Rooftop Soliloquy - Places in the book. Photos of Paris

Anyone who has spent time in Paris will recognize the neighborhoods and the monuments scattered about the novel like furniture in a room where a wild drama is being lived. Those unfamiliar with the city will learn its textures from the flesh to the marrow. One becomes a Parisian reading this book.

"The Place Saint Germain-des-Prés"

Here the novel begins! ...Although this daytime photo taken in autumn depicts the place near the Christian Dior shop and the cathedral completely deserted; that evening back in summer, this square was vibrant and alive; the moon was full, there was champagne and ravishing French beauties in abundance.

"Theseus kills the Minotaur in the Tuileries"

"That day, I walked among the statues in the park and saw Theseus wrestling the Minotaur in the Jardin des Tuileries." ...The narrator is exhausted from nocturnal adventures as he passes through the garden on his way to St-Germain to get some sleep..

"Newspaper Kiosk on Blvd Saint Germain"

Apartment house on the Place de la Madeleine

The magazine kiosk in front of the Café de Flore in Saint Germain is where the narrator bought a newspaper one sunny morning. He later sat at a table, turned to the "Curiosity Section"and read some, quote: "very alarming news"...his life would never be the same again!

"Place Vendome (near Daphné's apartment)"

"Now, in her new apartment near the Place Vendôme, [the narrator] and Daphné have been making love in the daytime on a little quilt spread over the floor... 'Perhaps I can see the Colonne in the center of the square,’ he thought as he opened the window."

"Molière and the Rue Thérèse"

"Now it was just Tommaso and myself, standing outside ‘Chandelles’—the famous libertine den on the rue Thérèse, not far from the Louvre. We looked at each other with eyes that said… 'How unfortunate!'"

"6 rue Montfaucon 75006"

Payne lived for one year in this building at 6 rue Montfaucon. Here: "I kissed her lips and her tiny ears and said I would be leaving Paris for a while. Then Pénélope dressed and left my place on the rue Montfaucon and I never saw her again after that."

"The Arc de Triomphe seen from Ave Foche"

View of the Arc de Triomphe from the luxurious 'Avenue Foche' where Themia lived with her little sister Pénélope. The narrator lost Pénélope in Italy and came to this Avenue in Paris to find her again and seduce her.

"Themia's apartment at 27 Avenue Foche"

27, Avenue Foche where Pénélope was living with her sister Themia.

"After breakfast one morning, I set off on foot for the Avenue Foche in hopes of finding Pénélope." (It was here at #27, Avenue Foche that Pénélope was living with her sister Themia.)

"Full moon in the Parisian sky"

“Yes, look at the moon," I said, "It’s full tonight.”
“It’s lovely,” she whispered, clutching my arm. She then laughed aloud. “It’s like a pendant on a string, that moon!”

"Meeting Tommaso at a cafe in Beaubourg"

“The sun hissed with foul breath when, in Beaubourg, I arrived. Beaubourg: that spoiled quarter—singular wasteland which one hastens to overpass as soon as one has entered it"

"La Fontaine de l'Observatoire" in the Gardens.

The gardens in autumn, where the narrator went walking with Anne... "Weaving between the sodden mounds in autumn rain, we sought no umbrella, nor did we brush the moist leaves that clung to the wool of our shoulders."

"La Madeleine"

“It was a mild and cloudless night, following an evening of black-skied showers, the kind of autumn night that fills city-dwellers’ hearts with poetry and gives songs to those who wander alone.”

"The 'Bone Shop' at 8 quai de la Mégisserie"

ABOVE: The film-covered window and grimy façade of 'The Bone Shop' (across from the Seine at 8 quai de la Mégisserie). Here, the narrator planned his masterpiece and plotted a murder, all on account of an innocent girl named Pénélope.

"Plants & Animaleries on the Quai de la Mégisserie"

Outside 'The Bone Shop' where one finds "rows of potted plants and flower bulbs on rusted nursery stands [...] to the right were the bustling animaleries with their crates of hopping rabbits, live birds, and other critters ready to be sold."

"La Conciergerie - View from 'The Bone Shop'"

across the river from the guillotines of The Conciergerie

Across the street from the Bone Shop, the early morning bouquinistes sell books and tchotchkes to tourists. In the distance, La Conciergerie crowns the Île de la Cité. It was here that Marie Antoinette lost her head (along with two poor characters from the novel).

"L'Entracte Café"

"I found myself the night before at the Café L'Entracte across the street from the Opéra." That night, the narrator would come to meet an itinerant young girl named Katell, with whom he would have an affair.

"Sibylle's apartment at La Madeleine"

“Apartment house on the Place de la Madeleine, where Sibylle's apartment was located. A tragic death occured in this building, once sweet Sibylle had left for Argentina and a famous movie director decides to have a "Last Supper" in this building.

"Full moon over the Métro at Trocadero"

Roman Payne tells in unpublished notes of a hurried narrator who passes under the full moon and metro signpost at Trocadero one night

“He ran up the métro steps and stopped to take breath beneath the sign. Through the branches of the night trees, the full moon shone white and cold. The smell of the old woman's perfume--a mixture of rose-oil and verveine--permeated the foulard on his neck. He thought of her body sleeping in the abandoned room on the rue de Passy...."