“Not that she respected him more than the others: she kept him completely, dressed him, gave him expensive presents which he didn’t throw back in her face. He never went in for those stupid, boorish ploys the others indulged in, those sulky moods when they wanted something or felt they were the injured party in the bargain stuck between their bodies and her money-that was it, really, they felt hard done by. They would get her to buy them all manner of expensive trinkets which they didn’t even want, simply in order to restore their self-esteem. The word esteem made her laugh inwardly. It was none the less the only word for it.”
Françoise Sagan, “The Gigolo”, 1975.
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