My last day in Paris consisted mostly in laundry, cleaning, and making sure I left Justine's apartment the way I found it. The only annoying part was that this morning, my jeans still weren't dry. They apparently take longer to line dry than everything else. Packing at 8am this morning, I had to wrap them in garbage bags and put them in my carryon, since I was sure wet jeans would really put me over my weight allotment for my checked baggage. If only that had been my only problem...but I'll get to that in a bit.
I met the theater director at Princeton yesterday for a coffee, a nice promenade through the Opéra neighborhood, and a macaron. His name is Florent Masse, and the work he does with undergraduate students learning French at Princeton is so astounding that this year, I actually told him to sign me up too! That's right: next year, I will be in a French play. According to our conversation, that play will be Phèdre, what many consider to be the absolute perfection of the French language. Written by Jean Racine in the 17th century, Phèdre retells the ancient myth of Phædra, the daughter of Minos and Pasiphaë, cursed by the gods in a similar way that her mother was (Pasiphaë was cursed to fall in love with a bull, and actually gave birth to the Minotaur). Phèdre falls in love with her stepson, Hippolyte, but doesn't reveal her love until she is reasonably certain her husband, the king Thésée (Theseus), is dead. When she confesses her forbidden passion and learns it is unrequited (Hippolyte is in love with someone else), her husband conveniently returns. Then, all hell breaks loose. She tells her husband his son tried to seduce her, he invokes the wrath of Neptune to kill his own son, Phèdre's confidante Œnone drowns for no reason, and Phèdre poisons herself. It's a pretty standard plot for a tragedy. What's interesting is Racine's poetry. Written in French verses called "alexandrins" (12 syllables, rhyming couplets, with accents on beats 6 and 12, and certain rules governing where other less-important accents can lie, what words can end in vowels, what kind of rhymes can end each couplet), Phèdre's adherence to the rules of classical French drama (it also takes place in one day, one place, and only one action is accomplished—otherwise known as the rule of three unities) and French versification makes Shakespeare and his iambic pentameter seem a bit lazy. Back to my point, Florent told me one of the plays for this coming school year is Phèdre, and I immediately started reciting lines from it. It's one of my favorite French plays, and I even wrote part of one of my generals essays about it and a novel by Émile Zola (La Curée) which rewrites it in the 19th century amidst a changing city landscape. Florent, thrilled to hear that I'm already putting my memory to work on French theater (that was the reason he was so excited for me to be in one of his plays at all), said I'd make a great Œnone! So yay! I get to drown after giving very reasonable advice to a madwoman!! But don't worry—all characters die offstage. It's one of the rules.
After meeting Florent, I met Mélanie and her Italian friend Andrea for drinks and a nice stroll around Les Halles (a happening night spot in Paris). Three nationalities, three languages, and we really confused the bartenders. Andrea didn't speak French, which is a bit unfortunate since he's here working, but we made do. I got home extremely late, and just knew I would be exhausted today. Except, for some reason I'm not. Maybe it's because Bologna is amazing! But that's another post for another time. In the meantime, here is a picture of my cocktail from last night. It's "à l'étage," which means it's layered. I had to mix it up before drinking it, but the picture is before I destroyed it's pretty rainbow structure!
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