PARTISAN REVIEW
example, prove themselves treacherous precisely because they are so
exact. The sordid French hotel room, so admirably detailed by the
camera, speaking, in its quaintness, and distance, so beautifully of ro–
mance, undergoes a sea-change, becomes a room positively hostile to
romance, once it is oneself, and not Jean Gabin, who lives there. This
is the difference, simply, between what one desires and what the
reality insists on-which difference we will not pursue except to obselVe
that, since the reasons which brought the student here are so romantic,
and incoherent, he has come, in effect, to a city which exists only in
his
mind. He cushions himself, so it would seem, against the shock of
reality, by refusing for a very long time to recognize Paris at all, but
clinging instead to its image. This is the reason, perhaps, that Paris
for so long fails to make any mark on him; and may also be why, when
the tension between the real and the imagined can no longer be sup–
ported, so many people undergo a species of breakdown, or take the
first boat home.
For Paris is, according to its legend, the city where everyone loses
his
head, and his morals, lives through at least one
histoire d'amour,
ceases, quite, to arrive anywhere on time, and thumbs his nose at th!!
Puritans-the city, in brief, where all become drunken on the fine, old
air of freedom. This legend, in the fashion of legends, has this much
to support it, that it is not at all difficult to see how it got started.
It is limited, as legends are limited, by being-literally-unlivable, and
by referring to the past. It is perhaps not amazing, therefore, that this
legend appears
to
have virtually nothing to do with the life of Paris
itself, with the lives, that is, of the natives, to whom the city, no less
than the legend, belong. The charm of this legend proves itself capable
of withstanding the most improbable excesses of the French bureau–
cracy, the weirdest vagaries of the'
concierge,
the fantastic rents paid for
uncomfortable apartments, the discomfort itself, and, even, the great
confusion and despair which is reflected in French politics-and in
French faces. More, the legend operates to place all of the inconven–
iences endured by the foreigner, to say nothing of the downright misery
which is the lot of many of the natives, in the gentle glow of the
picturesque, and the absurd;
so
that, finally, it is perfectly possible–
for a greater, or longer time--to be enamored of Paris while remaining
totally indifferent, or even hostile to the French. And this is made
po6sible by the one person in Paris whom the legend seems least to
affect, who is not living it at all, that is, the Parisian himself. He, with
his
impenetrable
politesse,
and with techniques unspeakably more direct,
keeps the traveler at an unmistakable arm's length. Unlucky indeed, as
well as rare, the traveler who thirsts to know the lives of the people-
