Being dependent on chocolate to keep me going in tough circumstances, I ripped off my coat, sat down on the bed, and buried my face in my hands. I stayed that way a long time, and then got up, put my coat back on, and went to the Louvre. I had no job interviews of my own that day, despite my best, most humiliating efforts; and I had six more hours to kill until Sébastien got home from his fantastic job for the best graphic illustration firm in Paris. I was writing articles, sometimes sold and sometimes not, and I was trying to get taken on as a restaurant reviewer for a local English language publication—a job that paid only in meals but would be a lot of fun. But those did not really fill the hole this move had created in my life. I wasn’t mad that Sébastien had the job he loved and colleagues he raved about while I seemed to have no hope of ever working again, really, I wasn’t, but . . . it didn’t seem fair. And I was damned if I would sit six hours alone in that tiny apartment with a cat who had just destroyed my chocolates. One of us would have to go out the window.

Besides, there’s no better place to be on a rainy winter day than the Louvre. In the Louvre, light, space, and beauty are concentrated to such intensity that visitors wallow in a daze, drowned by it. Pale and vast and filled with the soft natural light of Peter Rice’s skylight—a light that maintains its luminosity no matter how gray the day outside—the Cour Marly alone is the most blessed architectural feat in the history of urbanity. Pale stairs climb up three plazalike levels, and live trees intersperse with dramatic statues, heightening the sense of a sunlit, peaceful park. Best of all, even at the height of tourist season, I never see more than a half-dozen people in all this space at one time. I would have thought most of Paris would have a pass to the Louvre, as I did, just so they could go into the Cour Marly whenever they wanted, sit, and close their eyes. Sometimes I could stay there an hour without moving, just feeling the space, the light, the gentle echoes, like a waterfall in the background, of those few people moving around, looking at the hearts and souls of some of humanity’s greatest artists, poured into physical form for us to keep.