Margaret of the North (16 page)

"I have never seen such concentrated
reconstruction of a major city."  John said as they surveyed the chaos
that awed them into silence.

"Why do you suppose they are
making streets so wide?"

"To improve circulation
within the city, I assume.  This rebuilding is exciting but it must have meant
quite an upheaval for many Parisians.  It is controlled chaos, in any
case."

"Perhaps, it is exciting but
what happened to what was here before?  They must have torn down a lot of old
buildings.  I read about the narrow curving streets of Paris, teeming with life
and people, about neighborhood cafes where they met and talked.  It sounded so
vibrant, a place where lives touched and crossed paths everyday.  Why, much of
it might be gone!"  Margaret felt increasingly sad as she spoke.

"That may very well be but
after this is all done, I will wager on Paris developing into one of the most,
if not the most, modern and vital city for some time to come."

"But what do you think
became of the residents of those old narrow streets, displaced from a way of
life they were accustomed to?  And what of the old buildings that were on those
streets?"  Margaret persisted, her voice subdued with sadness.

"I don't know.  Perhaps, we
can find out at the hotel."

John had arranged for a hotel
conveniently situated on rue de Rivoli, in a prosperous commercial district, a
short walk not only to the river but also to some of the city's major
monuments, the Musée du Louvre and two well-known Gothic churches, the
cathedral of Notre Dame, and the Sainte Chappelle, famed for its colorful glass
windows.  The concierge also bragged about the new gaslights recently installed
in the area and how beautiful the city was at night when those lights were
turned on.  On this, their very first visit, such inducements were too strong
to resist and as they finished a light supper at their hotel, Margaret
declared.  "I would like to go for a walk tonight."

"Are you sure?  Are you not
tired?  We have had a long day of traveling from London."

"The night air will revive
me.  My father had a friend, a Frenchman he met at Oxford, who talked in much
detail about the area around the river, the two tiny islands, and the
Cathedrale de Notre Dame on one of them, on the Ile de la Cité.  He said this
section of Paris was vibrant and fascinating for both its people and
architecture.  I am rather eager to see how much I could recognize from what he
had described."

He studied her countenance, eyes
bright and lips slightly parted from anticipation, and he could not but
acquiesce.  "Well, in that case, we should ask the concierge the best way
to the river."

They proceeded on a path towards
the Seine, the river that divided the city into the Rive Droite where their
hotel was located and the Rive Gauche on the opposite side.  They went along
its banks, then up one of its bridges, towards the Ile and the cathedral, its
two towers still visible in the evening and rising majestically from the
distance, dominating the landscape of the city.  They were informed by the
hotel concierge that in Paris, finding their way out of any neighborhood was
never a problem, that whenever they thought they were lost, all they needed to
do was look up, take a direction towards the cathedral and, from there, trace
their way back to the hotel.

The lights delighted Margaret. 
They drew people out to stroll in places that they might otherwise have feared
too dangerous to venture into at night.  Evening strollers like them, who
walked towards the Seine, found their reward on its gently rippling surface
which offered up the city in enchanting images, golden reflections that, in the
darkness, would have been swallowed in the water's depth.  John and Margaret
joined other strollers as they paused, entranced by the city's ever varied
images skimming the river's glassy surface—first, while they stood for some
minutes on one of the bridges that crossed the river and several times later,
while they ambled along the riverbank.  Once in a while, they looked up from
the dancing reflections to the matching structures, standing solid and
immovable.  But even on this walk, the tentacle of reconstruction wound its
way, by the tip of the Ile de la Cité on the Rive Gauche where a medieval
building was undergoing major work.

At their leisurely pace, they
arrived nearly an hour later at the cathedral, its soot-smudged exterior
magnificent even in the evening darkness.  They stood for some minutes peering
in the dark at the two towers, the circular relief between them, the statues
that went across in a row on the whole façade and those surrounding the
portals.  Small spots of light peeking out through the open doors beckoned them
in.  Illuminated only by a few candles at the main altar and with fewer still
scattered along the side altars, the light inside was hardly stronger than
outside but it was enough for them to see the choir, the marble statue of Mary
in the altar behind it and the massive striated columns that supported a nave
rising to an impressive height.  "Easily 30 meters or more," he
whispered in her ear.

To their surprise and delight,
the large circular rose window at clerestory height—its stained glass
discernible from the natural light that bathed it from above—stood out even
more in the relative darkness of the interior.  Except for a couple in working
class garb sitting on the pews, the church was nearly deserted, services having
probably concluded some time before.  John and Margaret decided to return the
next day to see the centuries-old cathedral in its full grandeur.

They walked a little more briskly
back to their hotel, charmed by their first night in Paris, grateful and in
wonder once again that it was with each other that they were discovering the
city.  Paris, magical and even mysterious at night, seemed made for those like
them, in the throes of mutual enchantment, their shared happiness expanding
simple pleasures into grand adventures.  Nearly every night of their stay,
usually after dinner at a restaurant, they ended their day with a walk along
the river bank and up its bridges just before they returned to the hotel.

**************

Subsequent to their first
enchanting night, they saw the city change face many times during the day, its
surprises—not always pleasant—waiting in the most unexpected places.  They
returned the following day to Notre Dame and in the clarity and honesty of
light that day brought, they saw more evidence of reconstruction.  A spire was
slowly rising at the crossing on the roof of the cathedral.  Also evident were
vestiges of stone foundations immediately surrounding the cathedral, suggesting
the recent demolition of buildings that had apparently existed only a few short
paces away.  It was obvious that this flurry of activity was part of the whole
plan to modernize the city, an extensive plan that seemed not to have reached,
at least so far, all the labyrinthine neighborhoods of "Old Paris"
that Margaret had heard about, the maze of streets teeming with life.  They
were still there on the Ile de la Cité around the cathedral.

But the reality—what she saw on
those narrow streets—did not charm her in the way she had anticipated. 
Instead, she was struck by how her impressions of these Parisian streets
paralleled those she had when she first arrived in Milton, searching for a home
to lease.  These streets were cramped with people and animals and a stench hung
in the air, a stench that inhabitants of the street had probably gotten used
to.  The life of the working class who packed the houses on these narrow
winding streets was in plain view for any passerby: in the bustle that occupied
people, the wares displayed or sold on street stalls and, often, also made in
open workshops visible from the streets, the laundry hanging out of windows,
the debris occasionally thrown out on the streets, the lively concatenation of
voices and sounds.

John and Margaret left the Ile,
subdued in mood, sobered by what they witnessed.  Margaret wondered sadly if
there was as much despair in these Parisian hovels as there was in Milton. 
Abundance hand in hand with deprivation: was that the fate bought with
modernizing cities?  They headed towards the Louvre and into the museum to
soothe their spirits with pictures and sculptures for a few tranquil hours. 
Later, they walked to the Champs Elysées and their first café in Paris. 
Margaret had summoned from deep in her memory the fascinating stories about cafés
she had heard from her father's French friend and she asked the hotel
concierge, upon return from their walk on the first night, to recommend one
they should go to.  The concierge directed them to this café.

A couple of days or so into their
visit, they noticed that Parisians made a pastime of going on promenade on
early evenings and weekends.  Couples and families went on leisurely walks by
the riverbanks, along the sweeping boulevards, on the parks and gardens still
sprouting around the city, on the quays lined by numerous stalls where they
could browse through the offerings of
bouquinistes
(booksellers).  Exercise was not necessarily the principal reason for this
promenade.  The primary attraction seemed to be more of a social nature, of
being seen and discreetly scrutinizing those strollers they passed on their
path, of running into and meeting friends, and engaging them in tête-à-tête
that, for many, invariably continued in a café.  John and Margaret joined in
one day on such a promenade, going up rue de Rivoli to a public section of the
garden of the royal residential palace, the Tuilleries, and up the Champs
Elysées where they concluded their walk at another café.

As bracing as the promenade was,
they found the cafés more intriguing, an ideal setting where visitors could
idle over coffee or drinks among the French and observe them play out what
being a Parisian meant.  John and Margaret embarked on an exploration of the
many cafés where Parisians crowded to talk and debate and, in some, even to be
entertained by performers singing local airs and operatic arias.  The first one
they went to, on the concierge's suggestion, attracted the bourgeoisie and
upper classes and proved in the end to be the dullest.  The café was lively
enough and had on an air of sophistication that it drew from its clientele of
fashionable ladies and well-dressed gentlemen, who nursed glasses of wine and
chatted endlessly.  But its atmosphere was subdued compared to what John and
Margaret saw in cafés they later happened upon on their own.  Cafés were
scattered throughout the city and it was easy enough finding at least two a day
to fit in between sightseeing and where they could while away a couple of hours
or so.

After they had gone to a few,
John and Margaret realized they were particularly attracted to cafés animated
by spirited discussions and they went to as many of those as they could manage
in their stay.  The Rive Gauche nurtured many such cafés, the haunt of swarms
of artists, philosophers, and writers, mostly men, who talked and argued,
sometimes across tables.  On this side of the river were also located many
universities, their students frequently housed nearby.  These young men crammed
the cafés with the flaneurs, the philosophes, and the artistes—inimitable
observers and interpreters of the life around them.  They all gathered for
hours talking, arguing, reading, writing, sketching.  Every café had its
devotees,—individuals of similar persuasions, whether friends or strangers, who
often inhabited the same tables at certain hours.

The animated interchanges—talks,
debates, discourses—could not escape the avid curiosity of someone new to the
culture of the Parisian café, fascinated by the world around them, and had
enough facility with French as Margaret did.  She listened in when she could
and translated what she heard and understood to John.  The topics across cafés
were varied, ranging from art to politics to scientific inventions and
discoveries but everywhere, people talked about the new social order that would
derive from the massive reconstruction of Paris.

The cafés existed primarily to
serve libations, often coffee, and sometimes wine or beer, but habitués who
came nearly daily mostly sought the social interactions that invariably took
place.  Not everyone ordered a brew or a potion, and more than once, John and
Margaret saw different groups of young men—evidently students who wore their
shabby outfit like a badge—share single glasses of beer which they passed
around not too discreetly while engrossed in earnest conversations.  The
practice was not unknown to servers and proprietors who apparently tolerated
them.

At one of these cafés, Margaret
heard a group talking about an art show where a painting was creating some
scandal among both the public and the critics.  Margaret was fascinated by the
fervid arguments occasioned by the show and shortly thereafter, dragged John to
it.  The picture causing the uproar was of a nude woman on a picnic with two
well-dressed gentlemen and it was attracting people who did not usually go to
art shows.  Shortly thereafter, Margaret cajoled him into going to other
exhibits they found advertised in colorful posters plastered on café walls and
in the local journals that the hotel provided its guests.  He went along,
initially a little hesitant, but he was intrigued by his wife's absorption in
the pictures and delighted at the wide range of reactions they drew out of
her.  She stood in front of some a long time, peering at them closely,
sometimes beaming with delight and at other times grimacing and scowling.

Their forays into cafés and art
galleries took them to different neighborhoods.  Margaret was relieved to learn
on these excursions that although the full-scale renovation called for the
destruction of numerous medieval buildings, it had so far spared many venerated
old structures.  Some in bad disrepair were actually being restored, including
the Conciergerie, the historic medieval building they saw on their first
night.  The Rive Gauche was John's preferred place to search for a café to
experience the exhilarating pulse of the city while leisurely sipping a drink. 
It was in that area at a café on the Boulevard St. Michel that they spent their
last afternoon in Paris.  They sat close together, saying nothing and holding
hands, each nursing a cup of coffee for a couple of hours, already feeling
nostalgic for this, their first trip to Paris.  It was a sojourn permanently
etched in their memories with experiences they delighted in as well as the few
that brought sadness and even some sorrow.  They also knew, without uttering a
word, that they would return.  They did not expect the subsequent visits to be
as magical as their first but happy remembrances alone were worth coming back
to and reliving.