“But can I tell you an umbrella story? I admit this is not mine, it’s about a man called Ears, and I did find it in the library—I was searching under M for my old friend Sir John Mordaunt but I got waylaid by Maupassant: his story in which a man named Ears longs to buy an umbrella but his wife won’t let him…it explains how I feel about umbrellas—I find them important and poignant.”

“This is one of those times I wish I was a baleen,” Sophie says.

“What?”

“Whales are blessed with natural self-forming earplugs.”

“I’m not talking about ears or whales or their earplugs, I’m trying to tell you about a man named Ears.”

“The lack of self-regulating noise intake is a basic design flaw in the human body.”

“Sophie, hear me out? The man named Ears went to work in his office every day, carrying his pathetic, cheap umbrella, patched and so worn that his workmates made up a hateful song about it and chanted it cruelly every time he walked past.”

“…What were the words to this cruel song?”

“Maupassant didn’t say.”

“Can’t you make them up?”

“I don’t make things up.”

“Oh. I see.”

“The story, Maupassant’s story, is that Ears begged his wife to hold back some of the housekeeping money to buy him a new umbrella, and she was so miserable she could hardly speak…”

“Please,” Sophie rolls away and pulls the sleeping bag tight over her head, “spare me the miserable, nagging wife.”

So, I keep to myself the heartbreaking tale of how Ears’ wife finally allowed him to spend eighteen francs on a new silk umbrella, only to have a catastrophe happen the very next day: somehow, ashes from a cigar burnt a hole through his glorious new umbrella in the cloak-room while he slaved away on his sums.

Did a malicious coworker do this on purpose?

Maupassant did not specify.

Terrible consternation ensued, with the wife refusing to help in any way except by making a claim with the family’s insurance company. The man at the insurance office tried to tell her they did not reimburse people for burnt umbrellas—she needed her whole house burnt down.

Ah, replied the wife—but we did have a house fire some time ago and did not report it: if you refuse to pay for my husband’s umbrella to be mended, we will have no choice but to make that far larger claim…

And so on, until finally the insurance clerk acquiesced: she could have the umbrella re-covered in the best silk. And so she did, telling the repairman that money was no object.

This story immensely saddens me, and because Sophie refuses to listen I am left alone with it, as I am left alone with so many heartbreaking stories.