It was entirely empty when I was there, aside from a woman manning a small stall, a middle-aged man who came in, looked around for a couple of minutes and then rushed out, and a couple of old ladies who did a quick circuit while having a quiet chat. Just as I was leaving, a guy I see just about every day in the neighbourhood — he has a rough crew-cut and a long lumberjack beard, and wears the same beat-up brown leather jacket while sitting in the café just across the street from us intensely smoking roll-ups and drinking beer; he’s always by himself and he always looks kind of tortured, like an aging Raskolnikov, and I sometimes kid myself that if my French was better I would befriend him — came in, walked to the front of the pews, sat down heavily, and slumped forward with his head in his hands.
