dietsch

Pardon je, mais savez-vous le chemin vers Carnegie Hall?

Yesterday, I took the F into Manhattan, on my way to a performance of Uncle Vanya at the Jean Cocteau Repertory. A woman seated nearby was reading a book. I had noticed her get on the train at Bergen Street. I noticed, of course, because she was pretty and I like pretty women, but her prettiness doesn't really affect the story at all. Near her was another woman, who had boarded the train at Jay Street. She was reading some pages that had been stapled together. Now, these women didn't seem to know each other at all, which made the exchange between them all the more puzzling. I glanced up to see the woman with the pages turn to the other woman, point to a section of the paper she was reading, and ask her a question about it, in French. The woman with the book recoiled, I assume in surprise at being addressed in French, but proceeded to answer the woman, in fluent French. They talked in French for a few minutes, and then I saw the woman with the book laugh to herself and shake her head. I was close enough to see that she was reading a Bill Bryson book, one of his travelogues, but I couldn't tell whether it was a French edition. When I exited at W 4, the attractive woman with the book also left the train and I almost asked her how the other woman knew she spoke French, but I decided I liked letting the story end on a mystery.