Boarding house

Memory of my twenty, twenty-one years. I am alone and arrive in a kind of boarding house, in the Paris region. I had booked for three days. There is no one there except the owner. The establishment is tiny, but with an incredible number of rooms, small corridors and staircases. Everything is warm, wooded, with lots of little knick-knacks. A real doll's house, and a family house at the same time – a family house such as I have never known in my life and probably never will. The idea strikes me. Once in the room, I start to cry, without really knowing why; both with sadness and relief to finally be in such a place.

The first man and woman

I thought of an episode from my youth, when I arrived at the chalet on Saturday night to spend the weekend with my partner. I won't go into the nitty-gritty details, but I once spent the night at the cottage with a much older woman (she was probably in her 50s, maybe a little older) when I was about 25 or 26. She was clearly a wife and mother, although I had not met any of her relatives. As luck would have it, we were the only occupants of the refuge – which is open to all members of the sports association that owns it – until the next day. We had had dinner, each at his own table, in the living room, exchanging a few words, more out of politeness than anything else, then I had gone upstairs to bed.

She had entered the dormitory where I was sleeping, to lie down there, a little later, unaware of my presence since she had not turned on the light. When she finally realized it, she had a strange little laugh, and we had quickly moved closer to each other. I'm sure she wasn't used to it, and that my charm had little to do with it. I am also sure that this would not have happened if the same situation had occurred in a different place. It was the chalet itself. The solitude in the middle of the mountain, the endless forests, the absolute darkness inside the chalet and outside. The wooded, ancient décor and the rustic, almost primitive life it hosted. We were like the first man and woman, naturally and irresistibly drawn to each other.