In the Café of Lost Youth (New York Review Books Classics)

by Patrick Modiano

I’ve always believed that certain places are like magnets and draw you towards them should you happen to walk within their radius. And this occurs imperceptibly, without you even suspecting. All it takes is a sloping street, a sunny sidewalk, or maybe a shady one. Or perhaps a downpour. And this leads you straight there, to the exact spot you’re meant to wash up.

to me that because of its location, the Condé had that sort of magnetic power, and if one were to calculate the probability, the results would indicate that within a fairly large area, it was inevitable that you would drift towards it. This much I know from personal experience.

He was haunted by what he called “fixed points.”

in a while. Yes, according to Bowing, amidst the maelstrom that is a large city, you had to find a few fixed points.

I felt good around them. For me, the Condé was a refuge from all the drabness I anticipated in life. There will one day be a part of me—the best part—that I will be forced to leave behind there.

We live at the mercy of certain silences. We have all known things about each other for a long time. So we try to avoid each other. It would be for the best, of course, if none of us were ever to see each other again.

Above all, it’s necessary to determine people’s itineraries with as much precision as possible in order to understand them better. I

No sudden movements, but instead a passivity and slowness that allow you to be softly penetrated by the spirit of the place.

ties, you see.” Well, sure, I understood. In this life that sometimes seems to be a vast, ill-defined landscape without signposts, amid all of the vanishing lines and the lost horizons, we hope to find reference points, to draw up some sort of land registry so as to shake the impression that we are navigating by chance. So we forge ties, we try to find stability in chance encounters. I kept quiet,

It was without the slightest trace of lightheartedness that I returned to that apartment each night. I knew that sooner or later I would leave it for good. I was counting a great deal on the people I would eventually meet, which would put an end to my loneliness.

Yes, that bookstore wasn’t only a refuge; it was also a step in my life.

“So have you found your happiness?”

I was never really myself when I wasn’t running away. My only happy memories are memories of flight and escape. But life always regained the upper hand.

Our having met, when I think about it now, seems like the meeting of two people who were completely without moorings in life. I think that we were both alone in the world.

All will be as it was before. The same days, the same nights, the same places, the same encounters. The Eternal Return.

“Neutral zones have at least one advantage: They are only a starting point and we always leave them sooner or later.”

Quite simply, the guy dredged up unpleasant memories. When she severed ties with people, it was for good, they were dead to her. If this man was still alive and there was a chance she might run into him, then it might be best to move to another neighborhood.

I was left on my own in front of the Prince de Condé leather shop. I pressed my forehead to the window in an effort to see if any trace whatsoever remained of the café: a section of wall, the rear door that led to the telephone, the spiral staircase that led to Madame Chadly’s little apartment. Nothing. Everything was stark and featureless, covered with an orange fabric. And the whole neighborhood was like that. At least there was no longer any reason to worry about running into ghosts. The ghosts themselves were dead.

“Companions in unpleasant times, I wish you the best of nights.”

us. Sometimes the heart aches at the very thought of things that might have been and never were,