Well, I finished L’education sentimentale. When I got back from school this evening, I had maybe thirty-something pages to go, and I was all, I know I can finish this tonight. And the phone kept ringing, and it kept being people I wanted to talk to, and I was still, I know I can finish this tonight. When Tom called, I said, “. . .and so I have like eighteen pages to go. . .” and he said, “Doesn’t Frédéric like leave Paris or something at the end?” and I said, “Tom, why are you telling me this?”

So, but, I finished it. And then I just sat there not quite sure what to do with myself. Because after all those moments of gasping, eyes wide open, at every other step—she loves him! she loves him, too! and she! they kiss! he seduces her! all of a sudden Rosanette’s standing there! she’s pregnant! the baby dies! Louise marries Deslauriers! Sénécal attacks Dussardier!—and after all the parties with the tables laden with pyramids of crayfish and silver platters of quail and great bowls of oranges and Champagne everywhere, and after the barricades and the rage and the blood mixing with mud in the street—after it all, it’s just him and her, and it’s night, and she’s older, but he’s older, too, and there’s surprise and fear and desire and regret. And then there’s nothing left to say, and then from the window upstairs he watches her leave, and ce fut tout. And really, after all those hearts broken in the book, it seems like maybe one of them is yours, too.

Oh, that Flaubert, he sure knows what he’s doing.