In May 1927, young Dinu Grigorescu, a skinny boy with literary ambitions, is newly arrived in Paris. He has been sent from Bucharest, the city of his childhood, by his wealthy father to embark upon a bohemian adventure and relish the unique pleasures of Parisian life.
An innocent in a new city, still grieving the sudden loss of his beloved mother Elena seven years earlier, Dinu is encouraged to enjoy la vie de Bohème by his distant cousin, Eduard. But tentatively, secretly, Dinu is drawn to the Bains du Ballon d’Alsace, a notorious establishment rumoured to offer the men of Paris, married or otherwise, who enjoy something different, everything they crave. It is here that he meets Razvan, a fellow Romanian, the adopted child of a man of refinement – a prince’s boy – whose stories of Proust and other artists entrance Dinu, and who will become the young man’s teacher in the ways of the world.
At a distance of forty years, and written in London, his refuge from the horrors of Europe’s early twentieth-century history, Dinu’s memoir of his brief spell in Paris is one of exploration and rediscovery. The love that blossomed that sunlit day in such inauspicious and unromantic surroundings would transcend lust, separation, despair and even death to endure a lifetime.
Quote: Razvan Popescu, a Romanian peasant boy of 11 whose father is deceased and whose mother is struggling with many children, is adopted away from his difficult home situation by a Romanian prince around the turn of the 20th century. The prince hires the best tutors who educate Razvan in literature and the arts. When they relocate to Paris, this boy of peasant ancestry begins to operate in society and is known as the prince's boy. After the prince’s death, Razvan inherits an apartment but is forced to provide sexual favors for cash.
In 1927, Dinu Grigorescu is sent to Paris by his wealthy father to become a great author or poet—to experience la vie de Boheme, but mainly to help him move on from his mother’s death 5 years earlier. While there, he is drawn to the Bains du Ballon d'Alsace, a notorious establishment where men of a certain class can procure sexual services that are a bit more out of the ordinary. It is here that Dinu meets Honore (Razvan), who supplies these services. Immediately becoming something much more than sex worker and client, and feeling a strong connection through their mutual Romanian ancestry, they fall in love.
Covering the forty years after their initial meeting, Dinu relays the internal struggle to form a permanent relationship with Razvan against the backdrop of the beginnings of obvious anti-semitism in Romania, Romania's alliance with the Nazis, and all of the social changes that come with the horrors of World War II. As an aesthete, Dinu's life is more influenced by literature and the arts. The work of Marcel Proust plays an important role in his life and how he sees the world. His close relationship with his own mother meant he connected easily to Marcel's relationship with his. As well, the work of Romanian poet Mihai Eminescu is a major influence.
