Céleste puts the tray of coffee down on the bedside table.

CÉLESTE   I’ve had a letter from Odilon, monsieur.

PROUST   How is he?

CÉLESTE   Well, monsieur. He sends his respects. He’s at the front now. Where is the front, monsieur?

PROUST   Getting nearer.
Proust looks up and smiles. Céleste starts to go.

INT. KITCHEN OF A FASHIONABLE RESTAURANT (LARUE’S). NIGHT.

The cooks and waiters are working in the kitchen.

A chef is frying a sole.

Céleste waits.

The sole is put in a dish and wrapped up in tea towels.

Céleste is led out of the kitchen by a waiter.

INT. DINING ROOM OF LARUE’S. NIGHT.

Céleste carries the sole through the now darkened restaurant.

The waiter accompanies her and opens the door.

WAITER   Bon appetit, mademoiselle.

CÉLESTE   Madame.

INT. PROUST’S BEDROOM. NIGHT.

Close-up on the sole and potatoes on a tray.

Proust toys with it.

Céleste watches.

Proust pushes the sole aside and puts down his fork, motioning it aside.

Céleste takes the tray.

Proust goes back to his writing.

INT. PROUST’S APARTMENT. KITCHEN. NIGHT.

Céleste eating up the sole and potatoes with some bread.

She puts the remains from the plate into the slop bucket.

INT. PROUST’S APARTMENT. KITCHEN. NIGHT.

Céleste prepares the night tray: a lacquer tray, lime blossoms, bottle of Evian water, little cup, sugar bowl.

INT. DOOR OF PROUST’S BEDROOM. NIGHT.

Céleste pauses at the door.

CÉLESTE   Goodnight, monsieur.

INT. PROUST’S APARTMENT. KITCHEN. DAY.

Céleste opens the curtains.

It is already light.

She picks up two empty mineral water bottles from beside the sink.

INT. PROUST’S APARTMENT. SERVICE STAIRS. DAY.

Céleste opens the service door and puts out the two empty mineral-water bottles.

A little girl is coming down the stairs on her way to school.

LITTLE GIRL   Good morning, madame.

CÉLESTE   Good morning, Claudine.

INT. PROUST’S BEDROOM. DAY.

Proust working. Thinking. He hums a tune. Hums it again, a tune he is trying to recapture.

INT. KITCHEN/CÉLESTE’S BEDROOM. DAY.

Céleste is unpinning her hair.

She closes her bedroom door.

INT. PROUST’S BEDROOM. DAY.

Proust is working.

PROUST   (voice-over) One cannot properly describe human life without showing it soaked in the sleep into which it plunges night after night. That sleep in which one is no longer a person. So how then, on waking, does one recover one’s own self rather than another’s? Why, among the millions of human beings one might be, does one unerringly lay one’s hands on the person one was?
Mix to:

INT. PROUST’S APARTMENT. HALL/LANDING. NIGHT.

Proust is wearing his overcoat.

Céleste holds up some money for him to see and shows him which pocket she is putting it in.

CÉLESTE   Money.
She does the same with his handkerchiefs.

CÉLESTE   Handkerchiefs.

PROUST   You have no plans for this evening?