DEBTS, GEORG DELIBERATED, ARE very much like the weather: I might be driving to Marseille, leave here in bright sunshine, and arrive there in the pouring rain; on the way there’s the odd cloud over Pertuis, a thick cloud cover over Aix, and by Cabriès the first raindrops fall. On the other hand, I might be sitting here on my terrace: first the sun is shining in a clear blue sky, then a cloud or two appears, then more, then it starts drizzling, and finally it pours. In both cases it’s a matter of an hour-an hour in the car, or an hour on my terrace, and for me the result is the same whether I drive from good weather into bad, or stay where I am and the weather turns bad. The clouds look no different, and either way I get wet. And then my parents and friends warn me not to get any deeper into debt! Not that they’re wrong. Sometimes I do things that make me go deeper into debt. But all too often the debts grow into a mountain that keeps on rising. But how they grow is of no consequence to me. The result is the same.

Georg had just come home from dining at Gérard’s Les Vieux Temps. He had a tab running there, but usually paid up. When he finished a job and had some money, he’d even leave a bit extra. But how petty people could be, Georg thought angrily. He’d gone to Les Vieux Temps after receiving the disappointing letter, and Gérard had served him salmon fettuccine along with wine, coffee, and Calvados. When Gérard brought the check he didn’t refuse to put it on the tab, but he made a face and dropped a hint. Georg couldn’t let that pass. He paid up in full on the spot, and then some. Even though it was the money with which he was intending to pay his phone bill.