The moon. The shivering trees. Her melancholy. The mirror of my love. I kissed her eyelids lightly and went looking for the paper. In the kitchen, she noticed I had changed. Are French lovers more alive to affections that pass like smoke through the heart, or do they seduce through boorishness? The films are inconclusive. “Did we make love this morning?” she asked me. “Pourquoi demandez-vous ?” I replied. “Why do I ask? No reason. It’s just my . . . wait. Are you speaking French?” I didn’t have to answer. She knew at my touch that I understood, and more, that I would be her Baudelaire, her Byron, her what-all—happy, happy poets all, in love with lovely love!
Copyright © April 08, 2008 David Hodges
Very Short Novels 
7 comments
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April 7, 2008 at 10:10 am
litlove
J’adore celui-ci! Que vous etes doue comme ecrivain! Or in other words, this is wonderful. In my (literary) experience the French are particularly good at a very natural, sexy, vivacious passion intertwined with their narratives and I think you achieved that beautifully. This one is so full of joy – I loved it.
Merci beaucoup, Litlove! This was fun to write and makes me laugh when I read it. I’m not surprised you like it. I had Baudelaire’s help with the “mirror of my love.” Encore, merci.
–David
April 7, 2008 at 7:44 pm
grantman
..it had tones of Richard Brautigan in it for me… step into the time machine and find, “The Hawkline Monster,” and you get that same feeling….Don’t know a word of French but it seems to me that in this piece the language is just a mask for the indifference these two have come to call their lives…..
grantman
Yeah, the French is irrelevant. I’ll take a Brautigan comparison with pleasure any time. Thanks, Grantman.
–David
April 9, 2008 at 4:27 am
keshuvko
My comment may be inappropriate to your post, however, I cannot stop myself from writing this:
Why is French so funny? I mean why the inconsistency in pronunciation? 😛
Six or seven Pink Panther movies depend on it? That’s my best explanation. Thanks, Keshuvko.
–David
April 10, 2008 at 1:19 pm
lolarusa
Delightful.
Merci.
Thank you, Lola! I’ve just come back from a visit to The Chawed Rosin. What a wealth of wonders I found there! Good to see you again.
–David
April 14, 2008 at 6:27 am
Hoda Zaki
Love it, David!
Hoda
Thank you, Hoda!
–David
April 18, 2008 at 6:59 am
Wizzer
Such extremes – the mechanical acts intertwined with the language of love (or so they’d have us believe!) – almost a dual personality.
“Chateau Neuf du Pappe, Rodney” (Sorry that may be lost on those in US if you don’t see Only Fools and Horses)
It is indeed lost on us in the US, I’m afraid, as is the reference to Only Fools and Horses, but I do remember a line from The Real Inspector Hound regarding what might be found in a box of chocolates: “Pistacchio fudge? Nectarine cluster? Hickory nut praline? Chateau Neuf du Pape ’55 cracknell?” The things that stick in the mind! Thanks, Wizzer.
–David
April 18, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Wizzer
A situation comedy where the main character – Del Boy, tries to use French but always gets it wrong. Mange Tout, Rodney
Sounds like a hoot. Thanks, Wizzer.
–David