“Strange people. The kind that leave the merest blur behind them, soon vanished. Hutte and I often used to talk about these traceless human beings. They spring up out of nothing one fine day and return there, having sparkled a little. Beauty queens. Giggles. Butterflies. Most of them, even when alive, had no more substance than steam which will never condense. Hutte, for instance, used to quote the case of a fellow he called ‘the beach man.’ This man had spent forty years of his life on beaches or by the sides of swimming pools, chatting pleasantly with summer visitors and rich idlers. He is to be seen, in his bathing costume, in the corners and backgrounds of thousands of holiday snaps, among groups of happy people, but no one knew his name and why we was there. And no one noticed when one day he vanished from the photographs. I did not dare tell Hutte, but I felt that ‘the beach man’ was myself. Though it would not have surprised him if I had confessed it.” —Patrick Modiano, from Missing Person
