I loved those evenings when, after dinner, I would set out alone on the Métro and travel right to the other side of Paris, near Les Buttes Chaumont, which smelt of damp and greenery. Often I would walk back home. In the boulevard de la Chapelle, under the steel girders of the overhead railway, women would be waiting for customers; men would come staggering out of brightly lit bistros; the fronts of cinemas would be ablaze with posters. I could feel life all round me, an enormous, ever-present confusion. I would stride along, feeling its thick breath blow in my face. And I would say to myself
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