12

Céline

The flower is the poetry of reproduction. It is an example

of the eternal seductiveness of life.

— Jean Giraudoux

Gio is playing a gig in Sweden, Yvonne has locked herself up with her book. Yasmina is in

the south of France. This is the longest summer in my memory, each day dragging by while I try to

inspire myself to create a dance but can’t think of a thing because I have a serious case of the blues.

While Gio is touring the capitols of Scandinavia, Copenhagen, Oslo, and Stockholm, I'm suffering

because I have nothing exciting in my life. Rien à écrire. I lie in bed in the sultry heat of August,

naked except for my cotton panties, an ominous black electric fan failing to cool my sweaty skin,

beads of sweat running into my eyes. Milou perches on my bare stomach while I read The Girl

with the Golden Eyes by Monsieur Balzac.

When the windows are open in a Parisian apartment in the heat of August, the central

courtyard becomes an echo chamber, a whole spectrum of every imaginable kind of sound except

the braying of a donkey or the scream of a leopard. Today someone is playing an oboe, another, a

violin. Across the courtyard, a man and a woman are quarreling, the crash of breaking glass.

“Vous êtes un menteur!” she screams. On a lower floor, a man sings an aria in Italian, his baritone

voice mixing with the cries of a woman making love with great enthusiasm, her cries coming faster

and faster drowning out Caruso’s aria. How closely humans resemble the animal kingdom.

An unexpected event that changes my mood! Suddenly things are becoming interesting.

Yvonne tells me Emile is taking me to the Comédie Française to see “la Folle de Chaillot.” I jump

two meters high and scream, “Giraudoux!” He's such a droll playwright. I've read his plays but

have never actually seen one. In my neurosis, I immediately worry about what to wear. But Yvonne

offered one her dresses, a glistening black frock of transparent rayon with a tight bodice and a

billowy skirt, a silhouette favored by Dior.

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Christian Dior - 1950s - art.co.uk

“I'm too flat for that!”

“I've already taken it in,” she said. “It'll only be a little loose.”

“I've no shoes to match such a fancy dress.”

“Try these on. Your feet are long. I think they’ll fit or else I can stuff them with paper.”

“I can just see it,” I moaned, “paper sticking out of my shoes.

When I came out of the shower, Yvonne dried me off and braided my hair, entwining a slender

silver ribbon through my braids then pinning them up on my head in a serpentine coil. Chic!

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I looked at least a few years older.

I couldn't understand why Emile was taking me out instead of Yvonne. Very odd. I was almost

afraid to ask, worried that my first venture going out with a man could suddenly vanish. I finally asked,

and she said she didn’t feel right going to the theatre with another man when Gio’s on tour. When Emile

showed up at the library today, she turned down his invitation, but seeing how crushed he was, thought

of a consolation prize—me!

Since it’s my first time, it was difficult to get the nylon hose on just right. I had the seams all

crooked, had to take them off and start over. The hose are held up with this contraption called a garter

belt. It has a rather mechanical look to it. But when I looked in the mirror my legs looked great. In the

chest department, I was pretty flat. “Like a young girl should,” Yvonne said pinning her long rhinestone

earrings into my pierced ears. I was so pale that I looked like a ghost wearing black. Yvonne brought

three shades of lipstick. I chose the pale violet which was a nice contrast to my green eyes. Yvonne

stuffed soft tissue paper into my high heels of glistening black satin, studded with tiny rhinestones. As I

walked back and forth, I was tottering a bit. I did a pirouette and nearly fell over.

“I guess I'd better not make any sudden moves.”

“You are superb,” Yvonne observed. “Your bruises have nearly disappeared.” She paused for a

moment then said, “I hope this isn't a mistake. If he makes a pass at you, just kick him in the shins.”

“Don't worry about me.” I said, thinking of the guy whose ear I nearly bit off.

Looking at my new image in the mirror, I had a severe attack of narcissism. I had magically been

transformed into someone else. There wasn’t a little girl in the mirror. It was a mysterious woman

embarking on a new stage of her life.

“I wish Giovanni were here,” I said, ‘to see me in this dress.”

“Why Giovanni?” Yvonne asked.

“Oh…. Well…. I saw his letter in the mail. Did he say when he's coming back?”

She got dreamy and said. “That guy always surprises me. He knows just what to say.”

“You still love him as much as before?”

“Even more,” she said. “Even more.”

3

I was on fire to see Giraudoux’s “la Folle de Chaillot, at the Comédie Française. This is such a

momentous occasion that I’m writing about my adventure in my journal. The Comédie Française goes

all the way back to the reign of Louis XIV—the time of Molière, one of our most brilliant playwrights.

In fact, the theatre was once called La Maison de Molière.

Comédie Française sur Place Colette - KDM759

Yvonne told me Emile is the kind of man who never goes out unless he has a woman on his

arm. It’s pride founded on insecurity. Our night out was to celebrate the contract he’d signed

yesterday for a series of lectures sponsored by the Institut d'études politiques de Paris. The lectures,

financed by a private donor, assured that he’d be paid enough to take off work to write his next book.

As we entered, I could see Emile noticed the glances I received. Even though I was the consolation

prize, he was enjoying the prize.

At intermission, he bought me champagne and whispered in my ear, “How delicious you are

tonight.”

“Did they really discover oil beneath Paris?” I asked the omniscient one.

“Not really,” he responded. “Giraudoux was using petroleum as a metaphor for the greed of the

entrepreneurs.”

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Comedie Francaise - Jean-Antoine Watteau - 1684 - 1721 - L'Histoire par L’Image

“The madwoman of Chaillot dresses like Deirdre.”

“Who's Deirdre?”

“Oh, a friend of mine.” I was feeling pretty good after the champagne. “Giraudoux's minor

characters, the peddler, juggler, singer, rag picker, and flower girl are so colorful. Paris hasn't

changed. When was it written?”

“1948.”

“That's what I like about you. You know the answer to everything.”

“I'll tell you a secret. I read that in the program.”

“But still, if I asked you the same question ten years from now, you'd remember it and say,

1948.”

“I'm cursed with a photographic memory.”

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“I love the little dog who wasn't there. Everyone was pretending that he was there even though

he'd died long ago. Giraudoux makes everything so real when everything is so unreal. All those crazy

characters are still here. Paris never changes. He’s inspired me to write a play.”

I turned suddenly and nearly fell off my high heeled shoes. Emile caught me, and I giggled, “I do

hope the Countess of Chaillot finds her feather boa.”

After the play, Emile put the top down and drove me around Paris so fast my heart was in my mouth.

His Lancia Aurelia B24 spider has the most sensuous curves I've seen in an automobile and it is red.

Emile said it was designed by an Italian, Pininfarina who is famed for designing the 250 GT Ferrari and

the screaming Testarossa.

Lancia Aurelia B24 spider – Body by Pininfarina – 1955 – Stubbs Auto

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Lancia Aurelia B24 spider – Body by Pininfarina - 1955

“If my book continues to sell like hotcakes,” Emile said, taking a hairpin curve like a scalded

cheetah, “I’m going to buy a Ferrari 250 Monza with a body by Scaglietti Carrozzeria.”

Ferrari 250 Monza - 1954 - Body by Scaglietti Carrozzeria - Shorey.net

7

“What’s a Carrozzeria?”

“Carrozzeria, in Italian, means an automobile coach builder. Sergio Scaglietti is renowned for

his designs for Enzo Ferrari. I love the eccentricity of Scaglietti’s designs. I believe that automobile

coach work is as great an art as architecture.”

“As Emile roared through another corner, the seat belt fortunately keeping me from flying out

of the Lancia,” I asked, “Is the 250 Monza fast?”

“The Monza has won races on three continents. Hopefully, I speak Italian well enough to talk

Scaglietti into building a custom body for a street legal Monza.”

“The way you drive,” I yelled over the roar of the wind, “you’ll end up killing yourself,”

With the lights of Paris spinning by in a phantasmagoric sweep, Emile accelerated around

L’Etoile, then weaved his way through the traffic on the Champs-Élysées down to the Place de la

Concorde in a vortex of automobiles whirling past the obelisk of the great Pharaoh Ramesses II.

“How fast can this car go?” I asked.

“Over 200 kilometers per hour.”

“Let go around again,” I cried.

“Hang on.”

Cistalia SMM Novolari Spider - 1947 - Driven by Tazio Nuvolari - Silodrome

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Cistalia SMM Novolari Spider - 1947 - Pinterest

“Hold it down,” I cried, “to 100 kilometers per hour.”

Emile downshifted and roared around and around while I held out both arms feeling the breeze

sweeping over my skin.

“Don't stop!” I cried. “I love riding in your Lancia.”

“Another automobile I admire” he said, “is the 1947 Cistalia SMM Novolari Spider. Pininfarina

created a great classic with an aluminum bodied Cistalia. One day it’ll be in an art museum. Haven’t we

gone around enough?

“One last time!” I cried.

With the wind lashing my hair and with eyes closed, I imagined how different the Place de la

Concorde looked since the days of the Revolution when furious Parisians tore down the statue of Louis XV,

renamed it Place de la Revolution and set up the guillotine, and enflamed masses of screaming people

assembled to view the decapitation of not only one thousand despised nobles, King Louis XVI and Queen

Marie Antoinette, but in a blur of history, the Revolution’s own children, Saint-Just, Danton, Robespierre,

and my heroine, Olympe de Gouges.

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Place de la Concorde - 1950s

Tazio Nuvolari’s epic race in the Cistalia SMM Spider - 1947 Mille Miligia - Silodrome

10

“Let's go to La Coupole,” Emile cried out over the wind. “I need a drink.”

“Let's go,” I said, “where you've never been before.”

“How do you know where I've never been before?”

“I just know. It's impossible to know everything about Paris.”

“OK, where to?”

“The Alley of the Swans.”

“How do we go?”

“Follow the quai de Grenelle to the Bir-Hakeim Bridge.”

Bir-Hakeim Bridge - 1903 - 1905 - designed by architect Jean-Camille Formigé - Fine Art America

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Bridge of Bir-Hakeim - Wikimedia Commons

May 26 – June 21, 1942, General Kœnig's Free French brigade fought a heroic holding action at

the Fortress of Bir Hakeim against the German Afrika Korps. When the French artillery knocked

out most of the tanks of the Italian and German armored columns, Rommel was forced to send his

crack 15th Panzer Division to lay siege to Bir-Hakeim. For three weeks, the Panzers failed to take

Bir-Hakeim. When food and ammunition gave out, Kœnig’s brigade was given permission to

break out and 2,700 men of the original 3,600 men escaped. The two-week siege slowed Rommel’s

advance and gave the British time to recover from their defeat at the Cauldron. Hitler ordered

that all captured German political refugees were to be shot, an order which Rommel ignored.

Churchill renamed the Free French as the Fighting French. Kœnig’s brigade proved to the

Americans and the British that the French forces were a significant force against the Germans.

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In 1948, the Passy Bridge was renamed the Bir-Hakeim Bridge

in honor of France’s first military success against the Nazis.

Wikipedia

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Emile cut between two speeding automobiles with only inches to spare, turned onto the Cours la

Reine, and followed the quai along the Seine, heading west towards the Bir Hakeim Bridge. I took

down my braided hair and let it fly free in the warm wind. Emile found a shop and stopped for two

bottles of Veuve Clicquot. We parked by the river and crossed the bridge over the lazy current of the

Seine.

Île aux Cygnes - Island of the Swans - fr.wikepedia.org

I led him down a dark alley of trees which arched over the path, poplars, alders, willows, and

ash, forming a long tunnel the full length of the narrow little island.

L’Allée des Cygnes - Belles photos

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Emile started to say something, but I motioned him to be quiet.

I whispered, “Listen to the murmur of the current and the susurrus of the wind.”

“Right in the middle of the city—solitude,” he said.

“Look again,” I whispered.

Lying in the shadow of the trees, arms and legs entwined, two lovers were kissing.

“Yasmina and I come on our bikes to L’Allée des Cygnes,” I said in a hushed voice, “but only in

the daytime. I’ve never been here at night. Île aux Cygnes is actually man made.”

“I recognize it now,” Emile said. “Île aux Cygnes is the island barrier that was constructed to

protect the port of Grenelle from swift currents on the Seine.”

“Come, I’ll show you the Statue of Liberty.”

“The Statue of Liberty is in New York harbor.”

“Come, you’ll see.” I took Emile’s hand and led him to the western tip of the little isle and there

stood the Statue of Liberty 22 meters tall.

Replica of Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s La Liberté éclairant le monde - Hawe Park

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“Superb,” Emile said. While there are many statues of Bartholdi’s work in Paris, this one is the

best—surrounded by water and facing the west where so many Frenchmen fled to save their lives.”

“Once it faced east,” I said, “toward the Bastille because the statue honored not only the

American Revolution but the French Revolution. An interesting historical fact is that in Bordeaux,

1789, the year of the Revolution, Fille Mal Gardée, was the first ballet to be created about ordinary

folk rather than heroes or gods. Look at the inscription on Liberty’s tablet, inscription—4 of July 1776

and the 14 of July 1789—American Independence Day and Bastille Day.”

“Why did they change it to face the west?

“For the World’s Exposition in 1937, they turned it around to face America, which makes sense

since the statue was originally donated by the American community of Paris. La Liberté éclairant le

monde, ‘Liberty Enlightening the World’ was first proposed by Édouard René de Laboulaye, a liberal

French senator in 1865 who was a strong supporter of the Union during the American Civil War. De

Laboulaye saw the statue as not only a way of honoring the US for the abolition of slavery, but a way

of encouraging the French to demand more freedom from a repressive government.”

“It was a great propaganda idea,” Emile said. “The statue was a subliminal image to inspire the

French worker to dream of a better life.”

“You hit the nail on the head,” I said. “The idea was taken from Libertas, the goddess of

freedom worshipped by the emancipated slaves of Rome. After the Civil War, de Laboulaye headed

the French Emancipation Committee that aided freed slaves in the US. De Laboulaye’s friend, the neo-

classical sculptor, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi was excited by the idea of the goddess of freedom, but

Napoleon III’s regime was too suppressive of human rights for the idea to fly. Then the Prussians

conquered Paris and France had to recover from losing a war. It took quite a bit of time for Bartholdi

to scare up the money. But Chicago newspaperman, Joseph Pulitzer came through for Bartholdi,

starting a campaign to raise money for the statue, encouraging everyone in America to give. Even

school children gave a nickel or a dime. Since most of the contributions amounted to less than a dollar,

it could be said that Madame Liberty was built by the masses.

“It was my choice of assignments this year,” I said with a big smile. “My essay inspired

Yvonne to reward me with a new typewriter.

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“With President Ulysses Grant donating an island for Miss Liberty, Joachim Goschen Giaever,

an immigrant Norwegian-American engineer and Gustave Eiffel designing the structural framework, and

the French government paying for the shipment on the French steamer, Isère, et voila, the statue was

inaugurated 30 years after the birth of the idea with nearly a million people looking on.

Liberty Enlightening the World under construction in Paris - Tribupedia.com

La Liberté Éclairant le Monde Assemblage in Paris - 1881-1884 - DesignDeliverables

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“From the windows of the New York Stock Exchange, Wall Street traders showered the parade

with ticker tape, beginning the tradition of the ticker tape parades of New York City. Emma Lazarus,

a poet who was aiding refugees fleeing anti-Semitic slaughter in Russia, Poland, and the Ukraine,

wrote the immortal words for Madame Liberty, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses

yearning to breathe free.” But not all agreed about how free America was. An African-American

newspaper said that as long as the Klu Klux Klan was free to murder colored men and rape their wives

and daughters, the Statue of Liberty’s torch must never be lit until there was true liberty in the United

States of America.”

African-American newspaper - Nine African-Americans, The Scottsboro Boys, 13 to 20, accused in1931 of raping two white women, sentenced to death in the electric chair - University of Washington.

At that moment a tourist boat’s bright headlights swung in an arc around the Island of the

Swans creating a cascading flood of light fragmented by the leaves of the willow trees, the filigree of

shadows moving around me in a circle like a whirling net, a glittering whorl of light and shadows

shimmering like a kaleidoscope in flight. Then the lights of the boat disappeared, and the reflection

of the moon reappeared on the current of the Seine.

I sensed Emile's arm gliding around my bare shoulders and I moved ever so slightly. His arm

drew away.

“Why did you bring me here?” he asked.

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“Why did you bring me here?” he asked.

Then it dawned on me I might have carelessly misrepresented my intentions.

“You're much too old for me,” I said.”

“Then how do you see me?”

“Like a naughty uncle, who must be chastised from time to time.”

“Are you chastising me?”

“Pas encore.” I took his arm and continued our walk along the island. “You're frightfully

handsome. You cut quite a figure considering how old you are. I can see why women are crazy about

you.”

“How would you know that?”

“Oh, I just know. It's the way you look at a woman. That's what does it.”

“You certainly know a lot for a young girl.”

“I'm just a careful observer. That's what writers do—observe. I've observed you for a few

years. Besides, I'm French, a connoisseur of men.”

He sat down on the bank beside the water, opened the sack and took out the Veuve Clicquot

and two wine glasses.

“Are you a connoisseur of champagne?” he said.

“I can learn.”

I took off my shoes, carefully saving the tissue paper. “Don't let me forget my shoes. Yvonne

would be very upset.” He pulled the cork and the champagne gushed into my glass. I was thirsty and

drank it straight down.

“No. Not like that!” he cried.

“Would you like to show me the right way?”

“One sips it little by little, holding it on the tongue for a moment to savor it.”

I stretched out my legs, “Do you realize, this is the first time I've been taken out by a man?”

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“It's all of that dancing, wonderful for the legs. May I have another glass of champagne? I

feel like getting a little tipsy.”

He poured another and I leisurely tasted it on my tongue. He leaned slowly towards me, his

lips close to mine. I shifted to the right and drew further away.

“You must be careful. Fourteen-year-old girls are dangerous.”

He put his hand on mine. I could see emotions sweeping over his face.

“Don't get romantic on me,” I whispered. “Yvonne will kill you.”

“You do know you are irresistible, don't you?”

“That's why you'll need all of your self-control.”

“Why doesn't an irresistible girl like you have a boyfriend?”

“How do you know I don't?”

“Yvonne told me.”

“You've asked a really poignant question. It's just that young boys don't appeal to me.” I

drank another glass of champagne in silence.

Finally, I looked up at Emile. I'll tell you the reason why. I have someone in mind. But he's in

love with someone else.”

I slipped my nylons down my legs, rolled them up and put them in Emile's sack.

“I'm doomed to love older men.”

“But you just said that I'm too old for you.”

“I'm doomed to love older men who aren't too old.”

“Then that leaves me out?”

“That leaves you out.”

There was a little champagne left in my cup, bubbles fizzing in the bottom. I tilted my head

back, lifted my cup high and slowly poured the champagne into my mouth.

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“You're not in love with your dance teacher, are you?”

I sputtered with laughter, spraying champagne all over him.”

“Oh God, I'm sorry!”

Champagne was foaming on his eyeglasses. I took my handkerchief from my purse and wiped his

face and polished his eyeglasses.”

“If you knew monsieur Orosháza, you would understand that he is very principled. He doesn't carry

on with his students. But you've hit upon a grave problem.”

“What is that?”

“If I tell you, will you promise to tell no one?”

“I promise.”

“I'm doomed to love men who don't love me.”

Tears suddenly flooded my eyes and it was all I could do to regain my composure.

“I've given it a great deal of thought,” I said after some time. “I think it's because papa went away.

There's a big hole in me.”

“How old were you when you last saw your papa?”

“Eight.”

Emile started to say something, but I put my finger to his lips. “Shush. . . I'd rather not talk about it.

Tonight, I just want to be happy.”

Shadows were dancing on the river, moonlight fragmented by leaves, a rustling of wind in the trees.

Suddenly I felt a surge of hope.

“May I have another champagne?”

On the way back, I curled up in the seat, feeling the warm air rushing over my skin.

“I could ride around with you all night.”

“Where do you want to go?”

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“Everywhere and no place. Just drive around the city. I love the lights spinning around and

around.”

“You drank too much.”

“Let's go to my favorite bridge, Alexandre III!”

He spun the roadster around and roared along the Quai de Grenelle.

“You drive like Sterling Moss and Juan Fangio,” I cried.

“No,” he said. “I drive like Tazio Nuvolari.”

“Who’s he?”

“The greatest driver of them all. From Mantua, Italy. 'Il Mantovano Volante,’ The Flying

Mantua. He won 24 Grand Prix races, two Targa Florios, the 24 hours of Le Mans, and two Mille

Miglias. Nuvolari invented the 4-wheel-drift and won many of his races driving Alfa Romeos until he

switched to Auto Union. Ferdinand Porsche called him ‘the greatest driver of the past, the present, and

the future.”

Tazio Nuvolari racing an Alfa Romeo against the Mercedes and Auto Unions, 1935 German Grand Prix at Nürburgring.

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“Nuvolari was crazy,” Emile said laughing wildly. He did the impossible on a regular basis.He won the Mille Miglia in an Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 by over taking Achille Varzi in the dark after hisdriving lights failed.”

“Nuvolari won a race in the dark with no lights?”“I don’t have any idea how he could see in the dark, but he did. The Alfas were unbeatable in the

early 1930’s until they withdrew from racing. Alfas won the Targa Florio road race six times in a rowand the Mille Miglia from 1928 to 1938, except for 1931. But Nuvolari’s most sensational win came inthe 1935 German Grand Prix where he humiliated Hitler’s program for motor racing dominance.”

“Hitler was into motor racing?”“At the 1922 Berlin Motor Show, Hitler announced the Nazi program to develop motor racing

cars that would dominate the Grand Prix circuit. The Nazi Party invested as much as 250,000 Reichmarks per year to ensure that the Auto Unions and Mercedes would defeat the Italian Maseratis andAlfa Romeos. Hitler’s sponsorship of the 1935 German Grand Prix was comparable to the 1936 BerlinOlympics---an event that would prove the superiority of the Nazi State’s technology on the world’s mostdemanding track, the Nürburgring circuit. Completed in 1927, the Nürburgring was to be a showcasefor German automotive engineering and racing talent. At 22 kilometers in length with 174 torturousturns, the Nürburgring was a killer on the drivers. The Auto Unions and Mercedes were state-of-the-artwith 375 horsepower, and Nuvolari’s Alfa Romeo P3 Tipo B had only 265 horsepower. The Germanswere sure that Nuvolari didn’t have a chance.”

Mercedes-Benz W 125 Silver Arrow leading the 1937 German Grand Prix - Nürburgring - Media.Daimler

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“That’s over 100 horsepower less,” I said. “How could Nuvolari overcome that?“That was Nuvolari genius,” Emile shouted, his tires squealing as he accelerated out of a corner.

“At Nürburgring, he got off to a bad start but made up time climbing back to second place before hisdisastrous pit stop.”

“What happened?”“The fuel pumps broke, and the crew had to pour gasoline into the tank manually with fuel cans,

putting Nuvolari’s Alfa six minutes behind the leading Mercedes. By sheer guts, Nuvolari made up thesix minutes, driving Manfred von Brauchitch’s Mercedes-Benz Silver Arrow so hard that the German’stires burst, and Nuvolari passed the Mercedes to take the flag. 300,000 roared their approval of Nuvolari.But Hitler was outraged by the Italian’s humiliation of the German State.”

Tazio Nuvolari winning the 1930 Mille Miglia in a Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 – Hemmings

Emile is an aficionada of the automobile. He lives and breathes autos, the only intellectual I’ve

ever met who does his own engine overhauls—a necessity due to the way he drives—very fast. He once

told me the reasons that the Weber carburetor is not only on D-type Jaguars and grand prix cars, but on

Lotus and Aston Martins, Volkswagens and Citroens. When I asked, why the Weber was so efficient, he

said it was the first carburetor which could be altered to work well on a high-rpm screamer or a low-rpm

mouse. Plus, it was an elegantly simple design. When I asked how it was so simple, Emile explained that

an owner could change many components of the basic carburetor—like swapping the jets which set the

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fuel volume for varying engine loads or adjusting the venturi for air volume and velocity. Small

carburetors can be set up to act like big ones, and big carburetors can be set up to act like little ones. The

mechanic can change the pump volume, swap emulsion tubes, and adjust airflow between the two throats

feeding the carburetor. The Weber carburetor design provides a lesson for the inventor—search for the

design which gives the greatest degree of flexibility while remaining the simplest solution.

When Emile pulled up to the Alexandre III Bridge, I jumped out and climbed onto the base of one of

the cast iron sculptures of the street lamps.

Tsar Alexandre III Bridge. Beaux-Arts Design with Art Nouveau Lamps, Nymphs, and Winged horses - 1896 – 1900 - Catarina Belova

He jumped out to stop me, but I was so quick I'd already climbed high up the pole—a tipsy

ballerina spinning around the pole. In one direction I could see the Grand Palais and, in the opposite, the

glistening dome of St Louis des Invalides. Like a whirling dervish, I spun around and around the pole,

singing an Edith Piaf song.

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Beneath the Parisian sky

A joyous river flows

That lulls the tramps

And beggars to sleep

Beneath the Parisian sky.

Suddenly everything was spinning around even though I was no longer moving. Emile climbed up to

pull me down. I heaved and vomited all over him. He laid me down on the pavement and I threw up

again on his shoes. He got a towel out of his trunk and began wiping his trousers. He smelled terrible.

Suddenly he fell down laughing until tears came into his eyes, laughter so violent I thought he was going

to choke. He collapsed on the pavement laughing and laughing. For a brief moment, Emile was freed

from the prison of his tightly coiled soul

This city belongs to ghosts, to murderers, to sleepwalkers.

Where are you, in what bed, in what dream?

— Marguerite Yourcenar

Remy Musser

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