I was responsible to no one, I had no need mumble excuses or lies. I would become someone else and my metamorphosis would be so complete that no one … - Patrick Modiano

But topographical details have a strange effect on me : instead of clarifying and sharpening images from past , they give me a harrowing sensation of emptiness and severed relationships.

Hutte, for instance , used to quote the case of a fellow he called "the beach man ". This man had spent forty years of his life on beaches or by the sides of swimming pools, chatting pleasantly with summer visitors and rich idlers. He is to be seen, in his bathing costume, in the corners and backgrounds of holiday snaps, among groups of happy people, but no one knew his name and why he was there. And no one noticed when one day he vanished from the photographs. I did not dare tell Hutte, but I felt that " the beach man " was myself . Though it would not surprised him if I had confessed it. Hutte was always saying that, in the end, we we're all " beach men " and that the sand keeps the traces of our footsteps only a few moments "

Children are liable to expect more from life than their parents, and faced with adversity their reaction is more violent. They go farther, much farther than their parents, and, thereafter, their parents are unable to protect them.