Claude Lantier is a painter who wants to present to the Academy a painting which includes the nude of a young lady. He has problems with that small but essential part of his painting, until in stumbles Christine, a recently orphaned girl from the countryside who has lost his way in Paris. She is going to start working as a lady-in-waiting and paid companion for an irritating elderly lady, a job she secured from a nun. In the chaos of arriving to Paris penniless and finding itself stranded without nobody waiting for her at the station, Claude takes her in for the rainy night.

He is a gentleman about it, but in the next morning Christine inspires him, and she becomes his model for that naked central female figure. She has to come several times to pose for him, hiding it from her employer, a nasty and boring person.

The plot moves on slowly but steadily from there. I have to say that the most touching aspect IMO was Jacques. I read in one of Irvin D. Yalom's books that sometimes love can be so overwhelming and powerful in couples that it leaves space for nothing else, including love for one's children, a situation that may lead to neglect. And this is what happens here with this couple.

It is not my favourite book from the author, although the Jacques plot was so touching for me and increased my marks overall. I prefer The Belly of Paris and The Shopping Mall, but the same features are present in this book: the very detailed descriptions of functions and actions with very to-the-point specific vocabulary, the different settings to a problem, the realistic plot and characters warts and all.

Given to a friend.