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inspires as he passes by: a virus contaminating the collective body of the city in the wake of his delirious journey through it: dusky, bare feet, insensitive to the rigors of the season: ragged, threadbare pants with improvised skylights at the knees: a scarecrow’s overcoat with the collar raised to conceal a double absence: walking, lost in self-contemplation, down the sidewalk of the boulevard teeming with humanity: past the tobacco store, the haberdasher’s shop, the rue du Sentier intersection, the terrace of the café-restaurant, the slot-machine parlor: the usual line outside the Ciné Rex, the entrance to the Bonne-Nouvelle métro station, the newspaper stand, the street stall of the candy and ice cream vendor: past the eternally flag-bedecked building of the very official spokesman of the working class: unhurriedly making his way through the crowd with no need to elbow anyone aside: by virtue of the sheer and simple power of his corrosive presence: did you see that, mama?: for heaven’s sake, don’t stare at me like that!: I can’t believe it!: can’t you see you’re embarrassing that man, darling?: don’t stand there gaping like an idiot, I tell you: what’s he got on his face?: shut up, not another word out of you!: it’s incredible how they let them run around loose!: he’s stumbling along like he was dead drunk!: he looks like some kind of nut!: don’t talk so loud, he might hear you!: watch out, don’t brush up against him!: all of them ought to be sent back to where they came from!: that’s for sure, but it’d be us taxpayers who paid for their tickets!: the Nazis had the right idea!: I’m sure he’s got syphilis!: suddenly confronted with the Christmas bear that is an advertising gimmick for the enormously popular Walt Disney films being shown: the object of the affectionate attention of the flock of kids that all the ballyhoo has drawn to the place: going down the zigzagging line of papas and mamas with their smiling offspring in their arms: an enlarged replica of those jolly plush teddy bears that sit on children’s beds in cozy bourgeois dwellings: a flat-footed, carnivorous mammal, with a massive, clumsy body, a thick pelt, huge strong paws, stout curving claws, a solitary inhabitant of cold countries, intelligent, astute, clever with proverbial boldness and courage in dangerous moments and situations: reduced to a puppet thanks to his makeup man, complete with touches of appealing Hollywood-style innocence, total absence of any sign of balls in the hircine groin: completely shorn of the most noble attributes of his lusty temperament: the two creatures face to face now, with just a trace of mutual astonishment: time enough to exchange a polite, neutral look: another thoroughly tamed body, totally subservient to them: shame, humiliation, disgust, and they call this living!: paying, forever paying, a roof over your head, heat, sleep, food, paying, paying, is that what we came into this world for?: abandoning him finally to his awkward movements: to the venal exercise of his ridiculous cheeriness; dodging the motionless bumpers of the cars on the rude Poissonnière and over onto the opposite sidewalk: the de luxe terrace of the Madeline Bastille: escorted by the pitiless gaze of candidates for Walt Disney’s beatific Technicolor: dusky feet on the ice-cold cement: walking on and on, as always, in a world apart from the mute rejection of those passing by in the opposite direction: from the simple minded prudence that cases them to move aside so as to avoid all contact: from the aseptic, circumspect fear on their deliberately blank faces: go on, that’s it, go on, don’t stop, don’t pay any attention, act as though you’re blind, never meet their gaze, the walking leper, the monster, the carrier of the plague is you, is you, is you: crossing the intersection of Notre Dame de Recouvrance, the stupendous bargains of a remnant store blaring out canned music: the rue de la Ville Neuve, with the arrow pointing to the movie theater and the poster advertising the tempting program: DOUBLES PÉNÉTRATIONS, JEUNES FILLES EN CHALEUR: LE RYTHME MAXI-PORNO DES SCENES VOUS FERAJOUIR!: yet another café terrace: half a dozen tables protected from the cold by thick plate glass: an illuminated aquarium, with a self-satisfied white-waterlily clientele: a theater box that becomes part of the stage décor and offers a privileged spot from which to view the enigmatic apparition: the passage of the immigrant of astonish countenance: dusky, bare feet, insensitive to the rigors of the season: ragged, threadbare pants with improvised skylights at the knees: a scarecrow’s overcoat with the collar raised to conceal a double absence: myself: an image come from the nether world: apparently incapable of objectivizing his situation except in monetary terms, daiman el flus, an eternal cash-flow problem: immune to the malicious comments of the crowd on the sidewalk: un fou probablement, qu-est-ce qui peut se passer dans sa tête?: bursting out laughing to himself: as if they didn’t know!: as if they didn’t know the thoughts running through my head!: shame, humiliation, disgust, and they call this living!: or are they blind too perhaps: going past the corner of the rue Thorel, two city policewomen in eggplant-colored uniforms: absorbed in the task of filling out tickets for the cars illegally parked along the street: also surprised and uneasy when they finally stop and take a good look at you: tu ne crois pas qu’il faudrait prévenir le Commissaire?: laisse tomber, on a Presque fini, je veux rentrer à l’heure: but their eyes following him nonetheless as he walks on, past the watch shop and the optometrist’s, I skirt a redyellowblack Kodak rhombohedron, detour around the strategic advance patrol of a tailor shop whose mannequins have overrun the sidewalk: pass by the tobacco shop, the flower stall, the employment agency: walking on and on and on like a robot: shielding oneself in the horror that one arouses as though it were a suit of armor: if only my eyes could shoot flames: nothing behind me, everything dead as I pass by: fire, everything on fire: the display windows, the shops, the cars, the houses, the people living in them: scrap iron, bones, ruins, a cemetery, nothing but scorched earth: a bald gentleman in a fur coat, family groups, five abreast, that break ranks when they meet up with you, dropping each other’s gloved hands: tu as vu sa tête, papa?: oui, mon petit, c’est rien, ne le regarde pas comme ça, c’est mal élevé: another heated terrace, the two-dimensional silhouette of a chef with a white toque holding up a list of the dishes on the special tourist menu: the innocent astonishment on children’s faces, furtive grimaces, sidelong glance, the pariah, the plague carrier, the black: moving about freely, watching us without looking at us, giving the appearance of hatching some secret plot, feeling proud of the terror he arouses in us: where does he come from?: who has let him out to run around loose, in rags and covered with sores, instead of putting him in quarantine under very strict medical surveillance?: a menace, a provocation, an attempt to mobilize against him the defensive reflexes of a society that is liberal and tolerant, but resolved to fight tooth and nail against anything that threatens law and order and the peace of mind of the family?: a bad egg, a black sheep, a dissonant parasite: an improperly tuned instrument in the execution of a score: a metaphor lost amid the algebraic signs of an equation: a computer that instead of providing the answer required by a committee of financial experts turns its data into a violent anti-militarist poem!: past the pharmacy, the entrance to the métro station, the photography studio, the haberdasher’s shop: up the ramp whose stone parapet, there where the rue de la Lune and the rue Cléry meet, gradually channels the flow of pedestrian traffic along the boulevard: down the other side of it, clinging to the handrail, without so much as a glance at the ancient, venerable bulk of the Porte Saint-Denis: forcing those coming toward you from the opposite direction to move aside for you: they stare at you in amazement as they pass by you and then turn and look back at you with expressions of loathing and alarm on their faces: walking on without seeing them, yet aware nonetheless that they are staring at you: a painful burning sensation running up my back and seeming to focus itself a the nape of my neck: but going on, going on, crossing the street between the cars stopped for the traffic light, reaching the opposite side where half a dozen prostitutes are stationed night and day: walking on and on still, newspaper stands, cafeteria, a stationery store, records and school supplies, Africans peddling totems and native handcrafts, the street stalls outside a Prisunic, sidewalks crowded with people: signs of revulsion, anxiety, nausea suddenly appear on their faces, creating a vacuum round about him, surrounding him with a spectacular halo of danger: an animal of an unknown, unclassifiable species, the miserable product of an accursed astral conjunction: let us move away from him so his breath doesn’t touch us, let us prudently cover our mouths and our noses with soft sterilized handkerchiefs; let us phone the city sanitation department send the truck that picks up stray dogs, beggars, the sick, madmen, bums, drug addicts: his presence is a threat to public health: all of us run the risk of getting infected: walking down the Boulevard Sebastopol, slipping past the entrance to the Strasbourg-Saint Denis métro station, the newsstand selling Yugoslav and Turkish magazines, the little table where a man encases all sorts of documents in plastic in a matter of seconds: then coming face to face with the smiling ever-watchful lady-witness in a felt hat, absorbed in the usual exercise of her minuscule apostolate: the distribution of little pamphlets imprinted with a sun whose rays rend the abominable bonds of sing and a message from the founder of the HEALTH AND HEALING mission: handing him a copy, with an imperturbable benevolent expression, not even noticing that I am the one there in front of her: ou, mon pauvre ami, Dieu pense à vous, Il vous veut du bien, Il se soucie de votre salut, laissez-le donc rentrer dans votre coeur!: votre maladie peut être le péché de votre âme, mais de même qu’Il a guéri le lépreux, de même Il vous pardonnera chaque péché, si vous Lui faites appel: coyez-moi, rien n’est impossible avec le Seigneur!: a circle of curious onlookers, a crowd immediately gathering round the protagonists, popular expectation centered on the pocket of the phantasmagorical overcoat in which his hand is timidly thrust: will he take the rectangular sheet of paper that the pious activist is confidently holding out to him?: the suspense is prolonged for a few seconds: an ineffable expression on the face of the devout disciple, silence on the part of the onlookers eagerly awaiting the unpredictable reaction of this apparition: finally the specter’s hand hesitantly emerges, with the caution of one resurrected abandoning the shadows of the tomb: suddenly touched by grace, his hand reaches out for the sheet of paper, but the next instant he changes his mind, raises the hand in a wrathful gesture meant to overpower her utterly, it lands smack in the middle of her cheek, I give her a resounding slap in the face: ma bhgit ual-lú men-nék, smaati?: and to top it off, adding, as he turns his back and elbows his way out of the stupefied crowd: naal d-din um-mék!: murmurs, surpised exclamations, fearful delayed reactions of outraged dignity: