“I know you’re going to tell me that time will heal everything . . . But I’m panicking right now, Mathieu, it’s right now that somebody’s accusing me of being a criminal! I don’t give a damn if it’ll be easier tomorrow, it’s today that’s hard! It’s today that hurts! It’s today that I’m totally fucking ­furious! I don’t even know if I’ll be able to look Sébastien in the eye when I see him again just because of his asshole uncle’s insinuations! Maybe it’s childish, but I can’t just ­forget it, pretend it was never said! It’s as if all this has . . . broken my relationship with Sébastien in two . . . On the one hand there’s my discovery of the child, something I never expected, something that could very well transform my life, make me more responsible, and on the other hand there’s that . . . monstrous things we might have to contend with as long as Sébastien’s still a minor, and that terrifies me . . . After Paulot, who will it be? The people next door? And then the rest of the neighbourhood? When they see the three of us walking along Bernard next summer, what are the Outremont preppies on the terrace of Bilboquet and their parents on the terrace of La Moulerie, what’re they going to say?”

The idiocy of my last remarks made Mathieu smile and I shut up. If I was going to bring up such totally irrelevant issues, I’d be better off silent.

For a long time neither of us said anything. I wished the world could henceforth be limited to this bed, which I never wanted to leave. Two bodies welded together in a heap of rumpled sheets, with nothing around them.

I may have slept. When Mathieu spoke we still hadn’t moved and, out of pity for his poor arm, I slipped my head onto his stomach.

“If I didn’t love you so much I’d leave right now, Jean-Marc. Pack my bags without a word, get in a cab and go and hide out at my mother’s, as usual. It would hurt, but the pain would go away eventually. Like it always does. A visit to hell, a visit to limbo, then back to the world . . . We’ve all been there and we’ve all got over it. Never unscathed, but never too badly messed up either. But I don’t want to go. I do not want to get over you. If it’s courage you need, I’ve got enough for two. If you want I can let you have some . . .”