L'école des vieilles femmes

A collection of vivid portraits and episodes that probe the desperate need among some older women to remain desirable and controlled by desire. The narrator uses the image of a sudden, violent gale to introduce sudden late‑life erotic upheavals and then recounts an observed case in a summer social setting where passion disrupts decorum. The pieces examine vanity, shame, cruelty, and pity, showing how physical decline and social expectation collide, and they move between ironic observation and sympathetic insight into the psychological turbulence that overturns settled lives.