To be in a new place was a singular experience. Erik had stared avidly out the window at the changing scenery as he traveled, and at each stop of any length he had gotten down from the train to mark the color of the fields and the scent of the air. No one bothered him on the journey, and he felt that he was learning to steel himself against curious looks. Each time he went to a new place and successfully asked directions or made a purchase, it was a triumph.

Calais was bustling and bright, with a smell of fish and salt entirely different from that of the black mud of Paris. He walked immediately down to the sea and with a strange thrill looked out over the bristling masts of the harbor and the sparkling grey sea that went on and on toward the horizon. Of course he had known that it would stretch out in all directions, but to see it staggered him. It was so large, sparkling like a jewel. The strange scent of the salt air energized him. Erik walked down toward the water until he could hear the rush and thrum of waves—an entirely new sound, a rhythm that was both distinct and constant. He would have to find a place to live close enough to hear this all the time. It would worm its way into his mind, into his music.

This need pulsed in him, to have a quiet room by the sea. It drove him, and this made things easier—that, and the idea in the back of his head that at any moment he could answer a question or a glance with the phrase "childhood accident," as if this was a magic spell to open all doors and ease all journeys. For whatever reason, it did not come to that: he encountered no troubles. Each interaction was a victory, from directing the stationmaster about his trunk to getting a room at a hotel, all the way to visiting a rental agent and finding a place to live. He could barely believe it, that so many people would treat him fairly, that a handful of bills could so easily change a reaction from startlement to respect. That he, of all people, could move freely in the daylight, apparently anywhere in the world. Of course, he bucked tradition and kept his hat on, even indoors.

So it was that he found himself moving into a cottage a little north of Boulogne-sur-Mer. It was only three rooms—hardly an underground kingdom—but it was practically on the water's edge, and he had a woman coming in besides to cook and clean three days a week. The cottage was perfect: small, plain, comfortable, and a short distance from town. He would have as much privacy as he wished, but he would still be able to walk down easily for whatever he wanted. From the front door he could look left and see the little port, the dozens of tiny fishing boats and whitewashed houses crowded above the docks. His trunk traveled with him from Calais, so he had all his things with him: books, violin, and, praise God, paper. He immediately sat down to write.

Erik had been at the battered writing desk all night and well into the day, so he jumped at the knock on the door. It opened before he had time to rise to his feet, and in bustled a sturdy-looking woman dressed in black with a while lace headdress like those he had first seen near the port in Calais. She bobbed a perfunctory curtsey.

"It's Mme. Benne, here to fix your dinner, Monsieur. I expect you haven't had time to made a mess yet."

He took a moment to recover. He had been caught up in melody, and he hadn't realized how time had passed.

"Why, M.—Renouille, isn't it? Did I startle you? And look at your sleeves! You're up to your elbows in ink. I suppose I'll be doing your laundry, too, but that's another sou per week, and I won't be responsible for getting those stains out. A writer, is it? Books or poems, then?"

Erik cleared his throat.

"Music, actually. I'm a composer."

Mme. Benne's face brightened; her face was brown as a nut and heavily lined, but he thought this must be from weather, for she seemed very spry.

"Well, then! You must come visit us at the inn on Wednesday nights. It's a proper party we have. I'm sure it's not like your elegant Paris music, but we Bretons are proud of our folk songs, to be sure. You come give us a listen and see if you don't agree."

This was a level of friendliness entirely beyond anything he had known. Erik wondered whether she was nearsighted.

"Thank you, Madame. I will."

"And here I've been talking and you look like a starved man. I hope you like fish, Monsieur, for you've moved to a fishing town, and most days that's what you'll get."

Just as fast, she bustled back out, through to his tiny kitchen. Erik examined his sleeves. To say that he was elbow deep in ink was a bit of an exaggeration. In any case, the notes had still not left him, so he sat back down to write. Before he had gotten all the way down the page, the smell from the kitchen was utterly distracting. Once he realized he was hungry, he then noticed how tired he was.

Mme. Benne whirled back in.

"Well, your dinner's cooked, and I've left you some bread and a little tea. You haven't a crumb in your cupboards, so you'll want to take yourself to the market. Shall I take that shirt for you?"

"No, thank you."

And she was out the door like a gust of wind. What an odd person. The food was very good. When he was done, he laid down on the narrow bed for what was meant to be a nap, but he slept through to morning. He woke from vague dreams to a moment of disorientation, until he remembered where he was—by the sea. Perhaps it was a simple thing, but Erik reveled in the day: the sharp coolness of an autumn morning, tea and bread, the ocean glittering in the early sun. It lifted him, made him feel brave and strong, so he walked into town.

The path took him along the coast, the sea on his right, and the little fishing boats already far out on the water, barely visible. The sun seemed brighter here, despite the brisk air—Erik was very glad of his hat. After about twenty minutes, he met a man on the path who tipped his hat and bid Erik good day. All morning he met this: barely a glance when he asked for directions, nods and smiles as if he was any normal person. He could not understand it. Was it a town of the blind? Of the slow-witted? He bought tea and coffee, accompanied by polite nods. The old woman selling vegetables smiled at him and offered to send her grandson up with the packages later. The stationer hardly paid attention to him, and the bookseller seemed fit to keep him in conversation all morning.

Erik walked the town in bewilderment, until he started toward the harbor. First was a man with a sort of wooden spoon strapped to the stump of his left arm. Further down, an ancient man with no legs below the knee and very few teeth sat in the sun, mending nets. He bought fish from a smiling woman, surrounded by children with the same chestnut hair, who had a terrible puckered scar running down the left side of her face, and she was clearly blind in that eye.

Thought too incoherent for words dogged him up the coast to his cottage, which he found to be too cramped for comfort once his small tasks of putting away were done. The vegetables had been left by the door, and a little sprig of some sharp-smelling herb had been added to the package. How could any of this be? He walked to the water's edge and stared out. Where had been the marred faces in Paris? Was it just among those of the theatre and its rich patrons that he stood out as hideous? Surely Boulogne-sur-Mer could not be some strange haven for the scarred and malformed. Tipped hats and smiles all day, and that woman with her milk-white eye had at least five children with the same hair, spinning around her and clutching her skirts.

Of course, the man at the stationer's in Paris had always been supremely polite. This line of thought required a handful of stones to toss at the water. He had been utterly normal, that reedy old man with thick spectacles. Then, too, the boy at the music shop, with his passion for Bach. He played—what? cor de chasse? Strange instrument for a Bach enthusiast. The bookseller, too had always been eager to show him new stock. Three stones in quick succession flew out over the water. What was the trick? Was it his money? Or was it merely that he was there, in the day, speaking normally, a man like any other man? Just with a mask. It had only been in the opera house that he had surrounded himself with mystery, that he had inspired fear. The stones were gone. Erik stood with his hands in his pockets and stared at the sunset, the sky gone pink and gold and the water deepening to black. How many years had he lost, assuming that the whole world was like a gypsy carnival, out to capture him, to imprison and torture him? Going on twenty-five years. It was hard not to regret.