Julian Carax's presumed death and disappearance

Julian Carax’s presumed death and disappearance turn his life into a series of incompatible stories. A Paris bookseller hears that Carax died in a duel at Père Lachaise on the morning he was due to marry; other versions place his death in Barcelona, where his unclaimed body is supposedly buried in a common grave. Years later, Daniel discovers that Carax lived in Paris until at least 1935 and returned to Barcelona, revealing that the report of an early death was false without resolving what happened to him afterward.

Conflicting Reports from Paris

By the spring of 1936, Monsieur Roquefort has spent years trying to find Carax’s books and information about their author. His friend at a bookstall by the Seine finally tells him that Carax’s fortunes seemed to have improved: he was reportedly preparing to marry a woman of good social standing, and his latest novel had received a favorable review in Le Monde. The apparent change in his prospects makes the next report especially stark: Carax was said to have been involved in a duel at Père Lachaise cemetery.

The circumstances of the duel remain uncertain. The bookseller knows only that it took place at dawn on the day Carax was due to marry, and that the bridegroom never arrived at the church. The missing bridegroom and the uncertain outcome leave room for stories that contradict one another rather than establish a reliable account.

Rumors of Death and Disappearance

Some people say Carax died in the duel and was left in an unmarked grave. Others believe he became entangled in a secret affair, abandoned his fiancée at the altar, fled Paris, and returned to Barcelona. The possibility of a return offers an alternative to death, but it too circulates as rumor: the bookseller has no confirmed account of where Carax went.

A further version claims that Carax died in Barcelona in extreme poverty. In this telling, girls at the brothel where he played piano collected money to pay for his burial, but the money order arrived too late. He had already been buried in a common grave alongside beggars and unidentified people found in the harbor or dead from the cold near the subway entrance. The detail of the delayed collection gives this version a concrete, mournful shape, but it does not verify that the death occurred. The nameless grave associated with the duel cannot be found, and the competing reports leave Carax’s fate unsettled.

The False Death in Barcelona

When Daniel investigates Carax’s past, he encounters another account of an early death. A caretaker says that Carax went to Paris around 1918 or 1919, after his father wanted him to join the army, and that his mother took him away so he could avoid that fate. The caretaker believes he died in Paris soon after arriving. Her certainty rests on what Carax’s father, Fortuny, told her after a letter arrived: Carax was dead, and any further correspondence should be thrown away.

Daniel corrects the caretaker. He tells her that Carax did not die in 1919, but lived in Paris until at least 1935 and then returned to Barcelona. Her immediate question about where he is shows how sharply this information alters the story she thought she knew. Fortuny’s declaration had not merely mistaken the date: by instructing the caretaker to discard later letters, he helped make Carax’s survival and whereabouts harder to trace.

Family Ties and the Limits of What Is Known

Isaac, who is Nuria’s father, can offer only fragments about Carax’s family. He believes Carax’s parents had separated, that his mother went to South America and remarried, and that Carax had not been on speaking terms with his father after leaving for Paris. Isaac does not know whether the father is still alive. He does identify him as Fortuny, a hat-shop owner on Ronda de San Antonio, and clarifies that Carax took his mother’s surname.

These details suggest why a return to Barcelona might not lead Carax directly back to his family, but they do not establish what he did after returning. The story’s repeated claims of death, discarded correspondence, uncertain graves, and broken family contact make disappearance less a single confirmed event than a condition produced by incomplete knowledge. Daniel disproves one report of Carax’s death; the reports from Paris and Barcelona remain rumors, and the evidence here does not settle his eventual fate.

A Life Reconstructed Through the City

Carax’s uncertain return is situated in a Barcelona that Daniel moves through while trying to reconstruct the past. The city’s routes sharpen the contrast between what can be physically encountered and what remains inaccessible: the caretaker’s recollection connects Carax to Fortuny’s former home, while Daniel’s later journey toward number thirty-two on Avenida del Tibidabo leads through the city’s tunnels and uphill by tram toward the mansions. The locations supply paths for investigation, not a final answer about Carax.

Barcelona’s changing streets also frame Daniel’s own discoveries. On an October day, he walks through traffic and a city filling with cars; later, during a snowfall, he sees the outline of the Aldaya mansion on a Tibidabo amusement-park poster in a subway station. That image prompts him to wonder whether Bea has seen it too, but it does not identify Carax’s location. Across the inquiry, the city repeatedly offers signs and possible destinations while the central fact remains unresolved: Carax was reported dead, Daniel establishes that he survived those reports, and his later fate is not confirmed here.