Chapter IVFor a long time, I didn’t hear anything about their marriage. I left Paris in August for a hospital placement in a small town in the Midi. I returned later, in November, with ten thousand francs and the wife of the local doctor, a pitiful, unattractive woman. (But that’s another story…)
Of course I had separated from Mado by then, as the affair had lasted far too long anyway. I didn’t, therefore, have anyone who could send me news about the Irimias. Still, I saw them, one Sunday, at the Jardin des Plantes, staring at the animals. They held hands, like soldiers and maids hold hands in Cişmigiu, a detail that brought back to me in that Parisian park a melancholy reminder of our old neighbourhood. They stopped in the midst of a group of children, in front of the elephant enclosure.
