Deciding at a late stage to learn how to drive, the narrator first befriends Pascale Polougaïevski, the young woman who manages the offices of the driving school, and then her father, when the latter arrives bringing jars of cornichons. The three of them travel together in the father's convertible to the suburbs in searcch of a bottle of gas. When the car breaks down, they are forced to come back by subway. In the afternoon Pascale goes to her dance (sevillane) class and the narrator goes with her. Without revealing the end, although foresseeable, they go to London the following week in a driving school car.