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his face permanently clenched in a rictus of irritation

[...] her passion for contemporary art is real. As far as I'm concerned, I'm not actively hostile to it: I am not an advocate of craft, nor of a return to figurative painting; I maintain the disinterested attitude appropriate to an accounts manager. Questions of aesthetics and politics are not my t…

I spent the last day of my compassionate leave in various travel agencies. I liked holiday brochures, their abstraction, their way of condensing the places of the world into a limited sequence of possible pleasures and fares; I was particularly fond of the star-ratings system, which indicated the i…

All things come to an end, including the night. I was dragged from my saurian lethargy by the clear, resonant voice of Captain Chaumont.

[...] Father, father, I said to myself, how great was your vanity! To the left of my field of vision I could make out a weightlifting bench, barbells. I quickly visualised a moron in shorts —his face wrinkled, but otherwise very like mine— building up his pectorals with hopeless vigour. Father, I s…