the air, and then, at last, she turned towards him.
Then, at last, their eyes met and his last remaining doubts vanished when the look of enquiry in her green eyes gave way successively to incredulous surprise and a smile of joyful recognition that revealed the little gap between her teeth. But then the two trains started to pull out in opposite directions, rendering the distance between them greater and the angle of view more acute, and they lost sight of each other once more.
As he plunged into the tunnel Léon desperately wondered what to do and arrived at three possible alternatives, all of which seemed to him equally sensible. He could take the next train back to Saint-Sulpice and hope that she would do the same; or he could get out one stop beyond Saint-Sulpice on the assumption that she had also got out there and was waiting for him; or he himself could wait at the next station in the hope that she would follow.
But it was hopeless in any case to try to locate someone on the crowded trains, platforms and stairs in rush hour, especially when you didnât even know whether they were waiting for you somewhere or hurriedly scouring the Métro themselves. The first thing Léon did was travel back to Saint-Sulpice, where he climbed on a bench beneath a poster depicting a bright red Citroën cabriolet 10cv B14 crossing some sand dunes and tried to get an overhead view of both platforms. Since all he could see were grey hats and strange womenâs hairdos, he rode the next train one station further to St.-Placide, just in case Louise had got out there and stayed put, then returned to Saint-Germain-des-Près to see if Louise was looking for him there, then went back to Saint-Sulpice and from there paid a second visit to St.-Placide.
After sixteen such journeys Léon realized he would never find Louise that way. He was perspiring and exhausted, his suit was too tight, and pink strawberry juice and pale-yellow custard were oozing from the carton containing the tartes aux fraises, which had suffered appreciably from the crush on their hours-long odyssey between the same three Métro stations. He walked slowly up the Boulevard Saint-Michel beneath the autumnally golden plane trees, blinking in the glare of headlights reflected by wet cobblestones.
Feeling as if he had awakened from a chaotic dream after a restless nightâs sleep, he was amazed that he could have spent half the evening down in the Métro chasing after a girl whom he hadnât seen for ten years, and who was in all probability long dead. The young woman had certainly borne a remarkable resemblance to Louise, and she had undoubtedly smiled as if she recognized him. But how many green-eyed young women were there in Paris â a hundred thousand? If one in every ten had a gap between her front teeth, and if one in every fifty of those cut her own hair, wasnât it possible that one or another out of those two hundred, while travelling home in the Métro after an enjoyable dayâs work, would smile out of mere friendliness at a strange man waving his hat at her like a buffoon?
Léon now felt sure that heâd been chasing after a ghost, albeit a ghost that had faithfully accompanied him for ten long years. It was his secret sin that he often, while getting up in the mornings, pictured Louise leaning against a plane tree, waiting for him, and in the afternoons, when his hours in the laboratory were dragging, he amused himself by remembering that one weekend at Le Tréport. Finally, when he lay on his own, solitary side of the marriage bed, he helped himself off to sleep by thinking of his first encounter with Louise and her squeaking bicycle.
He cautiously turned the key in the street door and closed it softly behind him. It was seldom that he managed to slip unnoticed past the concierge, who had taken him to her heart years ago, when her two daughters were still little, because he had made them Christmas presents of
Then, at last, their eyes met and his last remaining doubts vanished when the look of enquiry in her green eyes gave way successively to incredulous surprise and a smile of joyful recognition that revealed the little gap between her teeth. But then the two trains started to pull out in opposite directions, rendering the distance between them greater and the angle of view more acute, and they lost sight of each other once more.
As he plunged into the tunnel Léon desperately wondered what to do and arrived at three possible alternatives, all of which seemed to him equally sensible. He could take the next train back to Saint-Sulpice and hope that she would do the same; or he could get out one stop beyond Saint-Sulpice on the assumption that she had also got out there and was waiting for him; or he himself could wait at the next station in the hope that she would follow.
But it was hopeless in any case to try to locate someone on the crowded trains, platforms and stairs in rush hour, especially when you didnât even know whether they were waiting for you somewhere or hurriedly scouring the Métro themselves. The first thing Léon did was travel back to Saint-Sulpice, where he climbed on a bench beneath a poster depicting a bright red Citroën cabriolet 10cv B14 crossing some sand dunes and tried to get an overhead view of both platforms. Since all he could see were grey hats and strange womenâs hairdos, he rode the next train one station further to St.-Placide, just in case Louise had got out there and stayed put, then returned to Saint-Germain-des-Près to see if Louise was looking for him there, then went back to Saint-Sulpice and from there paid a second visit to St.-Placide.
After sixteen such journeys Léon realized he would never find Louise that way. He was perspiring and exhausted, his suit was too tight, and pink strawberry juice and pale-yellow custard were oozing from the carton containing the tartes aux fraises, which had suffered appreciably from the crush on their hours-long odyssey between the same three Métro stations. He walked slowly up the Boulevard Saint-Michel beneath the autumnally golden plane trees, blinking in the glare of headlights reflected by wet cobblestones.
Feeling as if he had awakened from a chaotic dream after a restless nightâs sleep, he was amazed that he could have spent half the evening down in the Métro chasing after a girl whom he hadnât seen for ten years, and who was in all probability long dead. The young woman had certainly borne a remarkable resemblance to Louise, and she had undoubtedly smiled as if she recognized him. But how many green-eyed young women were there in Paris â a hundred thousand? If one in every ten had a gap between her front teeth, and if one in every fifty of those cut her own hair, wasnât it possible that one or another out of those two hundred, while travelling home in the Métro after an enjoyable dayâs work, would smile out of mere friendliness at a strange man waving his hat at her like a buffoon?
Léon now felt sure that heâd been chasing after a ghost, albeit a ghost that had faithfully accompanied him for ten long years. It was his secret sin that he often, while getting up in the mornings, pictured Louise leaning against a plane tree, waiting for him, and in the afternoons, when his hours in the laboratory were dragging, he amused himself by remembering that one weekend at Le Tréport. Finally, when he lay on his own, solitary side of the marriage bed, he helped himself off to sleep by thinking of his first encounter with Louise and her squeaking bicycle.
He cautiously turned the key in the street door and closed it softly behind him. It was seldom that he managed to slip unnoticed past the concierge, who had taken him to her heart years ago, when her two daughters were still little, because he had made them Christmas presents of
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