PARIS LETTER
279
districti, where the CP presents itself ali " the most dogged defender
of
private property," to quote one of its election panels in the Vosges.)
Reading
L'Humanite,
this winter, was like reading the
Canard enchaine,
except that one had to supply one's own humor.
For a while, during the Blum ministry, much of this special type
of humor disappeared from French political life. The Communists, as
usual, were against the government, but this time they were not part
of it, so that their opposition had something of a straight face. To be sure,
they
voted
for the government, but it has recently become a dictum in
this Marxian country that one always votes in favor of that which one
opposes. And when the anti-inflation campaign caught the popular
imagination, and it became quite clear that practically everyone was in
favor of the Blum ministry, everyone voted against it and returned to the
coalition set-up which everyone dislikes. This, no doubt, is what
L'Hu–
manite
means by negating the negation. Now, in any event, Pierre Herve
can return to the exhilarating game of denouncing the government
which exists only by virtue of his party's support.
I
suppose you are impatient with all this gay talk about
L'Huma–
nite's
dialectics and would like to hear something serious, about Paris–
in-the-spring, for example. Besides, K told me to keep off the subject
of politics, about which French women (whom he admires, the traitor)
insidiously pretend to know nothing. Well, Paris is indeed still here and
we still like to drive through it at two o'clock in the morning and let
ourselves be overwhelmed by its beauty. Ever since Caesar found the
Parisii living,
I
imagine, like so many
coqs en pate
on their charming
little islands in the Seine, these people have been busy furbishing and
refurbishing their city, creating new patterns out of the old with (despite
some errors and many disasters) so happy a blend of conservatism and
originality, so constant a sense of form and function, that today we not
only like to drive through Paris at two o'clock in the morning, but also
to walk through it, bicycle through it, and even buy vegetables in it.
Materfamilias though
I
be, buying vegetables has always left me cold
(I hate nature) , but buying vegetables in Paris is an excuse for going
to the celebrated Rue Mouffetard, which is the best market street in our
neighborhood. And now that spring is (hesitantly) here, the Rue Mouf–
fetard bustles and shouts and swirls with such a profusion of good odors
and humorous, sensual faces that one almost forgets to look up at the
marvelous line of old houses, as the street turns at the Place de Ia Con–
trescarpe and winds downhill toward the Seine. This is not the Paris
of the postcards, the splendor and grandeur one drives through; it is
the Paris of the
petit peuple;
and the one, by the way, would be quite
pointless, merely "picturesque," without the other. But
I
mmt confess
to an inverted snobbery which makes me prefer the handsome quarters
when the beau monde is fast asleep, and the Rue Mouffetard (or the
