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.“The veterinarian has spoken: only the cat knows why.”And Olympe pouts with frustration.“Not long ago Paul (Josse) told her she was fat.There’s no way to know.It could be anything.”“And how do you treat it?”“As you do with humans,” laughs Olympe.“You prescribe Prozac.”“Are you serious?”“Absolutely.”What did I tell you.Animals we are, animals we shall remain.The fact that a rich person’s cat suffers from the same afflictions as a civilized woman is hardly a reason to call this cruel and inhuman treatment of felines or the contamination by mankind of an innocent domestic animal; rather, to the contrary, one should point to the deep-rooted solidarity underlying the fate of all animal species.We share the same appetites, we endure the same afflictions.“In any event,” says Olympe, “this will give me pause when I treat animals I don’t know.”She gets up and bids a friendly goodbye.“Thank you, Madame Michel, you’re the only one I can talk to about things like this.”“Oh you’re most welcome, Olympe, it was my pleasure.”And I am about to close the door when she says,“Oh, by the way, Anna Arthens is going to sell the apartment.I hope the new owners will have cats, too.”17.A Partridge’s AssAnna Arthens is selling her place!“Anna Arthens is selling her place!” I say to Leo.“Well I never,” he replies—or at least that is my impression.I have been living here for twenty-seven years and no apartment has ever been sold out of the family.Old Madame Meurisse left her place to young Madame Meurisse, and the same thing happened, more or less, for the Badoises, the Josses, and the Rosens.The Arthens arrived at the same time we did; in a way, we grew old together.As for the de Broglies, they’d already been here for a very long time, and still occupy the premises.I do not know how old the Councilor is, but as a young man he already seemed old, which means that now that he is truly very old, he still seems young.Anna Arthens, consequently, is the very first, under my mandate as concierge, to sell property that will change hands and name.Oddly enough, the thought of it terrifies me.Am I therefore so used to the eternal repetition of the same old things that the prospect of a change that is as yet hypothetical plunging me once again into the river of time serves to remind me of that river’s currents? We live each day as if it were merely a rehearsal for the next, and the cozy existence at 7, rue de Grenelle, with its daily proof of continuity, suddenly seems like an island battered by storms.Considerably upset, I take out my shopping cart and, leaving Leo behind to snore gently in his chair, I head with an unsteady step for the market.At the corner of the rue de Grenelle and the rue du Bac I encounter Gégène, the imperturbable inhabitant of his cardboard boxes, and as I approach he watches me like a trapdoor spider sizing up his prey.“Hey there, Ma’am Michel, you gone and lost yer cat again?” he shouts, and laughs.Here is one thing at least that never changes.Gégène is a tramp who spends his winters here and has done so for years: he sleeps in squalid cardboard boxes, and wears an old greatcoat which, like its owner, has somehow miraculously made it this far and, like him, is redolent of a turn-of-the-century Russian merchant.“You should go to the shelter,” I tell him, as I always do, “it’s going to get cold tonight.”“Ah, ah,” he yaps, “that shelter, I’d like to see you there.I’m better off here.”I go on my way, then feeling guilty, turn back.“I thought I’d let you know.Mr.Arthens died last night.”“The food critic?” asks Gégène, with a glint in his eye, and his nose raised like a hunting dog sniffing out a partridge’s ass.“Yes, the food critic.His heart suddenly gave out.”“My, my!” Gégène is clearly moved.“Did you know him?” I ask, to have something to say.“My, my!” says the tramp again, “why do the good ones have to go first?”“He had a good life,” I say hesitantly, surprised at the turn the conversation is taking.“Ma’am Michel,” says Gégène, “folks like him, they don’t make ’em anymore.My, my, I’m going to miss the old fellow.”“Did he give you something, I don’t know, some money for Christmas?”Gégène looks at me, then spits at his feet.“Nothing, in ten years not a single coin, whaddya expect? No two ways about it, he was quite a character.Don’t make ’em like that anymore, no they don’t.”This little exchange is disturbing, and while I thread my way up and down the aisles of the market, I let my thoughts wander back to Gégène.I have never given poor people credit for having noble souls, on the pretext that they are poor and only too well acquainted with life’s injustices.But I have always assumed that they would be united in their hatred of the propertied classes.Gégène has set the record straight on that score and taught me this: if there is one thing that poor people despise, it is other poor people.Basically, that does make sense.I wander up and down, distractedly, and find myself in the cheese section, where I buy a chunk of parmesan and a fine piece of soumaintrain.18.RyabininWhen something is bothering me, I seek refuge.No need to travel far; a trip to the realm of literary memory will suffice.For where can one find more noble distraction, more entertaining company, more delightful enchantment than in literature?Quite suddenly I find myself by the olives, thinking about Ryabinin.Why Ryabinin? Because Gégène wears that old greatcoat, embellished in the back with buttons at the waist, and it reminds me of Ryabinin’s greatcoat.In Anna Karenina, Ryabinin, a greatcoat-wearing timber merchant, comes to see Levin, a country aristocrat, about a sale with Stepan Oblonsky, a Moscow aristocrat.The merchant swears on all the icons and all the saints that Oblonsky will profit from the sale, but Levin accuses him of cheating his friend out of a small forest that is worth triple what Ryabinin has offered.This scene is preceded by a dialogue where Levin asks Oblonsky if he has counted how many trees there are in his forest.“What on earth, count the trees?” exclaims the gentleman, “you may as well count the sand in the sea!”“You may be certain that Ryabinin has counted them,” retorts Levin.I am particularly fond of this scene, first of all because it takes place in Pokrovskoye, in the Russian countryside.Ah, the Russian countryside.there is a very special charm about such a place—it is wild and yet still bound to mankind through the land, mother to us all.The most beautiful scene in Anna Karenina is set at Pokrovskoye.Levin, dark and melancholy, is trying to forget Kitty.It is springtime, he goes off with the peasants to mow the fields.In the beginning the task seems too arduous for him.He is about to give up when the old peasant leading the row calls for a rest.Then they begin again with their scythes.Once again Levin is about to collapse from exhaustion, once again the old man raises his scythe.Rest.And then the row moves forward again, forty hands scything swaths and moving steadily toward the river as the sun rises
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