His bike rides become moments of preparation during which he anticipates the next part of his day, goes over his to-do list in his head. Riding toward Le Villon, he reminds himself that he has to call such and such a supplier who didn’t turn up the previous day, change a bulb, try the carpaccio of pear with slivers of Roquefort; riding toward Nogent or Rue de Bagnolet, he thinks that he must get such and such a book from the library, develop this or that idea in his paper, find a way to talk to this or that professor. Far from being exhausted, he wakes up more excited with every passing morning, galvanized by the idea of being constantly in action, as if enveloped by that idea, by the thought that he is someone who always has something to do, someone who occupies a place in the process, whose hours and days result in concrete actions and accomplishments. It’s intoxicating. He barely even notices that his life—his social life, his love life—is drying up: the gang of six, his family, parties, movies, reading, days out … even Mia, whose face becomes more blurred day after day; Mia, whom he never went to see in Lisbon as he’d promised—no time, too much work—and whom he neglected when she paid him a surprise visit, leaving her asleep in the mornings and not seeing her again until the middle of the night, and by then he was too tired to lavish her with the affection she needed, too tired even to desire her, clearing his schedule for just one solitary afternoon so he could stroll with her through the backstreets of the quarter, without ever straying far from Le Villon, as if the restaurant were now the magnetic center of their relationship; Mia, who went back to Lisbon one day early, leaving a note on the bed, a short note, consisting of just a single word: Basta.

4

Blows