A feverish classic from one of the modern masters of French prose. No one can keep up with Pierre Niox, the speediest antiques dealer in Paris, although not necessarily the most competent. As he dashes about at a dizzying pace, his impatience becomes too much to bear for those around him; his manservant, his only friend and even his cat abandon him. He begins to find that while he is racing through life, it is passing him by. However, when he falls in love with the languid, unpunctual Hedwige, the man in a hurry has to learn how to slow down... 'Probably the best French writer of the twentieth century after Proust and Celine' Philippe Sollers 'Morand was the all-round aesthete.' Nicholas Lezard, Guardian 'Admired both by Ezra Pound and by Marcel Proust as a pioneer craftsman of Modernist French prose (...) The sheer shapeliness of his prose recalls Hemingway; the urbanity of his self-destructiveness compares with Fitzgerald's; and his camera eye is as lucidly stroboscopic as that of Dos Passos' The New York Times This feverish classic by one of the modern masters of French prose is a witty and touching parable for our busy times.