Well, and so forth. An old and—alas!—all too true tale, after whose telling a completely unleashed Scherping vanished for special treatment with Gisela, in Whores’ Alley. Schwab, however, hopped the next plane to Paris.

And now here he was. In shock treatment because of my drag-race driving (yet I can swear I drove no faster than normal, even if S. maintained that the curses and shaken fists had been provoked by my inconsiderately cutting off, dangerously passing, and illegally squeezing into gaps in the lines of cars). He clutched the dashboard, longed for his baggage, and perspired.

I had to stop at the Deux Magots—one hundred and fifty yards from his hotel—because he needed another gin and tonic to moisten his glands. Before I could catch him again, he dashed across the boulevard to the nearest drugstore. Meanwhile I got entangled in an exceedingly unpleasant argument with a motorized policeman sporting an insect-head helmet (Death’s messenger in Cocteau’s Orpheus) who was trying to flush me out of my parking space. Then S. came back with a bulky armload of big and little boxes; generously littering the street with wrappers and bits of cardboard (and ignoring the now acute risk of becoming a traffic casualty), he pulled out vials, phials, and tubes and stowed them away in his baggy trouser pockets.

In the hotel, after demanding the room in which Oscar Wilde had died (it was a different one each time), he gobbled up pills from his bare palm the way insane Nebuchadnezzar devoured grass. Even before we went for breakfast in the Rose de France on the Île de la Cité (he loved the little square that opens up to the monument of Henry IV on the bridge), he quickly had to down yet another gin and tonic. Now he was staggering along in wavy lines, which he occasionally interrupted with a surprising side step. We ordered some rosé d’oignon for our meal, and he used it first to wash down another handful of very tiny, nasty-looking tablets. Then, as he told me with a sigh of relief and a bitterly twisted mouth, he was sufficiently fortified to let Paris collapse upon him.

This was my moment. This was what I had been waiting for. I affected a bored mien. I said indolently, almost casually, “It’s chic to see you here—to welcome you in Pöseldorf parlance. (After all, stopping cold-turkey could lead to withdrawal symptoms, mightn’t it, psychological disturbances due to a sudden change of environment.) Anyway, grand that you’re here, as I said. But don’t expect too much from the therapeutic effects of a sojourn in Paris. What you see before you here—this sun-dappled, life-teeming Paris, this energetic, challenging city with its tremendous traffic and busy crowds, a city of noble tradition, of course, a French reality beyond any doubt, this shiny world that allows you only to be a marveling, admiring spectator—is nothing but a myth you have brought with you. Imported from Hamburg-on-the-Elbe. Sheer deception. Dragging the past into presence. The truth these days looks slightly different.