NEW INNOCENTS ABROAD
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caution, that I had better check these impressions with a few friends.
When I begin to ask Kaplan about these things, he nods assent
but immediately launches into a general lament on the neighborhood
of St. Gennain des Pres and its degradation since
Life
magazine
wrote an article that brought the flood of American tourists there.
Kaplan says "mon Paris" like an old Parisian speaking of the avenues
and costumes of the 1890's.
His
Paris is the Paris of the Liberation
in 1945, when, to be sure, the American anny was there, but no
tourists, and the French were ready to receive certain intelligent
young Americans with curiosity and joy. There are almost tears in
Kaplan's eyes .as he speaks of those bygone days and quiet quarters.
Nor can I get very much out of Abel these days, for he seems to be
obsessed lately with only one theme, that Being and Nothing are the
same in Heidegger, and that this is Heidegger's real secret, and he
repeats this so often that I can no longer believe I have heard in–
correctly.
Tonight, more than ever, it is difficult to ask the questions I
want to, for I arrive at the restaurant a little late and the two of
them are already plunged into their own conversation, and when
these two get into a conversation, it is not easy to interrupt them. I
listen, thinking that one of these conversations ought to be staged in
an auditorium before .a large crowd, for here surely are two of the
most remarkable performers of our time. They bring out each other
because they are so different. Abel, the charming old-world bohemian
from Eighth Street, and Kaplan, flamboyantly dressed, looking like
an impresario of the arts or a young diplomat in a relaxed moment.
Looking .at Kaplan, I think of the world of high diplomacy and–
Hollywood. With his green tweed jacket and yellow silk shirt open at
the neck, he looks vaguely like one of filmdom's more brilliant young
directors; and for a moment I have the fantasy that if there were
a megaphone on that empty chair beside him, we and this conversa–
tion would be immediately transported to Hollywood. Tonight
Kaplan has elected to step immediately into Abel's world, and such
is his mastery of any area of existence that he moves here too com–
pletely at home.
They are at it hammer and tongs, talking about Michel Leiris'
L'Age dJhomme J
which I haven't read, so that I am automatically
excluded from the conversation. This book is an autobiography
in
