The owner didn’t remember Théo, but he had told La Grande Sauterelle she should go and see Mr. Ferlinghetti because he knew all the important people who had lived in North Beach. In the photograph, Mr. Ferlinghetti looked like a man about fifty, with a grey-and-white beard, thick eyebrows and an aquiline nose; he was wearing a white shirt open over a T-shirt and a dark vest on top of the shirt; he looked pleasant and distinguished. He was the owner of the City Lights Bookstore. The girl had asked permission to borrow the photograph, and the owner had replied that it was very dear to him because it had been taken at the Trieste; however, it was reproduced in a book they would certainly find if they went to the bookstore: the title of the book was Beat Angels.

There was a young man in charge of the bookstore. They learned from him that the owner wasn’t there just now, but that he came almost every day. He might turn up at any moment or late that afternoon or the next day. Or the day after that.

City Lights was a wonderful bookstore. Jack liked bookstores very much and one of the finest he had ever seen was called Le Bouquiniste; it had been located on a little street, Desjardins, in Quebec City, when he was a student — it didn’t exist anymore. The most wonderful of all, of course, was Shakespeare and Company. During a visit to Paris, Jack had remembered that Hemingway mentioned it in A Moveable Feast. He had gone to the address indicated, on rue de l’Odéon, but the bookstore was no longer there; it had moved. He had hunted for a long time and one fine day, as he was strolling along the quays, he suddenly noticed the famous black-and-gold sign. He liked that bookstore because it had been a meeting place for writers he held in high esteem — Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein and others — but also because there were books everywhere, and little aisles and all sorts of nooks and crannies and even a narrow staircase up to the second floor from which, on the day in question, had come the gentle air of a guitar.

At City Lights — the bookstore at North Beach, in San Francisco — the staircase led to the basement. Downstairs and up there were quantities of magazines and periodicals, in addition to the books; the poetry section was especially rich, and there were a table and chairs for people to sit and lounge.

La Grande Sauterelle was sitting downstairs reading an anarchist publication when Jack came down the old wooden stairs four at a time. He was very excited. He laid a book before her on the table and began to leaf through it, muttering something. She saw that it was Beat Angels.

“Look!” he said.

She recognized the picture she had seen on the wall of the Café Trieste.