Ransacking Paris

by Miller, Patti

  ‘Just along there,’ I said in French, ready to hurry past. ‘You’ll be there in a second.’

  ‘Une seconde?’ she repeated, puzzled. I looked at her unfocused eyes and suddenly realised that she was blind. She needed me to be more precise. I hesitated for a moment.

  ‘I could walk with you if you like?’ I said.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘That would be good.’

  ‘You cannot see at all?’

  ‘I can see colour and general form.’

  ‘Your baby can see?’

  ‘He sees,’ she said smiling.

  We walked along chatting. Her baby looked sideways at me and I stroked his arm. When the green and blue and red pipes of the Beaubourg appeared, I said ‘Voila’ and we parted ways.

  I smiled as I walked on, absurdly pleased to have been of use. Sometimes it seems that that is enough anywhere in the world.

  Acknowledgments

  I want to acknowledge my book companions:

  Simone de Beauvoir, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, translated by James Kirkup, HarperPerennial Modern Classics, New York, 2005

  Annie Ernaux, Retour à Yvetot, Éditions du Mauconduit, Paris, 2013

  ——Une Femme, Gallimard, Paris, 1987

  Michel de Montaigne, The Essays: A Selection, translated by MA Screech, Penguin Classics, London, 1993

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Confessions, translated by JM Cohen, Penguin Classics, London, 1953

  Madame de Sévigné, Selected Letters, translated by Leonard Tancock, Penguin Classics, London, 1982

  Stendhal, The Life of Henry Brulard, translated by John Sturrock, New York Review of Books, New York, 1995

  And:

  Colette, Rainy Moon, translated by Antonia White, Penguin, London, 1976

  Antoine Compagnon, Un Été Avec Montaigne, Éditions des Équateurs, Paris, 2013

  Sarah Kofman, Rue Ordener, Rue Labat, translated by Ann Smock, University of Nebraska Press, Nebraska, 1996

  Marcel Pagnol, My Father’s Glory and My Mother’s Castle, translated by Rita Barisse, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, New York, 1986

  Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time, translated by CK Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, Vintage, London, 2002

  Voltaire, Candide, translated by John Butt, Penguin Classics, London, 1979

  I also want to acknowledge lines from ‘Stings’, in Ariel by Sylvia Plath, Faber Paperbacks, London, 1974.

  Many thanks are due to my agent, Clare Forster, for encouraging me to write the Paris book; to my publisher, Alexandra Payne, for her faith in it; and to Ian See for his insightful remarks. I also want to thank the wonderful Jo Jarrah for her brilliant editing and Bettina Richter for her endless enthusiasm and determination. And most of all, infinite thanks to Anthony Reeder, my first reader and favourite companion. I hope those dedicated to the facts will forgive the layering of time in this account of my life in Paris.

  Bookclub discussion notes are available for this book. Visit uqp.com.au and click on the Bookclub tab to download them.

  First published in 2015 by University of Queensland Press

  PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia

  www.uqp.com.au

  uqp@uqp.uq.edu.au

  www.lifestories.com.au

  © 2015 Patti Miller

  This book is copyright. Except for private study, research, criticism or reviews,

  as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced,

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  prior written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.

  Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the

  National Library of Australia

  http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/

  ISBN (pbk) 978 0 7022 5339 3

  ISBN (ePdf) 978 0 7022 5461 1

  ISBN (ePUB) 978 0 7022 5462 8

  ISBN (kindle) 978 0 7022 5463 5

  Typeset in 12/16.5 pt Bembo by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane

  Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

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