“THE ELEGANCE OF A HEDGEHOG” by Muriel Barbery

“My name is Renée. I am 54 years old.

For 27 years I have been the concierge at number 7, rue de Grenelle, a fine hôtel particulier with a courtyard and private gardens, divided into 8 luxury apartments, all of which are inhabited, all of which are immense.

I am a widow, I am short, ugly, and plump, I have bunions on my feet.

I did not go to college, I have always been poor, discreet and insignificant.

Because I am rarely friendly- though always polite- I am not liked, but am tolerated nonetheless: I correspond so very well to what social prejudice has collectively construed to be a typical French concierge that I am one of the multiple cogs that make the great universal illusion turn, the illusion according to which life has a meaning that can be easily deciphered.

It has been decreed that concierges watch television interminably while their rather large cats doze.
With the advent of videocassettes and, subsequently, the DVD divinity, things changed radically, much to the enrichment of my happy hours.
As it is not terribly common to come across a concierge waxing ecstatic over DEATH IN VENICE or to hear strains of MAHLER wafting from her loge, I delved into my hard-earned conjugal savings and bought a second TV that I could operate in my hideaway.
Thus, the television in the front room, guardian of my clandestine activities, could bleat away and I was no longer forced to listen to inane non-sense fit for the brain of a clam- I was in the back room, perfectly euphoric, my eyes filling with tears, in the miraculous presence of ART.”

Published by Europa editions, 2008