The narrator proposes writing the actor M's autobiography; M jokes and encourages fabrication. They met in a bookstore; M is a film star and the face of a popular cream, her photographed smile appearing youthful and reproachful. She lives in a large house across the river yet seems very small, like a doll in a doll's house. Mutual acquaintances share anecdotes, including a bodyguard's insistence that she swap seats to avoid danger. The narrator feels ugly beside her, sensing different burdens: M's distance from insignificance versus the narrator's saturation with it. The city grows colder while her advertisement stays springlike; runners pass the river while homeless people shelter beneath bridges.
We had met in a bookstore. She was interested in books. In addition to being a film star, she was the model for a popular brand of face cream, and her image looked out everywhere, from shop windows and hoardings and the rain-streaked Perspex of bus shelters. In the photograph, she appeared very young and happy. Her smile had a sweetness that almost seemed to reproach those who looked at it for their dim and suspicious view of life.
She lived in a large house on the other side of the river. In person, she was very small, and the house was like a big doll's house, with her as the doll inside it. We knew a couple of people in common. One of them told me a funny story about a dinner they'd attended at a restaurant, where M's bodyguard had insisted that she change places with another film star, who was older and less famous,
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