In The French Style Page #5

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before I dropped off to sleep was you.

About your health, your education,

the love I bore you,

your beauty, your hopes for the future.

I'm used to thinking about you

at this hour of the night.

All right.

Okay. The show is open to the public.

You can look now.

No.

Why don't you go home, or back

to the party, if you want.

I don't want to go back to the party.

I'll wait here and show you the way home.

I'd like to look at them alone, Chris.

Here's the key.

Put out the light and lock up,

please, when you've finished.

See you at breakfast. Sleep well.

Goodnight, Daddy. Goodnight, darling.

(DOOR CLOSES)

(KNOCKING ON DOOR)

Come in, Daddy.

I wasn't sure you were awake.

I'm awake.

Well?

They're not good enough, are they?

The paintings.

Is that what you think?

I'm afraid so.

Well, that's what you think.

Has to be said, doesn't it?

If that's what you feel.

They've gotten worse, instead of

better, after the first year.

I don't know why, exactly.

Maybe the gift you had was

just part of being young.

And as you grew up, it

didn't grow with you.

There are many talents like

that, not only in painting.

The more training you've had, the

more technique you've acquired,

why, the more evident it's become

you weren't going to make it.

Maybe it's the life you lead.

That's it!

You go to one party and

you see a few people

who seem strange to you and you find out

I'm not the simple, untouched

girl I was when I left home,

and you recoil in horror.

I'm not ashamed of anything I've done.

And if the paintings are no good,

it's not because I've gone

to parties or had lovers,

or almost gotten married.

I know what you're going to say next.

You're going to say that

I ought to leave Paris.

That I ought to come home

like a good little girl

and be a nice, demure, hypocritical

piece of merchandise on

the marriage market,

pretending I don't know

which end of a man is up.

Are you finished?

Yes, I'm finished.

Have you got a bottle of whiskey

around here? I could use a drink.

Cognac.

Cognac will do.

The middle door.

How about you?

Yes, please.

Water?

Yes.

First of all, let me tell you

that nothing I have seen or heard

since I arrived here has made me

recoil in horror, as you put it.

Not you, not your friends,

not anything you may or may

not have done with them.

And I'm not going to pretend,

just because I'm your father,

that I'm shocked that in two or three years

you've gone to bed with two or three men.

Remember, I grew up in the

years between the wars.

And if young people now are

any freer than we were then,

they must be very free, indeed.

Here's your drink.

As for your friends,

I found them lively and amusing.

And I'm sure for the most

part they're industrious

and useful members of society.

But they're not for you.

They belong here.

They're doing something

here and you're not.

The better they are, the

worse they are for you.

You're their victim, even if

each and every one of them

thinks he loves you from

the bottom of his heart.

Victim. What are they

after, my enormous fortune?

No. After your gaiety and

beauty and goodness of heart.

They recognize that you

don't really belong here.

That you're an emotional transient.

And they... They use you, frivolously,

for their spare hours.

I know what you're saying.

That I've wasted my years,

that I'm corrupted,

that I should have stayed home like everyone

else, and never even taken a chance.

No, no, no, Chris! I'm not saying

anything like that at all.

You haven't wasted your years here.

You're not corrupt.

I don't want you to be like everybody else.

I'm proud of you for having taken a chance.

These years have done you a world of good.

So?

But now it's time to come home.

A city like Paris is a form of education,

one of the best of educations.

But it's important to

know when to quit school,

to know when the school has

nothing more to give you,

when it's a kind of a retreat, an escape.

What if I want to escape?

Some people can.

People without any value.

I think you're valuable. Most valuable.

You can't escape.

Maybe not, but I'm going to give it a try.

A big fat try.

Chris, darling, look ahead.

What is your life going to be

like here 10 years from now?

(TELEPHONE RINGS)

Aren't you going to answer it?

Hello. Yes.

Yes.

Christina?

Walter?

What are you doing calling at this hour?

Well, I've been trying to get hold of

you all night. Where have you been?

Around, showing a visitor

the local dens of iniquity.

Man in Tripoli wants to know

if you're enjoying yourself.

Enormously.

"Enormously," he says.

How was Africa? How are all

the very important Arabs?

Well, that's what I was calling you about.

It went a lot faster than I'd hoped.

Now I want to tuck in somewhere

quiet and do the pieces.

I thought I'd go to Saint-Paul-de-Vence,

you know, that little hotel there,

and work in the sunshine for a week or so.

I'd love it if you could meet me there.

I'm going to be there tomorrow night.

Tomorrow night?

I'll be there. I'll take the

afternoon plane to Nice.

(CHUCKLES) Goodnight, my love.

Do you know what you're doing?

I'm doing the only thing

that's possible for me to do.

Do you want me to see you off?

I don't think so.

Goodnight, darling.

Goodnight, Father.

WALTER:
Happy?

CHRISTINA:
Of course.

It's impossible.

What's impossible?

Not to touch.

Touch?

Are you worried?

About what?

About the wind.

What's the matter with the wind?

There isn't any. We're becalmed.

Miles from land, without food or drink.

Not a bottle of champagne or

an ounce of caviar on board.

And no rescue in sight.

Out of reach of telephones or radar

or newspapers or friend or foe.

Wonderful!

The only thing left is prayer.

Shall we pray, sister? Mm-hmm.

Well, lead the prayer, sister.

Please let the wind never come up.

Please keep us forever un-rescued,

out of reach of radar

or newspapers or telephone

or friend or foe.

Let not the North wind

blow, nor the South wind.

Let the crew of this

vessel never reach land.

Let this calm afternoon never end.

WALTER:
Amen.

You know what I hate?

What? Typewriters.

You know the first lesson I was

taught when I became a newspaperman?

What's that?

Never try to write a story with somebody

called Christina James in the same room.

They're teaching a different

system these days.

They certainly are.

(KNOCKING ON DOOR)

(SPEAKING FRENCH)

Merci.

I have to go to Cairo tomorrow.

After that, Tehran, Beirut, Istanbul,

Jerusalem and back to Cairo.

Burn a candle for me in

Jerusalem when you get there.

I could use a drink.

Maybe it was lucky that

telegram came when it did.

Lucky? Why?

I think one more day with

you, the way we had it,

and I'd never have been able to leave.

Would that have been bad?

Ever since the first day I started working,

I've gone every place I was sent,

every place I thought I should go,

without hesitation, without regret,

for as long as was necessary.

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