The Elegance of the Hedgehog

Muriel Barbery, Alison Anderson

• Publisher: Europa Editions
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781933372600
• eBook ISBN: 9781609450137
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

The phenomenal New York Times bestseller that "explores the upstairs-downstairs goings-on of a posh Parisian apartment building" ( Publishers Weekly).
In an elegant hôtel particulier in Paris, Renée, the concierge, is all but invisible—short, plump, middle-aged, with bunions on her feet and an addiction to television soaps. Her only genuine attachment is to her cat, Leo. In short, she's everything society expects from a concierge at a bourgeois building in an upscale neighborhood. But Renée has a secret: She furtively, ferociously devours art, philosophy, music, and Japanese culture. With biting humor, she scrutinizes the lives of the tenants—her inferiors in every way except that of material wealth.
Paloma is a twelve-year-old who lives on the fifth floor. Talented and precocious, she's come to terms with life's seeming futility and decided to end her own on her thirteenth birthday. Until then, she will continue hiding her extraordinary intelligence behind a mask of mediocrity, acting the part of an average pre-teen high on pop culture, a good but not outstanding student, an obedient if obstinate daughter.
Paloma and Renée hide their true talents and finest qualities from a world they believe cannot or will not appreciate them. But after a wealthy Japanese man named Ozu arrives in the building, they will begin to recognize each other as kindred souls, in a novel that exalts the quiet victories of the inconspicuous among us, and "teaches philosophical lessons by shrewdly exposing rich secret lives hidden beneath conventional exteriors" ( Kirkus Reviews).
"The narrators' kinetic minds and engaging voices (in Alison Anderson's fluent translation) propel us ahead." — The New York Times Book Review
"Barbery's sly wit . . . bestows lightness on the most ponderous cogitations." — The New Yorker

PALOMA

1. Terribly Sharp

At seven A.M. that morning someone rings the bell at my loge. It takes me a few seconds to emerge from the void. Two hours of sleep do not leave a person feeling terribly well-disposed toward mankind, and the ringing that persists as I hastily throw on my dress and slippers and run my hand through my curiously puffy hair does little to stimulate my altruism.

I open the door and find myself face to face with Colombe Josse.

“Well,” she says, “were you caught in a traffic jam?”

I cannot believe what I am hearing.

“It is seven in the morning,” I say.

She looks at me.

“Yes, I know,” she says.

“The loge opens at eight,” I explain, making a great effort at self-control.

“What do you mean, at eight?” she asks, looking shocked. “There are hours?”

No, a concierge’s loge is a protected sanctuary, oblivious of either social progress or labor laws.

“Yes,” I say, incapable of another word.

“Oh,” she replies in a lazy voice. “Well, since I’m already here . . . ”

“ . . . you can stop by later.” I slam the door in her face and make a beeline for the kettle.

Through the windowpane I hear her shout, “Well! That takes the cake!” then turn furiously on her heels and press all her rage into the button to call the elevator.

Colombe is the elder Josse daughter. Colombe Josse is also a sort of tall blond leek who dresses like a penniless Bohemian. If there is one thing I despise, it is the perverse affectation of rich people who go around dressing as if they were poor, in second-hand clothes, ill-fitting gray wool bonnets, socks full of holes, and flowered shirts under threadbare sweaters. Not only is it ugly, it is also insulting: nothing is more despicable than a rich man’s scorn for a poor man’s longing.

Unfortunately, Colombe Josse also happens to be a brilliant student. This autumn she enrolled in philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure.

I make my tea with some cherry plum jam cookies, and try to master the trembling rage afflicting my hands, while an insidious headache worms its way into my brain. I take an exasperated shower, get dressed, bestow an absolutely abject meal upon Leo (headcheese and damp leftover cheese rind), go out into the courtyard, take out the garbage, remove Neptune from the garbage can room and, by eight o’clock, weary of all this to and fro, I repair to my kitchen, not the least bit calmer for all that.

The Josse family also have a younger daughter, Paloma, who is so discreet and diaphanous that I have the impression I never see her, although she does go out to school every day. But lo and behold it is Paloma who, at eight on the dot, shows up as Colombe’s envoy.

What a cowardly trick.

The poor child (how old is she? eleven? twelve?) is standing on my doormat, stiff as justice. I take a deep breath—I would not want to transfer the rage inspired by the evil onto the innocent—and try to smile as naturally as possible.

“Good morning, Paloma.”

She fiddles hesitantly with the bottom of her pink vest.

“Good morning.” Her voice is reedy.

I look at her carefully. How could I have missed this? Some children have the awkward talent of intimidating adults; nothing in their behavior corresponds to the standards of their age group. They are too serious, too imperturbable and, at the same time, terribly sharp. Yes, sharp. If I observe Paloma carefully, I detect a trenchant acuity, a chilly wise way about her, which I suppose I had always taken for reserve simply because it was impossible for me to imagine that the flighty Colombe could have a Judge of Humanity for a sister.

“My sister Colombe has sent me to alert you to the fact that she is expecting the delivery of a very important envelope,” says Paloma.

“Very well,” I reply, mindful not to soften my own tone the way adults do when they speak to children—something which, in the end, is as much an indication of scorn as rich people wearing poor people’s rags.

“She asks if you can bring it up to the house,” continues Paloma.

“Yes.”

And she goes on standing there.

This is all very interesting.

She goes on standing there, staring at me calmly, without moving, her arms by her side, her lips slightly parted. She has skinny braids, glasses with pink frames, and very large light eyes.

“Would you like a cup of hot chocolate?” I ask, running out of ideas.

She nods, as imperturbable as ever.

“Come in, I was just having some tea.”

And I leave the door to the loge open, to avert any accusations of child abduction.

“I prefer tea myself, if you don’t mind,” she says.

“No, not at all,” I reply, somewhat surprised, observing mentally that a certain amount of data is being stored: the Judge of Humanity, in a nice turn of phrase, prefers tea.

She sits on a chair and swings her feet in the void, looking at me while I pour out her jasmine tea. I put the cup down before her, and sit down with my own cup.

“Every day I do something so that my sister will think I’m a retard,” she declares after taking a connoisseur’s long swallow. “My sister spends entire evenings with her friends drinking and smoking and talking as if she were an underprivileged kid from the projects, because she thinks her intelligence is beyond question . . . ”

Which seems to fit very squarely with the girl’s no-fixed-abode sense of style.

“I am here as her envoy because she’s a coward and a chicken,” continues Paloma, still staring at me with her big clear eyes.

“Well, it’s given us the opportunity to get acquainted,” I say politely.

“May I come back?” she asks, and there is something of an entreaty in her voice.

“Of course,” I say, “you’re more than welcome. But I’m afraid you’ll find it boring here, there’s not much to do.”

“I just want a place where I can have some peace,” she responds.

“Can’t you have some peace in your own room?”

“No, there’s no peace if everyone knows where I am. Before, I used to hide. But now they’ve found out all my hiding places.”

“You know, people are constantly disturbing me too. I don’t know how much peace and quiet you’ll find here.”

“I could stay there.” (She points to the armchair by the television, which is on with the sound turned off.) “People come to see you, they won’t bother me.”

“It’s fine with me, but first you will have to ask your mother if she agrees.”

Manuela, who starts her service at half-past eight, pops her head in at the open door. She is about to say something when she sees Paloma with her steaming cup of tea.

“Come in,” I say, “we were just having some tea and a little chat.”

Manuela raises an eyebrow, which means, in Portuguese at least, What is she doing here? I give a faint shrug. She purses her lips, puzzled.

“Well?” she asks all the same, incapable of waiting.

“Will you stop by later?” I ask with a huge smile.

“Ah,” she says, seeing my smile, “very good, very good, yes, I’ll come back, the usual time.”

Then, looking at Paloma:

“Fine, I’ll come back later.”

And, politely:

“Good bye, Mademoiselle.”

“Good bye,” says Paloma, with her first, faint, smile, a poor little out-of-practice smile that breaks my heart.

“You must go on home now,” I say. “Your family will be getting worried.”

She stands up and heads for the door, dragging her feet.

“It is patently clear,” she says, “that you are very intelligent.”

And since I am too taken aback to say anything else:

“You have found a good hiding place.”

2. For All Its Invisibility

The envelope that the courier drops off at my loge for Her Majesty Colombe de la Riffraff is open.

Wide open, without ever having been sealed closed. The adhesive flap still has its white protective strip and the envelope is gaping open like an old shoe, revealing a pile of sheets bound together with a spiral.

Why did no one take the trouble to close it, I wonder, eliminating the hypothesis of trust in the integrity of couriers and concierges, and assuming, rather, a belief that the contents of the envelope could hardly be of interest to them.

I swear on all the saints that this is the first time, and I can only pray that the facts (little sleep, summer rain, Paloma, and so on) will be taken into consideration.

Very gently I remove the pile from its envelope.

Colombe Josse, The Argument of Potentia Dei Absoluta, Master’s Thesis under the Direction of Professor Marian, University of Paris I—Sorbonne.

There is a card clipped to the first page:

Dear Colombe Josse,
Here are my notes. Thank you for the courier.
I will see you at the Saulchoir tomorrow.
Regards,
J. Marian

In the introduction I discover that the topic is medieval philosophy. It is, moreover, a thesis on William of Ockham, a Franci...

Table of contents

• MARX
• CAMELLIAS
• ON GRAMMAR
• SUMMER RAIN
• PALOMA
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• ALSO BY MURIEL BARBERY