'Extremely,' I said.

'She only does these on the side,' Nadine said. 'She is paying 'er way through the Sorbonne. Comparative literature. American girls 'ave more character than European girls. You think so?'

'I'm not much of an expert,' I said. 'I've only been m Europe a few weeks.'

'You think it will be big success in America?' She sounded anxious.

'I'm very optimistic,' I said.

'I'm just afraid maybe we 'ave too much what you call class for the general audience.'

'I wouldn't worry,' I said.

'Miles, too,' Nadine said. She squeezed my arm, her motives ambiguous. 'He is wonderful on the set. A smile for everybody. You must come on the set, too. The ambiance is beautiful. One for all and all for one. 'Ow they work! Overtime, double overtime, nevair a complaint. Of course, the salaries are very small and the stars are on percentages and that 'elps. Will you come tomorrow? We 'ave a scene where Priscilla is dressed as a nun...'

'I'm afraid I'm in Paris on business,' I said. Tm awfully busy.'

'Welcome any time. Do not 'esitate.'

Thank you,' I said.

'Do you think it will pass the censors m America?' Again she sounded anxious.

'I imagine so. From what I hear they have to pass everything these days. There's always the chance, of course, that a picture can run into trouble with some local police chief, who can get a theater closed down for a while.' Even as I said it I realized that I was giving myself something else to worry about. If I were a local police chief I'd have the dim burned, law or no law. But I wasn't a policeman. I was, whether I liked it or not, an investor. To the tune of fifteen thousand dollars. I tried to sound offhand. 'How about France?' I asked. 'Will it pass here?'

'It is terrible here.' She squeezed my arm illogically again. 'You never can tell. A old fart of a bishop makes a speech one Sunday and hall the theaters go dark the next day. And if the wife of the President or a cabinet minister 'appens to walk by and see a poster ... you 'ave no hidea how narrow-minded French people can be about hart. Luckily, there is halways a new scandal next week to take the pressure hoff.' Suddenly, she stopped, releasing my arm. She moved off two steps and looked searchingly at me. 'To the naked heye,' she ' said, 'you look very nicely built. Ham I wrong?'

'I used to ski a lot,' I said.

'We 'ave not yet cast the role of the villain,' Nadine said. ' 'E has two very interesting scenes. One with Priscilla alone and one with Priscilla and a Nubian girl... Maybe it would hamuse you.'

'She's offering you a job, Douglas,' Miles said. His voice seemed to boom out over all the noise of the avenue traffic. 'Protect your investment.'

'It's very good of you, madame,' I said to Nadine, 'but if my mother in America ever saw it, I'm afraid...' I was ashamed to bring my dead mother into this affair, but at the moment it seemed like the quickest way to end the conversation.

'Priscilla 'as a mother in America, too,' Nadine said.

'There are mothers and mothers in America. I'm an only son,' I said idiotically.

'Oh, take it,' Lily said. 'I'll go over your lines with you on the set. And we could rehearse the difficult bits back at the hotel.'

'Sorry,' I said, glaring at her, 'I'd really love to do it. But I may be called out of Paris at any time.'

Nadine shrugged. 'The trouble with this business,' she said, 'there hare nevair henough new faces. Halways the same hequipment, the same horgasms. Some bother time, maybe. You have something - ha kind hof underground sexiness, like a young curé ... Ham I right. Lily?'

'Absolutely,' Lily said.

'It would be beautifully perverse,' Nadine said. 'Hinnocently rotten. A new dimension. The bishops would gnash their teeth.'

'Some other time,' I said firmly.

'I will work hon you.' Nadine smiled her incorruptible schoolgirl smile.

The two beers he drank one after the other in the brasserie seemed to have aroused the critic with the beard. He began to speak excitedly in French to Nadine.

'Philippe,' Nadine said, 'speak Henglish. We have guests.'

'We are in France,' Philippe said loudly through his beard. 'Why shouldn't they speak French?'

'Because we're stupid Anglo-Saxons, dearie,' Lily said, 'and, as every Frenchman knows, undereducated.'

' 'E speaks Henglish very good,' Nadine said. 'Very good. 'E was in Hamerica two years. 'E was in 'Ollywood. 'E wrote criticism for Cahiers du Cinéma.'

'Did you like Hollywood?' Fabian asked.

'I hated it.'

'Did you like the pictures?'

'I hated them.'

'Do you like French pictures?' Lily asked.

'The last one I liked Was Breathless.'' Philippe swigged at his beer.

'That was ten years ago,' Lily said.

'More than that,' Philippe said complacently.

' 'E is very particular,' Nadine said. 'Halso political.'

'How many times...' He turned angrily on her. 'How many times have I told you the two invariably go together?'

'Too many times. Don't be an emmerdeur[10], Philippe. He likes China,' Nadine explained to us.

'Do you like Chinese films?' Lily asked. She seemed to take delight in baiting the man, in her offhand, ladylike way.

'I haven't seen any - yet,' the man said. I wait. Five years. Ten years.' His English was heavily accented, but fluent. His eyes glittered. He was the sort of man who would debate happily in Sanskrit. I had the impression that if he ever got into a conversation with anybody who agreed with him he would jump up and storm out of the room.

'Tell me, old man,' Fabian said, hearty and friendly, 'what do you think of our little opus so far?'

'Merde. A piece of shit.'

'Really?' Lily sounded surprised.

'Philippe,' Nadine said warningly. 'Priscilla hunderstands English. You don't want to hundermine her performance, do you?'

"That's all right,' Priscilla said, in her pure corn-fed, high-school soprano, I never take what a Frenchman says seriously.'

'We are in the city where Racine presented Phèdre, where Molière died,' the critic recited, 'where Flaubert went to court to defend Madame Bovary, where they rioted in the streets after the first performance of Hernani, where Heine was welcomed because of his poetry in another language, and Turgenev found a home.' Philippe's beard was electric with argument, the great names luscious on his tongue. Tn our own time, in the same medium - film - we have to our credit at least Grande Illusion, Poil de Carotte, Forbidden Games.

And what have we gathered tonight to discuss? A comic and distasteful attempt to arouse our basest emotions...'

'Do not sound, chéri,' Nadine Bonheur said calmly, 'as though you are too fine to fuck. I could gather testimony.'

The critic glowered at her and waved for another beer. 'What have you shown me? The rutting of an empty-faced American poupée and a Moroccan pimp, the...'

'Chéri,' Nadine said, more sharply now, 'remember, you are halways signing petitions against racism.'

'That's all right, Nadine,' Priscilla said. She was spooning away at a huge bowl of ice cream with chocolate sauce. 'I never take what a Frenchman says seriously.'

The Moroccan smiled benignly, his English obviously not up to complicated observations on aesthetics in that language.

'Made in France,' the critic said, 'written in Prance, composed in France, painted in France - You remember—' He pointed an accusing finger at Nadine. 'I ask you to remember what that used to mean. Glory. Devotion to beauty, to art, to the highest aspirations of the human race. What does your Made in France mean? A tickling of the balls, a lubricity of the vagina ...'

'Hear, hear,' Lily said.

'English lightness of character,' the critic said, leaning forward over the table, jutting his beard fiercely at Lily. "The Empire is gone. Now we will emit a Buckingham Palace snicker.'