Paris: The Novel

too. But there was nothing else. Nothing at all.
    “You said the other day that you’d never been to the Jardin des Plantes,” she said.
    “I haven’t.”
    “This is a good time of year to go there. It’s rather dull in winter. Telephone me, and I’ll take you there.”
    “Thank you. I will.”
    A week passed. Then another. But he had not called.
    Claire saw him. Marie and Marc were talking in the office one day when Claire put her head around the door and asked her uncle if he’d ever heard of an artist called Chagall. He hadn’t and asked her why.
    “He may be someone to watch. I met him the other night, in a crowd of people up at Montmartre.”
    “Was anyone there that I do know?” Marc inquired.
    “Hemingway.”
    “Was Frank Hadley there?” asked Marie.
    “Yes. I said hello, but I hardly spoke to him. He and Hemingway were arguing about something or other.”
    Marie said nothing. Perhaps she should call him herself. Perhaps not. She hadn’t heard a word from Roland de Cygne yet, either, though he was sure to be back in Paris by now.
    She was feeling rather deserted when, a few days later, Claire came into her office and asked if Frank had got through to her on the telephone.
    “He was trying to reach you, but he got me instead. He said you’d offered to take him to the Jardin des Plantes. Why don’t we all go this Saturday?”
    “Ah,” said Marie, and shrugged. “If you like.”

    They all had lunch at the Brasserie Lipp: Marc and Marie, Claire and Frank. Marc chose the Brasserie Lipp because it was conveniently close on the boulevard Saint-Germain, and Frank hadn’t been there before. “It’s an institution,” Marc explained. “You can’t make a reservation. It doesn’t matter who you are. But if they say you’ll have a table in ten minutes, then you will.”
    The brasserie specialized in German and Alsatian food. Marc and Frank ate sausages, and sauerkraut, washed down with German beer; the women ate cassoulet, and drank the dry Riesling of Alsace. When they had all eaten and drank too much, they came out of the brasserie and made their way eastward along the boulevard a little way before turning right into the big curving slope of the rue Monge.
    “This is part of the hill of Roman Lutetia,” Marc reminded Frank. “If you haven’t seen it, the old Roman arena’s coming up on our left in a few minutes.”
    They walked slowly, Marc and Marie side by side, Frank and Claire a little ahead.
    “They make a handsome couple, don’t you think?” Marc said quietly to his sister.
    “I was a little nervous about him,” Marie said. “But I don’t think they’re interested in each other.”
    Marc glanced at her.
    “I wouldn’t be sure of that,” he replied. “She’s certainly in love with him. I saw that at Fontainebleau.”
    “You did? When she saw him up at Montmartre, she said they scarcely spoke.”
    “What if he were serious about her? What if he wanted to marry her?”
    “And take her away to America? A Frenchwoman in America?”
    “She’s half English, for a start. Would you have gone at her age, if you’d been asked?”
    Marie did not answer. She frowned. Her mind was in a whirl. Was Marc right? Was that why Frank had suddenly drawn back? Was Claire closer to Frank than she realized? Was her daughter deceiving her? She was still lost in these questions when they came to the site of the old Roman arena.
    “Paris was always supposed to have had a Roman arena, but nobody even knew exactly where it was until about sixty years ago,” Marc told Frank. “They started building a depot for tramcars on the site and came upon the remains. We’re still excavating, but as you see, the arena itself was a circle, with a semicircle of stone seats around one side of it. So they could have put stage plays on here as well.”
    “It’s a fair size,” Frank remarked.
    “You could imagine between fifteen and twenty thousand spectators. About right for a significant Roman town.”
    Claire was staring at the open central space. It was gray and dusty. There was a blank wall of an apartment building overlooking it.
    “There seems something bleak about it,” she remarked. “Did they have gladiators? People were killed here?”
    “Of course,” said her uncle. “This was the Roman Empire. Our classical tradition is splendid, but it was always harsh.”
    Frank walked out into the center of the big circle and looked around it thoughtfully. Claire went to stand beside him, and