You have to be--or grow--catholic in your tastes if you want to enjoy what Paris at nightfall offers. Of course in the beginning you look for certain things. You have a goal: tracing the city walls from old Lutetia to Henri IV; seeking traces of mediaeval days; spotting Renaissance architecture; visiting historic spots or buildings associated with famous names or events; reconstructing Paris of the Revolution; or following the characters of Victor Hugo through _Les Misérables_. Before long you join all these goals, and jump from architecture to history, from history to literature. In the end, every walk you take is the observation of living people inseparable from an incomparably picturesque setting. It may take a long time to realize that your primary interest is humankind. But when you do the world is a kaleidoscope presenting new pictures, wherever you may be, each more fascinating than the one that preceded it.
"Seek and ye shall find" is a promise with a condition attached to it. You have to look before you see. An effort of the will is required. Without that effort, impressions are false or transitory or give no reaction that sinks deep. We passed close to Messina just after the earthquake. The captain of our ship obligingly slowed down to quarter-speed. Passengers crowded against the rail on the Sicilian side of the straits.
"Why, Messina is all right!" someone cried. "The newspapers have been exaggerating again."
"Wait," suggested a lawyer. He got out his opera glasses. Others did the same. As we studied Messina from the sea, and looked for the deep fissures, the crumbling walls, we found them all along the coast. The American soldier who told me, "Since I been in France I ain't seen nothing but kilometres and rain," was not looking for anything else.
Strolling after dark helps to bring into the foreground the human element in the picture of Paris streets. Your field of vision is limited. You do not see too many things at once. And you have to keep your eyes open. Many a quaint corner, many a building, is less often missed at nightfall than during the day.
Paris is divided into arrondissements, each one with its local administration, its _maire_, its _mairie_, its postal service, and its police. The postal authorities have tried in vain to insist upon the placing of the arrondissement indication upon the letters. But they have never had much success. It is enough to remember where your friends live without having to keep in mind twenty different arrondissements! Before the war your arrondissement meant little to you, and you often did not know its number if you wanted to be married, to register the birth of a new baby, or got into difficulties with the police. Since the war, residents in Paris came to know their own arrondissements because of bread tickets, passports, income-tax declarations and other annoyances. But in planning your walks at nightfall, it is helpful to take a map of Paris and know something about the divisions of the city. We started our explorations by hazard, and then found to our astonishment that we had been going from one arrondissement to another, practically following the numerical order.