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Jacques
The owner of the bar in which David and Giovanni first meet, Guillaume is an older gay man who belongs to a well-respected French family. Like Jacques, he uses his money to convince attractive young men to sleep with him, a tactic he uses on Giovanni after meeting him at the movies one night. In return for various sexual favors, he gives Giovanni a job at his bar and a worker’s permit. When Giovanni stops responding to his sexual advances because he’s in relationship with David, though, Guillaume fires him, accusing him in front of an entire crowd of stealing from the bar. This enrages Giovanni, who tells David that he would be a wreck if it weren’t for their relationship. In keeping with this sentiment, Giovanni goes down a dark path when David eventually leaves him for Hella—a path that leads him back to Guillaume, who insinuates that Giovanni can have his job back if he has sex with him. Swallowing his pride, then, Giovanni submits to Guillaume in a room above the bar. When they finish, Guillaume tells him that he won’t hire him back after all, and Giovanni becomes so enraged that he strangles him to death with the belt of his dressing gown.
Guillaume Quotes in Giovanni’s Room
The Giovanni’s Room quotes below are all either spoken by Guillaume or refer to Guillaume. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Part 1: Chapter 2
Quotes
As long as I was there the world could see and he could believe that he was out with me, his friend, he was not there out of desperation, he was not at the mercy of whatever adventurer chance, cruelty, or the laws of actual and emotional poverty might throw his way.
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As for the boys at the bar, they were each invisibly preening, having already calculated how much money he and his copain would need for the next few days, having already appraised Guillaume to within a decimal of that figure, and having already estimated how long Guillaume, as a fountainhead, would last, and also how long they would be able to endure him. […] There was also Jacques, who might turn out to be a bonus, or merely a consolation prize.
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Guillaume Quotes in Giovanni’s Room
The Giovanni’s Room quotes below are all either spoken by Guillaume or refer to Guillaume. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Part 1: Chapter 2
Quotes
As long as I was there the world could see and he could believe that he was out with me, his friend, he was not there out of desperation, he was not at the mercy of whatever adventurer chance, cruelty, or the laws of actual and emotional poverty might throw his way.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
As for the boys at the bar, they were each invisibly preening, having already calculated how much money he and his copain would need for the next few days, having already appraised Guillaume to within a decimal of that figure, and having already estimated how long Guillaume, as a fountainhead, would last, and also how long they would be able to endure him. […] There was also Jacques, who might turn out to be a bonus, or merely a consolation prize.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
