“You know I’d never accept a job as the exclusive spokesman for a beer or a supermarket chain but milk . . . It’s healthy, no side-effects. I know I’ll get points if I land that contract . . .”

He’d often told me of his scruples about appearing in commercials. They paid very well but actors who do too many sometimes find their reputations tarnished, and Mathieu was terrified of ending up despised for making money too easily through the promotion of dubious wares. He still had everything to prove in his profession, and he didn’t want to burn his bridges.

He set off for his audition in a feverish state that verged on hysteria. I understood: this opportunity was assuming the role of a deliverance. A few days of work would finally allow him to try his hand in a field he felt passionate about, one he was sure he was made for. No more men’s suits, aggravating customers, and the uncomfortable feeling that he wasn’t where he belonged but might have to stay there a long time anyway, because a job’s a job . . .

As soon as he was out the door, the phone rang. Of course it was Mélène.

“I heard a bumpity-bump down the stairs just now so I looked out the window . . . He seemed to be in quite a state . . . I thought he’d pull the door right off the taxi—after he nearly twisted his foot on the bottom step . . . Is somebody sick? His son?”

The four of us ate a wonderful chicken dish, with ginger, honey and lemon, a specialty of Jeanne’s that I’ve never made successfully because I always put in too much honey, so that the sauce hardens into a sweet glue that sinks to the bottom of your stomach. It was a delightful meal; Mathieu made us all laugh with his advertising agency anecdotes, miming the nonsense he’d been asked to perform or ­imitating the clients—arrogant pigs for whom nothing and no one was quite good enough.

The audition had gone very well; he thought he had a good chance of landing the contract. Mélène and Jeanne ­listened to him talk about himself with genuine pleasure. I felt a little as if they were seeing him for the first time, though they’d always been very cordial. He’d suddenly taken on a certain solidity in their eyes because he was opening up to them, talking about his hopes and his ­passions—movies, the theatre, his son . . . and me—about his problems being accepted in a closed circle where only the products of the theatre schools—and not just any ­theatre school—are even considered. He was self-taught and people like that are looked down on, rather like the amateurs in the days of Les Saltimbanques and Les Apprentis-Sorciers back in the sixties.

At dessert, between two bites of an apple pie that had a ­little too much cinnamon, Mélène said casually: