Chasing Panofsky on Rue de la Seine
Before I fell in love with Paris, I slept inside her memories.
The play was over. The lights dimmed, and the celebrations began — a full week of sold-out performances at Théâtre Les Ateliers in Lyon. After too much wine and the kind of laughter that only comes when things go beautifully right, I found myself alone in my hotel room, packing.
I wasn’t going home. I was going to Paris. This would be my first time as an adult in the City of Light.
At the time, light — and sound — were quite literally my livelihood. I made a living rigging stages and setting scenes. But this trip wasn’t for work or pleasure. It was a mission from the heart.
My girlfriend back in Rome, an art history student, had tracked down a rare manuscript mentioned by Panofsky — an original copy housed in a bookstore on Rue de Seine. The owner agreed to let someone photograph a few pages, but only on-site, with gloves, and under supervision.
That someone had become me.
The things you do for love.
I boarded a brand-new TGV at Lyon station. It looked like a sleeping snake, ready to slither across the countryside at a speed I had never experienced. I settled into my seat, watching the scenery race past like a living painting. I thought of Paris — what I’d find, what I’d feel, what I’d say when I arrived among its boulevards.
There were no answers. Just fields of grain and rows of trees waving in the spring heat.
When we pulled into Gare de Lyon, a voice came over the speakers — “Bienvenue à Paris, Paris Gare de Lyon” — warm, sultry, and so unmistakably French that it stunned me. It felt like Paris was flirting. Was it a premonition? The start of a new love story?
I had no hotel reservation, of course. That wouldn’t have been very me. At the time, nothing in my life was planned — no schedule, no permanent address, no five-year goals. I just lived. Floated. Stumbled through days with more freedom than was probably healthy. Almost homeless, but not quite. Always supported by a web of friends and strangers who took me in.
Eventually, I found a small Italian-French hotel near Rue Eugène Gibez, not far from the Convention metro stop. I rang the bell. An older Italian couple answered — kind-faced, but matter-of-fact.
“You can stay,” they said, “but only for two nights. We’ve sold the hotel. Friday will be our last day.”
“You mean... I’ll be staying the very last night?”
“Yes,” the woman said. “You’ll be our only guest.”
I didn’t know what to say. The price was right. The bed was creaky. The walls were lined with old wood, the sink leaned into a dark corner. But the room felt alive — like it had watched people for decades, and now it was watching me. The wallpaper shimmered in the dim light, whispering stories I couldn’t quite hear, though some felt oddly close to my own. It wasn’t eerie — just a quiet reminder that many had come before me.
The next morning came quickly. I rode the metro to Rue de Seine, slipped on archival gloves, and held the manuscript in my hands. I took photos, scribbled notes, stared at the ink and the weight of history. The bookstore owner smiled.
“If you like,” he said, “you can buy it.”
I smiled back. “A little out of my price range, I’m afraid.”
Outside, I walked in a kind of daze. It was hard to believe any of it was real — that someone like me, a stagehand vagabond, had been trusted with something so rare. That I had helped someone I loved finish something that mattered.
Wandering aimlessly, I suddenly found myself standing before the great gates of the École des Beaux-Arts. I stopped, overwhelmed by something I couldn’t name. The place stirred something in me — as if it were trying to say something I would only come to understand years later. I took one last breath, one last look, and walked away.
Back at the hotel, the couple greeted me like a long-lost son. Their faces looked a little more fragile — probably from the weight of the farewell ahead. They handed me a baguette stuffed with ham and cheese, and two warm beers. I thanked them, touched by their kindness, and slowly climbed the stairs back to my room.
“This is my last night in Paris,” I thought. “And the hotel’s last night too.”
We were sharing an intimate goodbye.
I lay in bed, crumbs on the sheets, the evening light fading to a soft, silvery blue across the ceiling. But sleep never came. The walls were too alive. They still had stories to tell.
I imagined the lives they’d witnessed — lovers whispering first confessions, immigrants from the south crying softly, travelers passing through. Joy, longing, goodbyes, reunions, affairs. All of it trapped in the wallpaper, and now — for one final night — shared with me.
So I gave them something back. My stories, my memories, my voice. I let the walls have them, so that when the wallpaper was peeled and the bricks exposed, a piece of me would remain — tangled among the many who had come and gone before.
The next morning, I ran back to the station and boarded a slower, dustier train back to Rome — counting coins, hoping they’d last for one last espresso. As the train rumbled away, I felt my feet pull backward toward the doors. Was that Paris? I wondered.
Prologue
The hotel was eventually sold to Ibis, the European hotel chain. It reopened for a time, then closed again — not enough business, they said. It remains closed to this day.
As for me, I went back to Paris many times. I had my own troubling love story with her. But that’s another kind of manuscript — and not one I was sent to retrieve.