The Red Notebook

by Antoine Laurain

Laurent saw that there were women who noticed that the bag belonged to a female, but he had never seen any suspicion in their glances, just amusement. He was obviously a man waiting for his wife. It was as evident as if he had been wearing a sandwich board reading ‘My wife will be back shortly’.

How many things do we feel obliged to do for the sake of it, or for appearances, or because we are trained to do them, but which weigh us down and don’t in fact achieve anything?

room. The impression of ‘reading a letter that’s not addressed to you’, as Guitry put it, was even stronger than when he had opened the bag. The apartment was itself like a sort of giant bag with thousands of nooks and crannies, each one containing a tiny portion of its occupant’s life.