My mother died when I was still an infant, so that I can only recall her as a vague patch of delicious lachrymal warmth just beyond the limit of iconographic memory.

Biarritz still retained its quiddity

The day, a compunctious Sunday after a week of blizzards, had been part jewel, part mud.

but all of her was curiously frowzy, after a way I obscurely associated with left-wing enthusiasms in politics and “advanced” banalities in art, although, actually, she cared for neither.