France in 17 Pictures, Part 4
The next day we took the metro to Montmartre, a hilly area where artists used to live and the setting for the movie Amalie. When we got out of the station, we walked one way - bought a baguette and some drinks to carry, but didn't find our cross street - then walked the other way, back past the station - but still didn't find the cross street. Then Toby looked UP, and found that we needed to be behind the station, up a steep flight of stairs. The whole area is like that; it reminded me of San Francisco, where every time you turn around, you see a vista below you.
We climbed up a street, and up another street, heading for a cafe called the Lapin Agile. We just wanted to see it, although the guide book rather gave the impression that you would be looking at what remained of a once-authentic enterprise.
It was a pretty building, parked halfway up a steep hill (see the picture, above), with a sign that showed a rabbit leaping out of a frying pan, holding a bottle of wine. This sign, designed by a humorist named Andre Gill, caused the cafe to be rechristened La Lapin a Gill, a pun on the artist's name. Picasso painted a famous painting of it, and apparently it used to be quite the raunchy place.
Across the street is the only vineyard inside Paris. It's tiny, for a vineyard. Apparently, it produces a small amount of bad wine every year, and they have a big festival. Why not? If I could produce even a carafe of bad wine in my back yard, I'd have a festival.
Up hills and down, looking for a spot the guide book said was the best for looking over Paris. I bought a few scarves to give as gifts, and some really horrifying postcards of little big-eyed children carrying baguettes, showing their underpants and peeing in view of the Eiffel Tower. It seems that public urination is an important human right in Paris.
We found the spot and Toby took twenty or so pictures. We were right below the stepped plazas in front of Sacre Couer, a church famous for its beauty. We hadn't meant to go inside, anticipating the sort of lines we saw in front of Notre Dame, but there weren't any, so I asked Toby if we could.
It was incredibly beautiful, all the more so for being lagniappe - lit by a thousand candles, with soaring vaults and angels at the ceiling, and a mass going on with nuns singing in plein chant. I lit a candle for Elliot and for Stone and Holt, and I took the little plastic holder from the space I took to give to Linton and Jan.
Something happened to me there. We sat down to listen to the Mass, not in the pews but in the folding chairs, and I cried for a while. I'm not sure what it was - the otherworldly flickering light, the voices, the surprise of it - but I felt both hurt and hopeful about my divided mind. I thought about how tired I am of my struggle to guide myself, to be sure of a path. I decided to let go of all that and try, above all, to be of one mind.
Toby is used to me, and didn't ask me what was wrong or push me to finish up. After about thirty minutes, we got up and walked the rest of the way around the church and out and down the steps. I didn't want to talk about it, and he didn't ask.
Down and down again, stopped to buy some key rings with Eiffel Towers on them, the quintessential Paris souvenir, and at the bottom of the hill we found a carousel with two stories, something I've never seen before. It was highly decorated, like a fancy cake.
More walking took us past a house where Van Gogh once lived with his brother Theo.
Our plan was to visit the Museum of Erotica, which sounded, in the guidebook, tasteful and interesting, but turned out to be on a street that was otherwise inhabited by strip clubs and seedy sex shops with unappealing, dusty and embarrassing merchandise in their windows. Did I mention that in Montmartre, there are condom machines mounted on the outside of buildings? I had never seen that before - inside a restroom, yes, but not on a street corner. Anyway, while I was deciding whether I wanted to go into the museum - the museum shop, visible from the door, was kind of creeping me out - it closed, saving me the decision.
I was really exhausted and could hardly talk on the metro home. Toby said he'd never seen me so tired, too tired to speak. But an hour of reading at home on the couch and eating some cookies perked me up again. We went out at 9:00 for dinner, walked right down the street to a table on a plaza at an Italian restaurant. It was so romantic and French to be eating Pasta Puttanesca at 10 p.m. under a street light. I ordered for us in French and had an effortful exchange with the waiter about "sauge." Toby didn't want to order something he didn't recognize. It turned out to be sage, and the waiter had me repeat the English word for him several times.
Why don't American cities have plazas with cafe tables in them? It would improve things so much. The streets in the Marais are so narrow that no one can drive very fast. There are a lot of bikes, scooters and motorcycles instead. It makes for a very livable street life.