The Night that Wouldn't End

2 June 2005

The Night That Wouldn’t End

I have a new theory about Jean Valjean in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. Maybe he wasn’t actually in prison for nearly twenty years; maybe it only seemed that long. At least that would properly characterize Krista’s feelings about our experience in trying to get home one night from Paris to our place in Vaux Sur Seine. We experienced some of Paris by night, not a lot, but enough to miss the last direct train from our metro station, St. Lazare. After checking with a young man who had to be Katie’s age but who was inexplicably working the night shift at the station’s information booth, we took his suggestion of Train 13 (its number was a dead giveaway, and yet we didn’t get it), the “direct” train (though we knew we had missed the last direct run). After waiting for it for a long time, we boarded and were surprised when shortly thereafter it stopped and didn’t start again. So we got off. And we waited for another train. And then we waited some more. And then the man who will forever be known as “the nice gray-haired man” told us correctly where to go, and we waited some more…and some more… and then we took the correct train to yet another station, the only place we could catch a bus home… and we waited for the bus…and it was really cold now as it was way past midnight… and then the bus came, and it was very comfortable, and my children slept, and it took us home safe and sound, tired and thankful.