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irreparable mistakes in the heat of the moment. Racine, despite the intensity of his dramas and his incendiary language, was the best antidote to haste, cooling immediately any temptation to go over the top. Veyrenc had started deliberately using verse this way, realising that his grandmother had contrived similarly to regulate and manage her life. It was a personal medicine – ‘to
all others unknown’
.
    At the moment, his grandmother was unable to take her regular potion, so Veyrenc was copying out
Britannicus
in big letters for her: He had reached the point when Junie was emerging from her bedchamber,
    In the simple array
Of a beauty from sleep summoned forth by the day
.
    Veyrenc raised his pen from the paper. By the sound of her boots, he could hear the grain of sand coming up the stairs – for the grain of sand always wore a recognisable pair of boots, criss-crossed with leather straps. The grain of sand would stop first on the fifth floor, and ring the bell of the flat belonging to her invalid neighbour, bringing her her mail and her lunch. She would then be up on the seventh within a quarter of an hour. The grain of sand, otherwise known as the resident on his landing, was Mlle Forestier, Camille, whom he had now been guarding for nineteen days. According to the little he had been told, shewas to be kept under police protection for six months, shielding her from the possible vengeance of a murderous old man. Otherwise, all he knew of her was her name. And that she was bringing up a baby on her own, without any man on the horizon. He could not guess what her occupation was – he hesitated between plumber and musician. About twelve days ago, she had politely requested him to come out of the broom cupboard because she needed to solder a pipe inside it, at ceiling level. He had moved his chair out on to the landing and watched her precise and concentrated gestures, registering the metallic sound of the tools and the flame from her soldering iron. It was during this episode that he had felt himself slipping towards the forbidden and feared chaos. Since then, she had brought him a cup of hot coffee twice a day at eleven and four.
    He heard her put down her bag on the fifth floor. The idea of leaving his broom cupboard that moment once and for all, so that he would never see this young woman again, made him rise from his chair. He tensed his arms, looked up at the skylight and considered his face reflected in the dusty pane. Abnormal hair, ordinary features, I’m ugly, I’m invisible. Veyrenc took a deep breath and muttered to himself:
    â€˜But I see that thy soul is filled with sudden fear
,
Thou, the victor of Troy, hero without a peer
,
Who gained both the city and people with great art
.
Can a woman’s fair face make tremble that brave heart?’
    No, no way. Veyrenc sat down again calmly, cooled by his four lines of dramatic verse. Sometimes it took six or eight, other times two were enough. He took up his copying task once more, feeling pleased with himself. Grains of sand pass, birds fly away, control remains. There was no cause for concern.

    Camille stopped at the fifth floor and shifted the baby on to her other arm. The simplest thing would probably be to go downstairs and come back after eight o’clock when the duty officer would have changed. The nine conditions of the warrior are to flee, according to a Turkish friend of hers, a cellist at the church of Saint-Eustache, who was a mine of proverbs, as Byzantine as they were incomprehensible and beneficial. Apparently there was a tenth condition, but Camille didn’t know what that was and preferred to make up her own version. She took the letters and the groceries out of her bag and rang the bell. The stairs had become too much for Yolande, whose legs were weak and whose bulk was great.
    â€˜Such a shame,’ said Yolande, opening the door. ‘Bringing up that child on your own.’
    Yolande said this every day.