Charles > Recent Status Updates

The lotharios, Don Juans and coureurs de femmes I have come across in my life have invariably confirmed the wise observation of François Mauriac in his novel of literary jealousy, Ce qui était perdu: ‘The more women a man has known, the more rudimentary an idea he constructs for himself of women in general.’ The dictum, soon to be a century old, has lost little of its truth.

When he came ashore at fifty years of age, it had been too late to start a family. Besides, who could you get at fifty? Not even a spinster, unless she came equipped with a serious defect. A widow? Oh yes, there were plenty of those. They were keen to marry too, though mostly for practical reasons. (...) And a young woman burdened with an old codger like him wouldn't have much of a future, would she?