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adolescence still floating around me. The contrast between my young age and the maturity legible in my serious features was comforting; they were sure of my discretion and that sufficed in this milieu. I didn’t drink much, which was astonishing to them. They never once saw me drunk but from the start I made known my high tolerance for alcohol, which they viewed as a strength; once this had been proven, I was able to stop drinking altogether, and they only respected me the more. I pretended that I was victim to gentle vices, the better to conceal my real vices, which would have seemed scandalous. They affectionately mocked me for my intellectual aura. I had to have a fault; they focused on this one and neglected to notice the others. This magnified aura made me feared, which is to say hated, by certain people, but at the same time, the distance that my intellectual reputation established kept me from dangerous familiarities. I spoke little and listened a lot: the ideal role, as so many people are in perpetual search of an indulgent ear for their nighttime rants. The sum of the stories they confided in me could fill entirevolumes of sociological or ethnological reports. There was the tedious and nonsensical conversation of tipsy society men; the chatter vaguely colored with the philosophy and aestheticism of the washed-up who cling to a completely superficial and secondhand culture as a fiery temper clings to a menopausal bourgeoise; and, in passing, the virile and noxious conversations of old bachelors following the antics of their protégées out of the corner of their eyes—I was subjected to it all, and I listened with all the presence of mind that was still within my power in those hours of confusion.
    What was I looking for there? A distraction from an imperceptible anguish? The response to a question I hadn’t yet formulated? Evasion? Flight? I don’t even know. But it became a game for me to go out like this. Entering a club or a bar was in a way like going to the cinema: a dark room with sounds and images in three dimensions (were there really three?). I lived on the film set of an enormous stock of unrealized B-movies of a hitherto unseen genre. At the hour when the television programs come to an end, when the last spectators leave from the theaters and the marquees are taken down, a different vision appears, a variation each night on the same miserable and violent scenario.

My new lifestyle wasn’t immediately upended by meeting A***. I merely added a preliminary stop to my nights—an obligatory visit to the Eden. However, my fascination, quickly transforming into passion, soon required more. To satisfy it, I had to start making more than one daily courtesy call.
    A*** loved going out to clubs once the show at the Eden was over. Soon after, some of the other dancers from the Eden, dragged in A***’s wake, would show up at the Apocryphe. They did me the honor of dancing to the music I played and their performance gave me a new enthusiasm for my work. At certain moments throughout the night A*** would come keep me company in my glass booth, dancing until the surroundings were eclipsed, leaning in to say something to me with an accent I found irresistible. A***’s spirit, like A***’s dance, was infused with a crafty and charming naïveté.
    Soon we became rather close; we would call each other almost every day when we woke up and would eat dinner together at least once a week, just the two of us, after which I would allow myself to escort A*** to the Eden. We would meet again at the Apocryphe, and would often go loiter somewhere else after closing. This strange intimacy didn’t stem from any common social or intellectual interests; it wasn’t the sign or effect of a close friendship or romantic relationship. I wasn’t particularly enthralled by the originality of A***’s views, or by a similarity in our tastes; we neither combated nor conversed. Our time