Question

Ian French really was an impossible person. Too shy altogether but, at first sight, he looked most interesting, and everybody agreed about that. You would drift into the café one evening and there you would see, sitting in a corner, with a glass of coffee in front of him, a thin dark boy, wearing a blue jersey with a little grey flannel jacket buttoned over it; somehow that blue jersey and the grey jacket with the sleeves that were too short gave him the air of a boy that has made up his mind to run away to sea. As if that were not enough, there was his trick of blushing; whenever the waiter came near him, he turned crimson, but he was an awfully clever painter, they say.

He lived in one of those buildings overlooking the river that look so romantic on rainy nights and moonlit nights, when the shutters are shut, and the heavy door, and the sign advertising “a little apartment available for rent immediately” gleams forlorn beyond words. One of those buildings that smell so unromantic all the year, and where a caretaker glares from behind a dusty desk. Perched up in the air, the studio had a wonderful view. The two big windows faced the water; he could see the boats and the barges swinging up and down, and the fringe of an island planted with trees, like a round bouquet. The side window looked across to another house, shabbier still and smaller, and down below there was a flower market. You could see the tops of huge umbrellas, with frills of bright flowers escaping from them, booths covered with striped awnings where they sold plants in boxes and clumps of wet gleaming palms in terra-cotta jars. There was no need for him to go out. If he sat at the window until his white beard fell over the sill, he still would have found something to draw.

Every day, while the light was good he labored over his painting, then cooked his meals and tidied up the place. In the evenings he went off to the café, or sat at home reading.

One evening he was sitting at the side window eating some prunes and throwing the stones onto the tops of the huge umbrellas in the deserted flower market. It had been raining — the first real spring rain of the year had fallen — a bright spangle hung on everything, and the air smelled of buds and moist earth. Many voices sounding languid and content rang out in the dusky air, and the people who had come to close their windows and fasten the shutters leaned out instead. Down below in the market, the trees were peppered with new green. What kind of trees were they? he wondered. He stared at the house across the way, the small, shabby house, and suddenly, as if in answer to his gaze, two wings of windows opened and a girl came out onto the tiny balcony carrying a pot of daffodils.

“Yes, it is quite warm enough; it will do them good,” she said, putting down the pot and turning to someone inside. As she turned she put her hands up to a handkerchief on her head and tucked away some wisps of hair. She looked down at the deserted market and up at the sky, but where he sat there might have been a hollow in the air. She simply did not see the house opposite, and then she disappeared.

His heart fell out of the side window of his studio, and down to the balcony of the house opposite — buried itself in the pot of daffodils under the half-opened buds and spears of green.

Ian French never heard her sing or saw her hair unbraided, and she always wore the same dark pinafore and the pink handkerchief over her hair. He wondered who she lived with, because nobody else came to those two windows, and yet she was always talking to someone in the room. Her mother, he decided, because her father was away — a journalist, perhaps.

It was quite simple. She was the only person he really wanted to know because she was, he decided, the only other person alive who was just his age. She was his age, she was — well, just like him, but how could he get to know her?

And then, on an ordinary Thursday, while Ian was leaving the dairy with his weekly supply of eggs — the last eggs the dairy had to offer — he saw her. She walked gracefully, with small, light steps; with one hand she carried a basket. What could he do?

She suddenly turned into the dairy, and he saw the moment she realized there were no eggs left to buy. A frown pulled at her mouth and, dejectedly, she turned to leave. Ian French rushed after her, seizing this fortuitous opportunity to talk to her.

Blushing more crimson than ever and floundering for anything to say, he said, “Excuse me, Mademoiselle, you dropped this.”

And he handed her an egg.

Which statement best describes the relationship between Ian and the girl?



A. They have admired each other from a distance.

B. They have made assumptions about each other's lives.

C. He wishes to know her better, while she does not know him at all.

D. He recognizes her from a previous meeting, while she does not remember him.

Answer 1

C. He wishes to know her better, while she does not know him at all.

Ian watches and idealizes her from his studio, inventing details about her life, but she never notices him; when they encounter each other in the dairy she clearly does not recognize him.