“Maybe I'd never see him again... maybe he'd gone for good... swallowed up, body and soul, in the kind of stories you hear about... Ah, it's an awful thing... and being young doesn't help any... when you notice for the first time... the way you lose people as you go along… the buddies you'll never see again... never again... when you notice that they've disappeared like dreams... that it's all over... finished... that you too will get lost someday... a long way off but inevitably... in the awful torrent of things and people... of the days and shapes... that pass... that never stop... All these arseholes, these pests, all these bystanders and extras strolling under the arcades, with their prince-nez, their umbrellas and their little mutts on a leash... you'll never see them again... Already they're passing... they're in a dream with the others... they're in cahoots... soon they'll be gone... it's really sad... it's rotten!... All these harmless people parading along the shopfronts... A wild desire took hold of me... I was trembling with panic... I wanted to jump out on them... to plant myself in front of them... and make them stop where they were... Grab them by their coats... a dumb idea... and make them stop... and not move anymore!... Stay where they were, once and for all!... And not see them going away any more.”

—Ferdinand