"
"I'm pretty strong," he says. "I could cart you around on my back all day long. Hey, I could even teach you to swim."
"'Tisn't true," she replies haughtily. "How could you do that?"
"I know how--with floats, to keep your feet up."
She shakes her head. He puffs out his cheeks and whistles soundlessly. "I go fishing with my father on Sundays. I can bring you back a hake big as this!" He spreads his arms to show a fish about the size of a whale. "You like hake?"
She shakes her head.
"Bass?"
Same response.
"Crab claws? We got a lot of them, in the nets."
She turns her chair around and pushes the wheels along--now she's the one who goes away.
"Snobby Parisienne!" he yells after her. "And to think I almost fell for you! I smell too fishy is that it?""
— Sébastien Japrisot

"She tries to move toward him, but the path is covered with gravel, which slows her down. Then he turns his head and sees her. He puts down his brush and comes closer, and the closer he comes, the closer he comes, the happier she is she didn't put on mascara, she doesn't want to cry but she can't help it, she can hardly see him through the welling tears. She quickly wipes her eyes. She looks at him. He's standing two steps away. She could stretch out her hand, he'd come even closer, she could touch him. He's the same, thinner, the most beautiful man in the world, with the eyes Germain Pire described to her, a very pale blue, almost gray, quiet and gentle, with something struggling in their depths, a child, a soul of agony. His voice hasn't changed.

The first thing she hears him say--it's terrible--he asks her, "You can't walk?" She shakes her head. He sighs, goes back to his painting. She pushes the wheels, moves toward the shed. He looks over at her again, he smiles. "You want to see what I'm doing?" She nods her head. "I'll show you in a little bit," he says. "But not right now, it's not finished."

So while she waits, she sits up straight in her scooter, she crosses her hands in her lap, she looks at him. Yes, she looks at him, she looks at him, life is long and can still carry a great deal more on its back.

She looks at him."
— Sébastien Japrisot