We had our seminar with M.C. on Wednesday, at his apartment. His children’s cat kept poking her head into the room, with much curiosity about these six morning guests taking notes. That’s about half the group that was going to S.W.’s seminar, but it was quite convivial and collegial. We went to lunch at a sushi place afterward. I had the futo maki, which was cut in enormous slices. Katie confided to me that she had almost ordered the futo maki, but had been concerned about her ability to eat it. It was pretty challenging.

Then on Wednesday evening we hosted P’s birthday dinner at our apartment. That was fun. We had steamed artichokes as an hors d’oeuvre, followed by scallops with noodles. And K. had made a lemon cake, which we ate with raspberry sorbet.

Laura and I watched two movies this week: Brokeback Mountain (the French title is Le Secret de Brokeback Mountain) and In Her Shoes (the title was left untranslated). We watched them dubbed in French. Laura said that the first time she saw Brokeback Mountain she didn’t like Anne Hathaway’s acting but did like Michelle Williams. This time she felt the opposite. I thought maybe that had to do with the French actresses who dubbed their voices.

On Saturday I walked around the Montparnasse Cemetery. It was very peaceful, but with much less open space than a cemetery in the U.S. (Even if it occurred to someone to go running in this cemetery, you just wouldn’t be able to because the paths are so narrow.) They have some signs that map out the location of famous people’s graves, but by the time I found one of those signs I was ready to go. I decided I will have to go back another time to pay my respects to Tristan Tzara. (How does one pay one’s respects to the founder of Dada? Perhaps a ritualistic dance involving a toothbrush and a hard-boiled egg would be the most appropriate gesture.) I did see the graves of publisher Honoré Champion, aviatrix Maryse Bastié, the Citroën family plot, and Eugene Ionesco. Ionesco’s grave had an interesting epitaph: “Prier le je ne sais qui. J’espère: Jesus-Christ.” It’s not easy to translate, but it roughly means “Pray to whomever you want. I hope: Jesus Christ.” The second half could be taken as “I hope you will pray to Jesus Christ” or as the speaker’s own prayer to Jesus Christ. And possibly several other ways, but those are the two most appropriate possibilities for what it could mean on his tombstone. It would be interesting to find that quote in context, as it apparently comes from Ionesco’s journals.

Sunday afternoon I was invited to lunch at Vicki-Marie’s, in Fontenay-sous-Bois. I met Vicki-Marie at Thanksgiving. She has a charming little apartment. The other lunch guests included the daughter of a Hungarian scholar named Peter Nagy, who wrote a book entitled Libertinage et Revolution in the 1970s. Vicki-Marie sent me home with two big hunks of cheese, quite a few grapes, and more litchi fruit than I could eat in a year. I have been looking for litchi recipes online, but I’m not coming up with anything interesting. Well, there was a litchi lasagna recipe, but that sounds kind of ridiculous.