withering. The champagne glasses scattered over the console table, the desk, and the mantel suggested some celebration far in the past. Perhaps the ball on June 20 , 1896 , that M. de Bel-Respiro gave in honor of Camille du Gast, the cakewalk dancer. A forgotten umbrella, Turkish cigarette stubs, a half-finished orangeade. Was that Philibert playing the piano just a while ago? Or Mlle Mylo d'Arcille, who had died some sixty years before? The bloodstain brought me back to more current problems. I didn't know the poor devil's name. He looked like Saint-Georges. While they were working him over he had lost his pen and a handkerchief with the initials C.F.: the only traces of his presence on earth. …
I opened the window. A summer night so blue, so warm, that it seemed unreal and suddenly brought to my mind phrases like "give up the ghost" and "breathe one last sigh." The world was dying of consumption. A very mild, lingering death. The sirens wailed announcing an air raid. After that I could hear only a muffled drumroll. It lasted two or three hours. Phosphorus bombs. By dawn Paris would be a mass of debris. Too bad. Everything I loved about my city had long since ceased to exist: the Petite Ceinture railway, the Ternes balloon, the Pompeian Villa, and the Chinese Baths. You end up taking the disappearance of things for granted. The bombers would spare nothing. On the desk I arranged the playing pieces from a mah-jongg set that belonged to the son of the house. The walls trembled. They'd collapse any minute. But I hadn't finished what I was saying. From this old age and solitude of mine, something would blossom, like a bubble on the tip of a straw. I waited. It took shape all at once: a red-headed giant, unquestionably blind, since he wore dark glasses. A little girl with a wrinkled face. I called them Coco Lacour and Esmeralda. Wretched. Sickly. Always silent. A word, a gesture would have been enough to break them. What would have happened to them without me? I found at last the best of reasons to go on living. I loved my poor monsters. I would take care of them … No one would be able to harm them. The money I earned at Cimarosa Square for informing and looting assured them a comfortable life. Coco Lacour. Esmeralda. I chose the two most miserable creatures on earth, but there was no sentimentality in my love. I would have bashed in the face of anyone who dared to make the slightest disparaging remark about them. The mere thought of it threw me into a murderous rage. Clusters of searing sparks scorched my eyes. I was choking. No one would lay a finger on my two children. My pent-up grief burst in a towering wave, and my love took strength from it. No living thing could resist its erosive power. A love so devastating that kings, conquerors, and "great men" changed into sick children before my eyes. Attila, Napoleon, Tamerlane, Genghis Khan, Harun alRashid, and others of whose fabled feats I had heard. How puny and pitiful they seemed, these so-called titans. Absolutely harmless. To such a degree that as I bent over Esmeralda's face I wondered whether I wasn't gazing at Hitler. A slip of a girl, abandoned. She was blowing soap bubbles with a gadget I had just given her. Coco Lacour was lighting his cigar. From the very first time I met them they had never said a word. Mutes, undoubtedly. Esmeralda stared in disbelief at the bubbles bursting against the chandelier. Coco Lacour was totally absorbed in blowing smoke rings. Humble pleasures. I loved these sickly charges of mine. I enjoyed their company. Not that I found these two creatures any more moving or defenseless than the majority of mankind. EVERY HUMAN BEING left me with a sense of maternal and hopeless compassion. But Coco Lacour and Esmeralda at least kept silent. They never moved. Silence, immobility, after having to put up with so many pointless exclamations and gesticulations. I felt no need to speak to them. What would be the purpose? They were deaf. And that was
I opened the window. A summer night so blue, so warm, that it seemed unreal and suddenly brought to my mind phrases like "give up the ghost" and "breathe one last sigh." The world was dying of consumption. A very mild, lingering death. The sirens wailed announcing an air raid. After that I could hear only a muffled drumroll. It lasted two or three hours. Phosphorus bombs. By dawn Paris would be a mass of debris. Too bad. Everything I loved about my city had long since ceased to exist: the Petite Ceinture railway, the Ternes balloon, the Pompeian Villa, and the Chinese Baths. You end up taking the disappearance of things for granted. The bombers would spare nothing. On the desk I arranged the playing pieces from a mah-jongg set that belonged to the son of the house. The walls trembled. They'd collapse any minute. But I hadn't finished what I was saying. From this old age and solitude of mine, something would blossom, like a bubble on the tip of a straw. I waited. It took shape all at once: a red-headed giant, unquestionably blind, since he wore dark glasses. A little girl with a wrinkled face. I called them Coco Lacour and Esmeralda. Wretched. Sickly. Always silent. A word, a gesture would have been enough to break them. What would have happened to them without me? I found at last the best of reasons to go on living. I loved my poor monsters. I would take care of them … No one would be able to harm them. The money I earned at Cimarosa Square for informing and looting assured them a comfortable life. Coco Lacour. Esmeralda. I chose the two most miserable creatures on earth, but there was no sentimentality in my love. I would have bashed in the face of anyone who dared to make the slightest disparaging remark about them. The mere thought of it threw me into a murderous rage. Clusters of searing sparks scorched my eyes. I was choking. No one would lay a finger on my two children. My pent-up grief burst in a towering wave, and my love took strength from it. No living thing could resist its erosive power. A love so devastating that kings, conquerors, and "great men" changed into sick children before my eyes. Attila, Napoleon, Tamerlane, Genghis Khan, Harun alRashid, and others of whose fabled feats I had heard. How puny and pitiful they seemed, these so-called titans. Absolutely harmless. To such a degree that as I bent over Esmeralda's face I wondered whether I wasn't gazing at Hitler. A slip of a girl, abandoned. She was blowing soap bubbles with a gadget I had just given her. Coco Lacour was lighting his cigar. From the very first time I met them they had never said a word. Mutes, undoubtedly. Esmeralda stared in disbelief at the bubbles bursting against the chandelier. Coco Lacour was totally absorbed in blowing smoke rings. Humble pleasures. I loved these sickly charges of mine. I enjoyed their company. Not that I found these two creatures any more moving or defenseless than the majority of mankind. EVERY HUMAN BEING left me with a sense of maternal and hopeless compassion. But Coco Lacour and Esmeralda at least kept silent. They never moved. Silence, immobility, after having to put up with so many pointless exclamations and gesticulations. I felt no need to speak to them. What would be the purpose? They were deaf. And that was
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