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[...] 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…

I spent fifteen minutes strolling under the arcades with their metal beams, slightly surprised by my own nostalgia and aware, at the same time, that the place really was extremely ugly. Those hideous buildings had been constructed during the worst period of modernism, but nostalgia has nothing to d…

‘Only on the surface, it seems to me. The only true atheists I’ve ever met were people in revolt. It wasn’t enough for them to coldly deny the existence of God – they had to refuse it, like Bakunin: “Even if God existed, it would be necessary to abolish Him.” They were atheists like Kirilov in The …

He stopped there. I got the distinct feeling that he’d used up his first round of arguments. He tasted the Meursault, I poured myself a second glass. It occurred to me that I had never felt so desirable. Glory had been a long time coming. Maybe my dissertation really had been as brilliant as he c…

During the night, a low-pressure system, originating over the Atlantic, had moved in from the south-west. The temperature had risen by six degrees; the countryside around Poitiers was wrapped in fog. I had called ahead for a taxi, and now I found myself with almost an hour to kill. I spent it at th…