Mister Blue

Spring had arrived. The day was so mild that I came down from the attic earlier than usual. I went out on the beach with Mr. Blue and walked to the end of the bay. I was taking a little rest, sitting on a rock that faced the river, when suddenly I noticed some footprints in the sand. Out of curiosity, I placed my own foot in one of the prints. I was surprised to observe that they were exactly the same size. And yet these were not my prints: I hadn’t walked here for several days, and there had been time for the tide, which was very high, to obliterate my trail. Mr. Blue was just as intrigued as I was. With his tail in the air like a question mark and his muzzle in the sand, the old cat sniffed at the prints. They led directly to a little cave I already knew was there, which one entered by edging through a very narrow gap. The cave was divided into two rooms. In the larger one, which must have been four meters wide and three meters high, I found the remains of a campfire. Mr. Blue, who got there before me, was nosing among the remains of a fire in the middle of the floor. On a sort of long, narrow shelf formed by a projection of the rock face sat a candle, a book, and a box of matches. I went closer to look at the book: it was The Arabian Nights. I would have liked to pick it up and turn the pages, but something held me back. I had the feeling that to do so would be indiscreet. It was as if I were in some person’s bedroom. I mean: in everything I could see there – the footprints, the objects, even in the air itself – there was a sense of somebody’s soul. I didn’t touch the book. I didn’t touch anything, I didn’t even visit the second room in the cave; I went back to the house.