““I never learned to ride a bicycle, and it is too late now,” she told me with a hint of pride, before going on to list her other negative achievements. “I never learned to drive. I never learned to swim.” At 54, Dumas is a jovial and garrulous presence, with a tangle of blond curls and fair skin. She speaks English with a heavy accent, in a wheezing, thinned-out voice.

“I was so pleased when I read that Rossellini loved to lie in bed,” she continued, referring to the Italian filmmaker, a confirmed hypochondriac who, she discovered, would take to his bed for two or three days at a time, reading thick novels. “Now people do exercise, and they have hobbies, and they take holidays,” she said. “I am not one of those. I don’t go to a psychiatrist. I don’t go to a gym. I run away from my accountant, I run away from my dentist. They are all supposed to help you, but I like to stay in bed, where I have a chance to reflect, like Rossellini.””

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