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not.
    And then there’s your habit of walking alongside people in the street just to frighten them, to exert some kind of silly power over them, or going up to someone at a traffic light with your white stick, and saying ‘Can I help you cross the road?’ What’s all that about? Just to embarrass other people, of course, and then to take full advantage of your untouchable status. Poor souls, they don’t dare say any thing, they just stand on the pavement, feeling bad. What you’re doing is you’re taking revenge on the rest of the world. You may be over six feet tall, but you’re just a mean little bastard really. And that woman, Queen Mathilde, she’s there, she’s real, and she even told me I was good-looking. And that made me feel pretty good, but of course I couldn’t bring myself to show it, or even say thank you for her kind word.
    Feeling his way, Charles stopped at the edge of the pavement. Anyone standing alongside him would have been able to see those rolls of sacking that they put in the Paris gutters to channel the water, without realising how lucky they were to witness this sublime sight. Damn that bloody lioness. He felt like unfolding his white stick and asking ‘Shall I help you across the road?’ with a mean smile. Then he remembered Mathilde saying to him without any malice at all: ‘You’re very trying’, and he turned his back on whoever might be there.

IV
    D ANGLARD HAD TRIED TO RESIST . B UT THE NEXT DAY HE FELL eagerly on the newspapers, leaving aside the political, economic and social news, all the stuff that usually interested him.
    No, nothing. Nothing about the chalk circle man. Not that there was anything about these incidents to merit the daily attentions of a journalist.
    But now he was hooked.
    The night before, his daughter, the elder of the second set of twins, the one who was most interested in what her father told her about his work – although she also said to him, ‘Dad, stop drinking, you’re already fat enough as it is’ – had remarked: ‘Your new boss has a funny name, doesn’t he? Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, Saint John the Baptist from Adam’s Mountain, if you work it out. Looks funny when you put it together. But if you like him, I expect I’ll like him. Will you take me to see him one day?’ And Danglard loved his four twins so much that he would have wished above all to show them to Adamsberg, so that his boss could say ‘They’re angelic.’ But he wasn’t sure whether Adamsberg would be interested in his kids. ‘My kids, my kids, my kids,’ Danglard said to himself. ‘My angels.’
    From his office, he called all the district police stations to find out whether any officer on the beat had noticed a circle. ‘Just asking, since everyone’s got interested in it.’ His questions provoked astonishment. He explained that it was on behalf of a psychiatrist friend, a little favour he was doing him on the side. And yes, of course, his fellow cops knew all about the little favours one did for people on the side.
    And last night, it turned out, Paris had acquired two new circles. The first was in the rue du Moulin-Vert, where a policeman from the 14th arrondissement had come across it on his rounds, to his great delight. The other was in the same district, on the corner of the rue Froidevaux, and it had been reported by a woman who had complained to the police that she thought this was getting a bit much.
    Danglard, feeling on edge and impatient, went upstairs to see Conti, the police photographer. Conti was all set to go, laden with straps and containers, as if on campaign. Since the photographer suffered from various health problems, Danglard imagined that all this complicated and impressive technical stuff must provide him with some kind of reassurance, although he knew perfectly well that Conti wasn’t stupid. They went first to the rue du Moulin-Vert, and there was the large circle, drawn in blue chalk, with the same elegant writing round the edge.