Spring never came. I felt as though I had been locked in the same weather since November, wet and mild, barely colder even in the dead of winter. I hadn’t been thinking about the end of my book. Now I know it is approaching. The hot weather set in at the beginning of June. From a whiff of the morning air, you could tell it was going to be a beautiful day. Soon I shall have nothing more to write. I would like to put off writing the last pages, to always have them ahead of me. Yet it is already too late to go back on what has been said, to alter or to add details, or even to wonder what happiness meant for him. As usual I shall take an early morning train and I shan’t get there until nightfall. This time I am bringing 69their two-and-half-year-old grandson to see them.

My mother was waiting for me at the barrier. She had slipped the jacket of her two-piece suit over her shopkeeper’s coat and had knotted a scarf around her head – she stopped dying her hair when I got married. The child, dumb with exhaustion and confused by such a long journey, let itself be kissed and led away by the hand. It wasn’t quite so hot now. My mother still had her brisk, characteristic way of walking. Suddenly she slowed down, shouting gaily: ‘We mustn’t forget his little legs, poor dear.’ My father was waiting for us in the kitchen. He didn’t seem to have aged. My mother pointed out that he’d had his hair cut the day before in honour of his grandson. It was a muddled scene, noisy, with the two of them firing questions at the child without even waiting for answers and criticizing each other for exhausting the poor little guy. And then happiness. They tried to work out which side of the family he took after. My mother showed him the jars of sweets. My father led him outside to see the strawberries, then the ducks and rabbits. They took him over completely and decided everything he should do, as if I were still a little girl incapable of looking after a child. They were sceptical about my notion of education: having an afternoon nap, cutting out sweets and so on. The four of us ate at the table by the window, with the child sitting in my lap. It was a magical evening, blissfully quiet, suggestive of redemption.

My old bedroom was still warm from the heat of the day. A small bed had been set up next to mine for the little one. After trying to read, I couldn’t get to sleep for two hours. As soon as I plugged in the bedside lamp, the wire blackened, sparks flew and the bulb went out. The lamp was in the shape of a ball resting on a marble base, with a brass rabbit sitting upright, its front paws sticking 70out at its sides. I had once thought it very beautiful. It must have been broken for ages. Indifferent to things, they never got anything mended at home.