The next morning, Paula went quietly to the hospital with me, and Mardrus promised me she'd be cured — a matter of a few weeks or a few months. She'd be cured, but once in the street again I asked myself anxiously, 'What exactly are they going to cure her of? And afterwards, who will she be?' Oh, after all, it wasn't difficult to foresee. She'd be like myself, like millions of others: a woman waiting to die, no longer knowing why she's living.