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Paris had its moments: the French were generally amicable, but I'm sure that her impressive command of their language helped us out a lot. I’d heard stories of less prepared tourists who were basically stranded in a city of people who understood English but refused to speak it on principle alone. The city tended to smell like a thousand years of humanity... the same way all the old cities smelled throughout Europe, to one degree or another. I guess that being in love and abroad makes things seem a little better, though, the
dust and soot take on a charm of their own, and they’re part of a place's personality, not negligence or disrepair on the part of the city's inhabitants.
Paris was a city filled with waste, dust and soot, undoubtedly, but it was also filled with smells like green hay, candle wax, and melting butter. Dark, dusty library basements. Steam rising on cobblestone pathways. It was one of those
places that you loved to visit, but you'd never want to live there; the veneer seemed a little too thin in
places and the perfection rested a little bit too far across the line: on the fairy tale side of things. But that's what made it perfect, that morning as I watched the city come alive from our balcony, as she alternated between chewing her nails with utmost concentration and dropping halved strawberries into her glass of
champagne seemingly without any interest at all. |
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