The Elegance of the Hedgehog

Renée meets the new owner of the Arthens apartment, a Japanese man that she can’t quite catch his name because the woman who introduces him speaks his name unclearly each time. Renée likes him immediately. He is attentive to Renée, and she senses that she doesn’t have to dumb herself down for him. When discussing the Arthens, Kakuro makes a comment about happy families all having their own forms of unhappiness, which makes Renée involuntarily shudder.

Renée shuddered when the Japanese man made his comment about families because his statement was a quote from Anna Karenina. The Japanese man’s assistant Paul Nguyen introduces himself to Renée and explains that they don’t want renovations in his apartment to make more work for her. He finally speaks the man’s name, Kakuro Ozu, clearly, and Renée is shaken because Ozu shares the name of the filmmaker of some of her favorite films. She speculates that he may be related to the filmmaker.

The neighbors in the building are all interested in Kakuro Ozu, their newcomer. Though she is also excited about him, the diarist is annoyed that such an interesting thing could happen only six months before she has decided to die.