Evocative of the City Before Me

I insisted on taking the kids to Shakespeare & Co. yesterday and we burned precious fuel walking around in a big circle to find it after crossing over to the Latin Quarter.  And though it is not the same building nor establishment that Joyce had 'Ulysses' proofread in, it is still wonderful to be in a cavernous old bookstore where suddenly, once again, everything is in English.  I had thought to get my older daughter Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex” but looked in vain for it in Beijing.  It was, of course, in stock. 

I had finished all the “French” novels I’d brought with me and was in the middle of a long, contemporary novel that was feeling rather American.  So I picked up a copy of Guy de Maupassant’s “Bel-Ami,” which proved especially easy to tear into.  Also titled “The History of a Scoundrel,” George Duroy is most assuredly a dick.  Though there is no redemption nor much of any reflection he is utterly plausible as he stares down a duel he has gotten himself into or listens to his friend Forestier’s terror on from his consumptive death bed.  Most importantly the food and the manners and the setting are all here in Paris so that every paragraph is evocative of the city before me as I look up. 

And I had time today to read.  We killed at least forty-five minutes waiting to get in to the Musee D’Orsay.  Mercifully a downpour only began after we’d made it beneath the shelter.  We started, as I suppose you must in the main Impressionist hall.  My daughters galloped off and I sat fixated on Gustave Caillebotte, ‘The Floor Scrapers’ from a decade before Bel-Ami.  I remember this painting from years ago and if pressed would have said I saw it in the Louvre.  But here it was.  And though it was seen as shockingly vulgar and homoerotic in its day, I had a strong memory of the three men working there with their half-finished bottle of red wine, there with them on the floor and how that must have been and perhaps still is, a perfectly acceptable way to carry out one’s work in France.   I caught up with my kids at the end of the hall, staring into the their cell phones and insisted they repeat the journey, a bit more deliberately. 

Later I had quite a bit more time to read, later.  My younger one was dead set on seeing the Eiffel Tower.  And so you shall.  Fortunately at the outset, I didn’t know just how many lines this would entail.  Security line, followed by the ticket line and the queue for the elevator and by the time we’d reached the mid-point it was beginning to pour and there would be no way to make our dinner reservation.  We walked around the three sides best protected from the rain.  It’s pouring and it’s late, but we’re not going to come this far and skip the ride to the top.  Another rather long line in order to pay once more and then the queue and the exciting elevator straight up, to step out unprotected into a wild stormy night.  Well, yes, here we are.  Quite something.  Where’s the queue to get down?  It snakes around most of our exoskeletal perch.  Fortunately I had a scoundrel with me to return to who was also doing some climbing.