Camus Crosses The Street, parts 850 - 853

850. Buboni listened to Jemima with great interest and with each word began to squirm and twitch with all the thoughts swimming in his mind. Twice as she spoke he started to interrupt her, but held back trying to force himself for once to be polite, but when she finished a sentence he jumped in excitedly.

851. "This this..., is just exactly the crux of the problem of the modern artist," he said. "Don't you see, nobody is asking Coromo to paint pictures and nobody cares what he paints. He has to come up with the ideas all by himself, and on top of that, he has to provide the motivation." Here Buboni paused, and waited for Aunt Jemima to reply.

852. I want to take just a second and say something about this pause in Buboni's speech. By now you know what our Buboni is like, he has no respect for any one's opinions and will only listen to the Duck because the Duck is so intelligent, but here he was showing a subtitle deference to Aunt Jemima, and actually waiting patiently to see what she would have to say in reply. 

853. Yes, it was one of those unmistakable moments when you realize that one person is attracted to another person, and your eye flashes across the space between their eyes in order to ascertain if that attraction is reciprocated. I thought to myself, 'Buboni likes this Aunt Jemima', but I couldn't tell if she liked him, or was oblivious to his behavior.