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than another. . . .”
    “It’s complicated, but I understand.”
    “As for the other kind of fear—the fear of thinking that no one would notice if you died—it seems to me that sometimes this can make one happier. I think that if you knew that when you died no one would suffer, not even a dog, it makes it easier to bear the thought of dying.”
    “I am trying to follow you, but I am afraid I don’t understand. Perhaps because women are different from men? All I do know is that I could not bear to live as you do, alone with that suitcase. It is not that I would not like to travel, but unless there was someone who cared for me somewhere in the world I don’t think I could do it. In fact I can only say that I would prefer to be where I am.”
    “But could you not think of traveling while waiting for what you want?”
    “No. I don’t believe you know what it is to want to change one’s life. I must stay here and think about it, think with all my might, or else I know I will never manage to change.”
    “Perhaps. I don’t really know.”
    “How could you know? Because, however modest a way of life you have, it is at least yours. So how could you know what it is like to be nothing?”
    “Am I right in thinking that no one would particularly care if you died either?”
    “No one. And I’ve been twenty now for two weeks. But one day someone will care. I know it. I am full of hope. Otherwise nothing would be possible.”
    “You are quite right. Why shouldn’t someone care about you as much as about anyone else?”
    “That’s just it. That’s just what I say to myself.”
    “You’re right, and now I’d like to ask you a question. Do you get enough to eat?”
    “Yes, thank you, I do. I eat as much as and even more than I need. Always alone, but one eats well in my job since after all one does the cooking; and good things too. Even if I have to force myself I always eat a great deal because sometimes I feel I would like to be fatter and more impressive so that people would notice me more. I think that if I were bigger and stronger I would stand a better chance of getting what I want. You may say I’m wrong, but it seems to me that if I were radiantly healthy people would find me more attractive. And so you see, we are really very different.”
    “Probably. But in my own way I am also someone who tries. I musthave explained myself badly just now. I assure you that if I should ever want to change, why then I would set about it like everyone else.”
    “You know, it is not very easy to believe you when you say that.”
    “Perhaps, but you see while I have nothing against hope in general, the fact is that there has never seemed much reason for it to concern me. And yet I feel that it would not take a great deal for me to feel that hope is as necessary to me as it is to others. It might only need the smallest bit of faith. Perhaps I lack the time for it, who knows? I don’t mean the time I spend in trains thinking of this or that, or passing the time of day with other people, no, I mean the other kind of time: the time anyone has, each day, to think of the one that follows. I just lack the time to start thinking about that particular subject and so discovering that it might mean something to me too.”
    “And yet it seems to me, as I think you yourself said, that there was a time when you were like everyone else?”
    “Yes, but almost so much so that I was never able to do anything about it. I could never make up my mind to choose a profession. No one can be everything at once or, as you said, want everything at once, and personally I was never able to get over this difficulty. But after all I have traveled, my suitcase takes me to a great many places and once I even went to a foreign country. I didn’t sell much there but I saw it. If anyone had told me some years ago that I should want to go there I would never have believed them, and yet you see one day when I woke up I suddenly felt I would like to