Excerpt of the novel The Sunday of Life by Raymond Quenaud,
1951, translated by Barbara Wright
He had then bought Marie-Claire, after which he took the metro. This reading made him miss two connections, but what did he not learn ? A double-page spread interested him extremely, destined as it was to persuade the reader that she didn’t know much about Paris, its history, its topography or its sights. Valentin percieved that on this subject, his ignorance was immense. Not only did he hardly know more than a few railroad stations and a few of the streets in one of its forty-eight wards, (…) but he was also ignorant of the existence of the Gallic chieftain Camulogenus, the inexistence of the giant Isoré, and the length of the metropolitain railway system, whose services he was at this moment utilizing.