Now, I have made some notes.
23 quai du Commerce. COMMERCE. Everything Jeanne does is related to commerce.
At bedtime of the first day her son asks her how she met his father. She explains and says although he was ugly he had a business.
"I didn't feel like getting married, but it seemed to be 'the thing to do,' as they say.
"My aunts kept saying, 'He's nice. He has money. He'll make you happy.'
"But I still couldn't decide. Then his business suddenly hit the rocks, so I married him."
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. The business failed "so I married him"?
Son: "If he was ugly, did you want to make love with him?"
Jeanne: "Ugly or not, it wasn't all that important. Besides, 'making love,'
as you call it, is merely a detail. And I had you. And he wasn't as ugly as all that."
...
Son (I don't even know this kid's name): "Well, if I were a woman, I could never make love with someone I wasn't deeply in love with.
Jeanne: "How could you know? You're not a woman."
Okay? Very dutiful, very transactional, very Teutonic, bloodless.
As she sends her son off to school at the beginning of the second day he asks her, "Could I have more today?" She goes into the living room where she keeps the money from her johns and comes back and hands the kid more money. NOT A WORD OF THANKS. My note to self: "Female projection?"
