Parisian girl

She gave the sense, every time we met, of being between - of having left one boyfriend and moving towards, as yet unseen, the next; of having, as it were, entered through one door and to be rushing towards the exit of another, so that one always felt she was halting for you on her way.

The times she appeared most stayed, when all her disparate energy seemed in some momentary abeyance, was beside the various men who accompanied her, and these she changed with a regularity no less guaranteed than the changing of the guards. It's unfortunate, but her attention wanes the more ardent a man's becomes.

I have seen the various stages her relationships play through - from the exited first introductions, in which it seems impossible to separate her from their arms, to indifference at their company, wherein anyone must feel her attention is only prevented from being yours completely by his presence, and that if you were alone . . .

And finally the obvious discomfort, even contempt, she exhibits towards them, which is the sure sign that the next time you meet the man beside her will certainly not be the same as he who had sat so sullen or angry or confused, or however it is each man deals with the inexorable disfavour of the woman he loved, and often thereafter still does. When she walks, it is with an absolute confidence in her body, as if she awoke each morning with a fresh consciousness of its possibilities.

Her small breasts pushed out, leading her, her shoulders held back, her head held high: quick, light, fluid, as though always on the verge of streaming into flight. It is not that she is dependent on men's gazes; nor, indeed, is it only men who watch her.

One feels she would walk this way, proud enough under God's gaze, were she on earth alone. At 23, her exuberance is beginning to mix with a woman's sobriety. This has happened, really, only within the last year. Sometimes you will see in her brown eyes a sudden equanimity that had not been there before and which belies the way she has alighted, as noiseless as a butterfly, on the chair beside you. It is as though curtains were being pushed apart and you suddenly glimpse miles of unbroken field. She appears to know everybody.

About the bordellos up the street, the tourist shops below the church, the shiftless millings of the cafés, there is always someone who greets her. Here, too, her smile is impartial: it's given to everyone with equal candour, just as, should a rude or loud or obnoxious man approach her, she makes no effort to conceal her annoyance and has no fear, after some strained politesse, to tell him where to go.

The accent she picked up in America, where her parents sent her for a term of schooling and from where, just recently, she has returned, is not so much unattractive as unfortunate. It's flatly nasal, but has a certain ingenuousness about it. It comes from behind the middle of her nose and gives her words a sort of vibrating quality, as if she were speaking through a harmonica; but by her very earnestness to sound American (which she does not), and because she does not fall into the trap of employing slang, she seems to be seeking a dignity in the West Coast accent in the same way others seek it in the Queen's English. Nonetheless, it doesn't work. It is not as if, as with French, every word were a struck note, in a sort of musical exacting of meaning.

The effort grounds her, her posture is weighed by it, and it is only when she breaks into her native tongue that she seems to rise, freer in expression, lighter in touch, lifted once again on the end of a sentence.

"So you think you will stay in Paris", she asks (and here I'm translating for her).

"Yes."

"- How is the writing", abruptly, for her conversations have this abrupt quality, as if seeking for the essentials.

"It's okay. Some days are better than others."

"You must be very patient." She smiles, and without even really waiting for your response - you can't help respond; it is that easy for her - she is gone again, as quickly as she came, leaving in her wake two ten franc pieces glinting in the sun, as if behind your back she'd taken your earlier mood, boiled it down to its very essence, changed it over and delivered it back to you again, gleaming.

WILLIAM PRENDIVILLE