The Pursuit of Love

Cooee!

Linda!

Ooh!

Madame!

Monsieur.

If you insist on going back to the Gare du Nord,

let me drive you there at least.

I think you'll find it quicker than walking.

Linda!

Linda?

Shush!

It's a shame.

- What's a shame? - Hmm?

That you have to go before lunch.

My favourite brasserie is on the next street.

One may as well go for lunch if it's on the way, I suppose.

Ah. Ah!

Leave it! It was a terrible hat.

Shush!

Please stop screaming. You're embarrassing me!

Come here.

What's all that about?

Shh!

Now, madame, before I never see you again,

- tell me the story. - What story?

Who left you to cry on that little suitcase of yours?

I left him...

...my second husband. And I...

I've left him for ever

because he's fallen in love with another woman.

My dear, what a curious reason

for leaving your second husband.

Well, it was made so much worse by her being a welfare worker.

Why is that worse?

Because she's such a good person.

Merci.

Well, surely, with your experience of husbands,

you must have noticed falling in love with other people

is one of the things they do, hmm?

Wives fall in love with other people too.

Oui.

How many husbands have you had?

Only two!

Combien?

In England, I am considered a beauty!

Oui.

Linda was experiencing

an overwhelming physical sensation

like nothing she'd known before.

I have certainly never seen anyone so lovely

climbing down a drainpipe.

She asked herself how,

after only five minutes of acquaintance,

she could yearn so desperately to be in bed with this man.

It would be impossible to be very unhappy here.

Come and see my apartment.

Oh, monsieur!

Heh?

Pfft! Yes, well...I admit that I have made great mistakes,

but I see no reason for sliding down the hill altogether.

Can you please just take me to the station?

Oui, bien sur,

but I fear you have missed the last train for London.

Well, then, can...

Can you please take me back to the hotel

and I will catch the first London train tomorrow?

- To the hotel? - Oui.

- Tres bien. - Merci.

By all means.

She could see this man was certain of the outcome,

and so was she.

Perfectly certain.

Do you want to dance?

No, I want to keep chatting and chatting and chatting.

- Chatting? - Oui.

I adore chatting. It's one of my favourite things to do.

Tell me a story.

I once read a story

about two English ladies

seeing the ghost of Marie Antoinette

sitting on a park bench.

- No? - Yes, they saw her!

A ghost story made up by some...

...old English virgins...

No, that's not interesting.

All right, thank you very much!

- You tell me one, then. - Tres bien.

- And this is a true story. - Right.

My grandmother, she was very beautiful

and she had many lovers her whole life.

Just before she died, she was in Venice

with my mother,

floating up some canal in a gondola,

when they saw an exquisite little palazzo of pink marble.

Mmm.

An old servant showed them into a salon with three windows

looking over the canal,

but my grandmother was strangely moved.

At last, she said,

- "If in the third drawer..." - Hmm.

"...of that bureau, there is a filigree box..."

Right.

"...containing a small gold key,

"this house belongs to me."

See? Absolument. And there it was.

One of my grandmother's lovers had given it to her

years before, and she had forgotten all about it.

Oh, what fascinating lives you foreigners do lead!

How badly your hair is done.

Oh!

- You don't like my clothes. - No.

- Or my hair. - No.

And you think I'm bad at stories.

Oui.

Oui, madame.

So it's a very good thing

that I'm going back to London tomorrow.

Oh, yes, I had forgotten. What a pity.

She told herself again and again

that tomorrow, after this,

she would go back to London.

But she had no intention of going back, and she knew it.

Ah, thought I'd married a bolter after all.

Alfred, no, it's a terrible emergency!

Linda didn't come home

and I haven't seen her in so long

and I was so mean to her when we argued and...

It wasn't actually anything about her, it was all about me,

and now something awful's happened to her

and I might never see her again!

- Oh, God! - Doesn't she have

a habit of falling on her feet?

No, we're best friends. Alfred,

she would have called me if she were all right.

Oh, poor Linda. She really is such an innocent.

Do you always laugh

when you make love?

Don't most women?

Ah, non, they do not.

More often they cry.

Hmm...

How extraordinary.

Don't they enjoy it?

While we're on the subject of your private life...

-Mmm? - ...could one know your name?

Haven't you discovered that?

Extraordinaire!

Well, my name is Fabrice Sauveterre.

I'm happy to tell you that I'm a very rich duke.

A most agreeable thing to be, even in these days.

And are you married?

Non.

Why not?

My fiancée died.

Oh, how sad.

What was she like?

Very kind.

Kinder than me?

Much kinder.

- Mmm. - Very correct.

More correct than me?

You, madame, are not correct at all.

Hmm.

She was a very virtuous woman.

Do you mean to say that you never went to bed with her?

Never.

Never would have crossed my mind in a thousand years.

Goodness!

- In England, we always do. - Ah!

My dear, the animal side of the English is well known.

They are a drunken and incontinent race.

Well, they say it's foreigners

- who are all those things. - Are they?

French women are the most virtuous in the world.

- I don't know. - Aussi.

I must tell you that my mother and one of my aunts

and one of my sisters

and my cousin are virtuous women,

so virtue is not unknown in my family.

And anyway, Fabrice,

what about your grandmother and all those lovers?

Oh, yes, I admit she was a great sinner!

But she was also a very great lady.

You can't be virtuous

and a sinner, I'm afraid.

Alfred, everything's always one thing or the other with you!

You do? Where?

When? What time?

No, no, no, no, Alfred can stay with the baby.

No, he won't mind in the least.

Oh, dear God, David! Do you think she's all right?

Tres chic.

Merveilleuse!

We take it all. Allez!

You can't do that!

- Oui. - What would my mother say?

Oh, no, wait, it's perfect. Even the swimming suit,

which you won't be able to wear, of course,

because the beaches will be battlegrounds, but we take it.

I prefer to sunbathe naked anyway.