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being terribly nosy?’
    ‘Not at all, monsieur.’
    He gave a faint smile, more a tremor of the lips, as though afraid of being hit, and I pitied him. This feeling I had always experienced with regard to him, which caused a burning pain in my gut.
    ‘Your friends seem charming,’ I said. ‘I had a lovely evening.’
    ‘I’m glad.’
    This time, he held out his hand.
    ‘I must go in and work.’
    ‘What at?’
    ‘Nothing very interesting. Accounting.’
    ‘Good luck,’ I murmured. ‘I hope I’ll run into you again soon.’
    ‘It would be a pleasure.’
    As he opened the gate, I felt a sudden panic: should I tap him on the shoulder, and tell him every detail of the pains I had taken to find him? What good would it do? He trudged up the driveway slowly as though completely exhausted. For a long moment, he stood at the top of the steps. From a distance, his figure looked indistinct. Did it belong to a man or to one of those monstrous creatures who loom over you in feverish dreams?
    Did he wonder what I was doing there, standing on the other side of the gate?
    Eventually, thanks to dogged persistence, I got to know them better. It being July, work didn’t keep them in Paris and they ‘made the most’ of the country (as Murraille put it). All the time I spent with them, I listened to them talking, ever meek and attentive. On scraps of paper, I jotted down the information I gleaned. I know the life stories of these shadows is of no great interest to anyone, but if I didn’t write it down, no one else would do it. It is my duty, since I knew them, to drag them – if only for an instant – from the darkness. It is a duty, but for me it is also a necessary thing.
    Murraille
. At a young age, he started hanging out at the café Brabant with a group of journalists from
Le Matin
. They persuaded him to get into the business. Which he did. At twenty, general dogsbody, then secretary to a man who published a scandal sheet he used to blackmail victims. His motto was: ‘Never threaten; only coerce.’ Murraille was sent to the victims’ homes to collect the envelopes. He remembered the frosty welcome. But there were some who greeted him with obsequious politeness, begging him to intercede with his editor, to ask him to be less demanding. These were the ones who had ‘every reason to feel guilty’. After a while, he was promoted to sub-editor, but the articles he was called on to write were of a terrifying monotony, and they all began with: ‘We hear from a reliable source, that Monsieur X . . .’ or: ‘How is it that Monsieur Y . . .’ or ‘Can it be true that Monsieur Z . . .’ There followed ‘revelations’ that, at first, Murraille felt ashamed to be spreading. His editor suggested he always end with a little moral maxim such as: ‘The wicked must be punished’, or by what he called ‘a hopeful note’: ‘We hold out hope that Monsieur X . . . (or Monsieur Y . . .) will find his way back to the straight and narrow. We feel sure that he will, because, as the evangelist says “each man in his darkness goes towards the light”,’ or some such. Murraille felt a brief twinge of conscience every month when he collected his salary. Besides, the offices of 30b Rue de Gramont – the peeling wallpaper, the dilapidated furniture, the meagre lighting – were conducive to depression. It was all far from cheering for a young man his age. If he spent three years there, it was only because the perks were excellent. His
patron
was generous and gave Murraille a quarter of the proceeds. The same editor (apparently, a dead ringer for Raymond Poincaré) was not without a sensitive streak. He had bouts of black depression when he would confide to Murraille that he had become a blackmailer because he was disillusioned by his fellow man. He had thought they were good – but had quickly realised his mistake; so he had decided to tirelessly condemn their vile deeds. And to make them PAY. One evening, in a restaurant, he