Demonstratives in the first sentences of novels are often considered as non-sequential sequence-signals. But, since opening demonstratives aim at creating an impression of enunciative continuity more than an illusion of referential continuity, one has to describe them first as markers of empathy in a fictitious frame. Then, though their grammatical statuses can be very diverse, opening demonstratives can all be studied in the "deictic-shift" model. We examine here the relevance and limits of such a model, and focus on two extreme cases : what if the deictic center cannot be identified ? what if the different empathy markers seem contradictory ? Opening sentences give us indeed the best opportunity to study the function of demonstratives as empathy markers, to describe the inferential work they require and to understand their being thought as highly "literary".