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Most of the time, during our walks throughout Paris or on bus rides, we didn’t speak. The silence between us was a much stronger bond than words. We were like those people who walk side by side, never saying a thing but always taking the long way around.

And he suddenly burst out laughing. He gazed after her as she walked up the street toward the Grands Boulevards. She walked on the patches of snow and black ice, light on her feet—like a dancer, he thought; anyone else would have skidded and fallen heavily. What a strange girl … She hadn’t changed …

She gave out these details in spurts, in no particular order, as if there were gaps in her memory. For instance, she didn’t say a word about her parents, or about many other things. I sensed it was pointless to ask. She wouldn’t answer. The past seemed so distant to her that all she had left was fr…

At first, I had a hard time keeping up with her, but eventually I got used to her pace. And little by little the feeling of emptiness, of profound stagnation that took hold of me at certain times of day, melted away. It was if she was pulling me along and helping me rise to the surface.

Then he got up, leaving me alone with them, and went to join two men sitting in the armchairs near the bar. I have only a disjointed memory of that evening, as if it had unfolded on a staccato rhythm, faster and faster. Who was the man at the table with the ballerina that evening? It could not have…