Notre Dame from a bench
in Square René Viviani

One day last week it was so warm I didn’t need to wear my coat out but today, I put it back on, gloved my hands, and within the first 2 minutes of the walk to school regretted not wearing a scarf. After our phonetics exam, I scurried across the little park opposite the Seine from Notre Dame that encloses the oldest tree in Paris, passed through the Shakespeare and Co.‘s green facade and climbed the narrow creaking stairs on the back wall to read in a squat, tired armchair.

Il pleut.
Pont d'Arcole

Five days a week, I go to this rumpled little library for 45 minutes between my phonetics and grammar class to read from a work of Henry James. I’ve finished rereading Daisy Miller but, now midway through Portrait of a Lady, the book has disappeared. When I sit down in the chair, it is always waiting by my right ear, a position I assigned to it after rescuing it from a team of volumes used to prop up a three legged desk. Today, someone was in my chair and the book’s rightful place was erroneously filled. Much to the annoyance of three other readers and a writer, I, annoyed myself, searched every shelf—there are not very many—but could not find the work or another copy.