Free The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, Alison Anderson Page A

Michels after twenty years of nothing, “a great many people will no doubt want to see the Maître before . . . before. But he does not want to see anyone. With the exception of his nephew Paul. Would you be so good as to send the importunate boors on their way?”
    I am torn. I realize that, as usual, my presence has only been acknowledged for the purpose of giving me a task to do. But then again, I concede, that is why I am here. I have also noticed that Chabrot speaks in a manner that I find absolutely enthralling—would you be so good as to send the importunate boors on their way?—and this troubles me. I do like this archaic, polite usage. I am a complete slave to vocabulary, I ought to have named my cat Roget. This fellow may be a nuisance but his language is delectable. And, finally, who wants to die in the hospital? asked the aging beau. No one. Not Pierre Arthens, nor Chabrot, nor Lucien, nor I. Chabrot, with his harmless question, has made us all human.
    “I shall do what I can,” I say. “But I cannot pursue them into the stairway either.”
    “No,” he says, “but you can discourage them. Tell them the Maître has locked his door.”
    And he gives me a strange look.
    I must be careful, I must be very careful. I have been getting sloppy lately. There was the incident with the Pallières boy, my preposterous mention of The German Ideology , which, if the youngster had had half the intelligence of an oyster, could easily have betrayed some very awkward things. And now we have a geriatric sun addict the color of toast who indulges in antiquated expressions and I am at his feet losing all my discipline.
    I immediately wipe from my eyes the spark that had momentarily shone there, and adopt the glassy expression of the obedient concierge who is prepared to do her best even if she cannot pursue people into the stairway.
    Chabrot’s odd expression vanishes.
    To further eradicate any trace of my lexical misdeeds, I allow myself a little heresy.
    “Some sorta heart attack, huh?” I ask.
    “Yes,” says Chabrot, “a heart attack.”
    A moment of silence.
    “Thank you,” he says.
    “Don’t mention it,” I reply, and close the door.

Profound Thought No. 5
    Life
Everyone’s
Military service
    I am very proud of this profound thought. It came to me through Colombe. So at least once she will have been of some use in my life. I never thought I’d be able to say that before I die.
    From the very start Colombe and I have been at war because as far as Colombe is concerned, life is a permanent battle where you can only win by destroying the other guy. She cannot feel safe if she hasn’t crushed her adversaries and reduced their territory to the meanest share. A world where there’s room for other people is a dangerous world, according to her pathetic warmongering criteria. At the same time she still needs them just a bit, for a small but essential chore: someone, after all, has to recognize her power. So not only does she spend her time trying to crush me by every available means, but on top of it she would like me to tell her, while her sword is under my chin, that she is the greatest and that I love her. So there are days when she drives me absolutely crazy. And as for the frosting on the cake, for some obscure reason Colombe, who most of the time is totally insensitive to what’s going on with other people, has figured out that what I dread more than anything else in life is noise. I think she discovered this by chance. It would never have crossed her mind spontaneously that somebody might actually need silence. That silence helps you to go inward , that anyone who is interested in something more than just life outside actually needs silence: this, I think, is not something Colombe is capable of understanding, because her inner space is as chaotic and noisy as the street outside. But in any case she figured out that I need silence and, unfortunately, my room is next to hers. So all day long she makes noise.