She looked around her. People were walking along, heads down, hurrying off to work, to school, to the employment agency, to Rue de Berne, telling themselves: ‘I can wait a little longer. I have a dream, but there’s no need to realise it today, besides, I need to earn some money.’ Of course, everyone spoke ill of her profession, but basically, it was all a question of selling her time, like everyone else. Doing things she didn’t want to do, like everyone else. Putting up with horrible people, like everyone else. Handing over her precious body and her precious soul in the name of a future that never arrived, like everyone else. Saying that she still didn’t have enough, like everyone else. Waiting just a little bit longer, like everyone else. Waiting so that she could earn just a little bit more, postponing the realization of her dreams; she was too busy right now, she had a great opportunity ahead of her, loyal clients who were waiting for her, who could pay between three hundred and fifty and one thousand francs a session.
And for the first time in her life, despite all the good things she could buy with the money she might earn – who knows, she might only have to work another year – she decided consciously, lucidly and deliberately to let an opportunity pass her by.