“It’s very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present. You know what I mean? It’s awfully difficult.”
A person of a certain social station, when exhibiting outré behavior, is referred to as “eccentric.” Were her name “Smith” or “Jones,” she would be carted off to a room with cushioned wallpaper. But if her name is “Bouvier Beale,” she has the advantage of being left alone.
Then again, she also has the disadvantage of being left alone. She certainly doesn’t live in the present, but she doesn’t quite live in the past either. She lives in an alternate reality. That line between the past and the present has become a Möbius strip of recollections and performances and…