I checked out and walked to the subway station at Republique, listing from side to side with the weight of my bags. At the Gare d'Austerlitz I remembered how I felt the last time I was there, agonizing over whether to call my ex and tell her everything was OK, I wanted to get back together. I remembered lifting the phone off the hook and thinking and putting it back down. With the weight of my bags.

I got my ticket, and a USA Today for a jolt of colorful American cheapness. I went to the station restaurant just like I had the year before and the harried waiter sat me in the middle of a long row of little tables, beside an older couple. I ordered a salad of chevre chaud and lardons and a steak and a little carafe of wine and the waiter repeated it all in one breath and said, "C'est parti," which means "it's gone," but really "it's begun" or "it's taken off," and I thought how French this little remark was—it is a banal, unthinking thing for a waiter to say to a customer but also a droll assurance of sorts ("don't worry, it's like it's already started, trust me") together with a slight suggestion of cold impatience ("it's gone, I'm gone, let's get it all done and over with"). C'est parti.