Of course, he spoke in French, but even I could follow it. I remembered Frédéric’s mantra — bureaucrats exist to make our lives miserable — and I watched the clock slowly sweep off another 30 minutes.

At that point, I couldn’t take it anymore. I walked up to the desk and asked for news of mon mari. The gatekeeper turned to his colleague: had Madame been to the counter already? No? This was the première fois? Very well. He called into the back, and in a few minutes, a technician came to fetch me.

I was escorted to my husband’s cubicle, which he was sharing with a Frenchman who collapsed while getting off the Paris-Tours train. A doctor arrived. Her English was worse than my French, so with my little Collins dictionary I translated my husband’s symptoms. They took him and also his cellmate away for X-rays and left me and the cellmate’s partner to sit on their beds.

The partner, a chic young woman, blond, extremely thin, was carrying a fat book called “L’Anorexie.” Judging by her own size, I wondered if it was a guide, but she explained that she was training to help people with eating disorders. Bulimia and anorexia were severe problems in France, she told me: women, and increasingly men, are prey to a cultural mystique that proclaims they must be both fashionistas and foodinistas. Bulimia in particular is widespread, she said, and people smoke heavily to suppress their appetites.

Meanwhile, my husband’s heart and lungs were examined inside and out. He and his cellmate were both suffering from pneumonia, not heart attacks. They were given antibiotics.

At 2 a.m., when we were discharged, I offered my MasterCard to the surly gatekeeper. He said they would send us a bill. The doctor apologized for having to bill us, but we were not citizens, after all.

Six months later, the bill arrived. For X-rays, an EKG, 10 hours in the emergency room, a doctor, a cardiologist, technicians, nurses, drugs and even the surly gatekeeper, we were required to pay $220. I might put up with a lot of ugly bureaucrats for that.