I’m sure they will,” I say.

“He doesn’t talk about his father.”

“Well, his father’s a critic—you know that. Rather elegant man, I gather.”

“Pardon.”

“I say he’s very elegant, very social.”

“Still,” she says, “he could find me nice.”

“Of course.” Why am I not telling her the truth?

We sit over salade de tomates, the rich slices specked with parsley fragments, gleaming with oil. I wonder if she feels herself ordinary. Does she know that his sister wanted to come down here to see him but Dean insisted on meeting her in Paris? Yes, of course she knows. She knows everything, sometimes I am convinced. Anyway, the future doesn’t surprise her. Much of it exists already—I have said that before.

“Some more tomates?” she says, offering to serve me.

She helps herself. Her mouth glistens. Across from us is an English couple. They’re both very young. He has dry, red hair. She is thin-faced and shy. Her dress looks like wallpaper, and they sit in an utter, English silence reading the menu as if it were a contract. In an accent so perfect it surprises me, Anne-Marie whispers,

“Did I hurt you, darling?”

“What?”

It’s a line from a joke Dean’s told her. Her face is full of a mischievous joy. But I don’t know the original story. She delivers it with the assurance of a clown. That’s what he says, she explains. They’re in bed together. Then she says: no, why? And he says: you moved. Her smile is questioning.

“Do I tell it right?” she asks. She looks to see if I am amused. I love her contempt for the sexual life of the English.

Dean is at the Calais, his car parked in the huge square past the corner with a white violation slip already tucked under the wiper. He’s sharing a room with his sister and being very agreeable. He desperately needs money—everything depends on it—and she wants to talk about his life, his future life, that is. She knows he’ll be touchy.

“Now don’t get angry…” she says.

“Oh, Amy…” he begins. He knows exactly how. She plays every card face up like a woman surrendering to love. He’s perfectly ready to face this future life, Dean says. More than that, it’s already appearing before him. These months have made an enormous difference. They’ve been like the wilderness for him, how can he explain it? Suddenly she wants to embrace him. She feels relieved and a little guilty.

“Do you mean it?”

“It’s changed my life,” he says. “It’s changing my life.” He smiles. He loves her. Sometimes she is like a toy.

“But what have you been doing?”

“Seeing no one,” he says. “Living the life of a little town. It’s like saying: stop all this, stop the noise; now, what should it all look like?”

“Yes…” she agrees.

“Life is composed of certain basic elements,” he says. “Of course, there are a lot of impurities, that’s what’s misleading.”

He has always instructed her. She listens gravely.

“What I’m saying may sound mystical, but in everybody, Anne, in all of us, there’s the desire to find those elements somehow, to discover them, you know? Sometimes I think they’re the same for all of us, but maybe they’re not. I mean, we look at the Greeks and say, ah, they built this civilization, this whole brilliant world, out of certain, simple things. Why can’t we? And if not a civilization, why can’t each of us, properly directed, build a life, I mean a happy life? Believe me, the elements exist. When you enter certain rooms, when you look at certain faces, suddenly you realize you’re in the presence of them. Do you know what I mean?”

“Of course, I do,” she says. “If you could achieve that, you’d have everything.”

“And without it you have…” he shrugs, “a life.”

“Like everybody’s.”

“Just like everybody’s,” he says.

“I don’t want that.”

“Neither do I.”

“I can never tell when you’re conning me,” she says.

He shakes his head slowly.

“I’m not,” he promises. “Because I want you to do me a tremendous favor.”

“What?”

He doesn’t answer.

“Later,” he says.

She goes into the bathroom to finish dressing. Dean reads a magazine. She comes out to comb her hair.

“Where shall we go?” she says.

“Shall we have a good dinner?”

“All right. But not too expensive.” The phrase worries him. He tries to ignore it.

“It’s on me,” he says.

“Do you have any money? Daddy said you were desperate.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“No,” he says. “I have a job.”

“You have? What?”

“Tutoring,” he says.

“You never said anything about that.”

“Well, it’s not exactly making me rich.”

“He made me promise not to give you any money, no matter what. He was sure you were going to ask me for some.”

“He acts like I’m your no-good husband.”

“No. He worries about you.”

“His methods are curious,” Dean says. “Besides, I hate lessons about the value of money. What’s the point? Everybody knows it’s valuable. I don’t want any lessons imposed on me. I don’t like people that give lessons. We’re all free. We were meant to love and help each other, not to give lessons.”

“No,” she says, “I think he just wants you to…”

“What?”

“Have a more regular life,” she decides.

Dean smiles.

“Come on,” he says. “Are you ready?”

They go down one floor in the elevator and walk along the corridor.

“Money,” Dean says. “I’ll tell you it’s very hard to think clearly when you don’t have any. That’s one of my discoveries. Of course, it’s hard when you have too much.”

“It certainly is.”

“One has to be very careful,” Dean says wryly.

His sister knocks on a door.

“Donna? Can we come in?”

“Sure.”

It’s her roommate at college. Dean finds her very good-looking. A thrilling, wide mouth, grey eyes. A slim girl, like a runner. She’s interested in him. She knows he went to Yale. Did he know Larry Troy, she asks? Questions like that. He responds with soft, almost uncertain no’s.

“What class were you?” she says.

“Several.”

When he tells her he never finished, she emits a small: oh. But it takes courage to do that, she adds, to set out on your own. Only a real individual … Dean nods. He’s heard all this before.

They walk down the street together. The sidewalk is very wide. The place itself, filled with parked cars, seems tremendous. Lost in these rich dimensions, they cut across towards the Delage. Dean takes the ticket from the windshield and begins to read it.

“What’s that?” his sister asks.

He shrugs.

“Is it for parking?” she says. “You don’t have to pay it. You’re only visiting.”

“Say, what kind of great car is this?” Donna says.

“Do you like it?”

“I love it,” she says. “It’s very you.”

“You think so?”

“Absolutely,” she says.

The glittering night of Paris receives them. Darkness has restored the old car’s elegance, and down the boulevards they float to a restaurant near the Invalides. The dinner costs eighty-five francs. Dean’s last money. He nevertheless leaves a large tip. He does it mechanically, without caring, pure as a gambler who has lost. They walk along the Champs, have a coffee, and end the night above the city at Sacré-Coeur. At her floor, Donna says,

“It was such a great evening. It’s the best evening we’ve had on the whole tour.”

“I wish I could have shown you more of Paris.”

“Oh,” she says, “I do, too.”

“Next time.”

“I just wish we were staying,” she says.

She walks slowly down the hallway, the key dangling like an ornament from her hand.

In the morning everything seems different. His confidence has gone cold. They are talking, over breakfast, of how they will spend the day. Everybody’s going to Versailles, but if they decide to go, too, she’d rather drive out in his car. Or perhaps they should just go off by themselves, the two of them. And take Donna, if he likes. Dean wants to ask for money, now—he can’t go through the day otherwise—but the beginning of her reply terrifies him. He can hear her saying: you know how much I love you … I’d do anything…

“Amy,” he says, “all kidding aside…”

“What?”

“I am desperate.”

She looks at him, a little uncertain.

“I need money,” he says.

“Oh.”

“I sold my ticket.”

“You really did?”

“I had to.”

“Daddy will give it back to you,” she says.

“I don’t want him to find out. I need three hundred and fifty dollars.”

She seems embarrassed by her reply.

“I don’t have it,” she says.

“How much do you have?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

“Listen, forget that. I’m serious. I mean it, Amy, my need is…I need the money. I need it to get home.”

“How much do you really need?”

“Three hundred and fifty dollars,” he says.

“I only have a hundred. I only have traveler’s checks.”

“I have to have more than that, baby.”

“I don’t have it.”

“Can you borrow it?” he says.

“Be honest. Are you in trouble?”

“No, no.” He sighs. He looks at her and then at the table. “Do you think you can borrow it? How about Donna?”

“Are you ever going to pay it back?”

“Certainly.”

“I just can’t ask her for two hundred and fifty dollars, just like that.”

“She may have part of it,” Dean says.

“You’re not in any trouble?”

“No, I deeply, sincerely need some money, but I’m not in any trouble. I’ll be in trouble if I don’t get it.”