Memories Without Regrets

Regarding Ernest Cabaner

Whenever his fortune allowed him to cook for himself and eat at home, here was the recipe for his "frichti" (stew). Actually, it was quite good, and thrifty housewives could make an excellent sweet dessert out of it:

On a bed of well-cooked rice, in a large earthenware dish, a few oranges—which his sense of aesthetics arranged harmoniously—some figs, and raisins; a few prunes, some water: that’s all. He would place this strange food over a low flame and let it simmer for long hours.

So much for food.

As for love, Cabaner held the most curious ideas about women. In his mind, they were inferior and demonic beings, with rare exceptions he would cite without blinking: "Superior women, like Nini-Voyou, Madame de Staël, and Thérésa..."

This state of mind led him to conceive of a paradise reserved specifically for intellectuals. The planet of his dreams was a planet made of flesh, inhabited solely by men—superior men, of course. It was at once the mother, the nurse, the communal wife, and the sanctuary of its inhabitants.

Perhaps I should explain my friend’s fantastical vision a little. As a sanctuary, the planet offered the folds of its skin, and in winter, its forests of hair. As a nurse: rivers, lakes, and seas of milk escaped from its specialized glands. As for wife and mother, I believe I need not elaborate... let us move on.

Cabaner, hating official music, had imagined a secondary system of his own. Everything: music theory, harmony, melodic construction, counterpoint, etc. In truth, when heard, it was actually quite good. 

Charles de Sivry, 1898