I’ll carry on, saying that my tears were all those things combined, and something else – the memory of having been very happy for a few hours, enormously happy, deliriously happy. They also reveal the chasm stretching between that age and the age I am now; I had mornings, I had work, salaries were high enough that people could buy a thing or two; I could have croissants and café con leche for breakfast, not only because of my purchasing power but also because of the digestive power I enjoyed back then. But what I feel most wistful about, believe it or not, is my ignorance of how the world works – because then (although only then and not before) I was about to begin finding out. Do I know everything now? No; now I only know that it’s not worth knowing – ‘how the world works’, that is. You have to know something so you don’t go under, so you can haul yourself more easily through the mud, so people don’t necessarily always get the better of you in everything; but what I mean is that knowledge doesn’t bring you any closer to what you need in order to make your life better, or even to make you feel better. Does anyone know what I’m talking about? Never mind. I know what I mean.