Paris:- Monday, 24. February 1997:- I remember a certain wintry, grey early Saturday morning in December 1981. I had just flown in from Bonn, and it was my first time seeing Paris. I recall the sights, the smells, the sounds, the atmosphere.

Two months earlier I had moved from the States to London. Everything was new to me: my job, my flat, my travels - my having to think twice to avoid being flattened before crossing a street. Business took me to Germany one Friday.Winter storms closed the airports late in the afternoon. I could not return to London. So the next morning I flew to Paris instead.

My only guide was a 1979 copy of 'Europe on $25 (or was it $50?) A Day.' Armed with this I proceeded with the confidence and wonder of the true amateur. I was unprepared for what I would find and for what Paris would forever mean to me.

What struck me first were the smells. The buttery, sugary air from the crepe vendors. The harsh exhausts from the cars and busses. The roasting chickens and ripe cheeses in the markets. The urban ozone smell in the métro. And the strangely attractive smell of Gauloise cigarette smoke coming from small bars on every corner.

The color of Paris that day was grey; a symphony of grey. The Seine was a deep, charcoal-brown as it rushed past, gorged with the runoff and flotsam from the winter rains. The Pont Neuf was a softer, lighter grey accented with hurrying figures wrapped in their dark winter clothes. The rooftops were a wet, shiny, slate grey. And the clouds were a uniform leaden dome enclosing the city on all sides. Inside shops there were bright lights and colors, but the only color other than grey outside was a blast of jarring green from the cross in front of the occasional pharmacy.

I walked to the Jeu de Paume. There the colors of the Impressionists' masterpieces fought valiantly to emerge from that under-lit museum made darker by the overcast outside. The sculptures at the Rodin Museum had an easier time of it. Their forms, having already freed themselves from their marble prisons, were unfazed by the flat light.

My visit to the Marmottan epitomized the day. The museum is out of the way. One takes the métro and walks through city streets, then tree-lined paths. The museum is a gem, and it was and still is wonderfully well lit. It was nearly deserted that day.

I was admiring a particular Monet. A museum guard sat down beside me. He told me how that picture, 'Impression Sunrise,' the painting that gave the movement its name, was his favorite. It was cold and windy outside, but it was warm in that room. The guard's breath smelled of garlic sausage, and his clothes of Gauloises. His black walrus mustache matched his dark uniform. We both sat there, the only two people in the world that could see this painting. Silently.

Late the next day I made it back to London via the boat-train since the airports were still having problems. I have returned to Paris perhaps 50 times since that first Saturday morning.

Sometimes I return for a day, sometimes a week; sometimes I return alone, sometimes with my wife. Paris to me is its atmosphere: the sounds of the métro announcing the doors are closing; the look of the street sweepers with their long brooms; the warmth of a restaurant on a chilly day; the sights of deer, rabbits, and other recently eviscerated game hanging in the outdoor markets; the smells of strawberries, fresh goat cheese, and warm bread; the frustrations and pleasures of having my inadequate French corrected, generally most courteously.

One does not simply visit Paris. One is absorbed by it. Sometimes, on Saturday mornings I try to re-create the atmosphere at home. Rich coffee, warmed milk, chèvre, and a fresh baguette are a start. A calm, grey day helps, too. But something is missing. I do not smoke, but I have threatened to buy a pack of Gauloise just to have one burning in the next room for the final touch. That might do the trick!

Under the Same Grey Skies; a Few Slight Changes

Dear Walter,

The Jeu de Paume Museum, once an indoor court for antique tennis, was entirely renovated in 1986 after its collection of impressionist paintings were shifted to the Musée d'Orsay. This museum is now used exclusively for temporary exhibitions of modern works.

The companion Musée de l'Orangerie, once used for temporary exhibitions, is now the permanent home for a prestigious collection of paintings - from the impressionist period up to the 1930's. The eight extra-large paintings which constitute the 'Nymphéas' of Claude Monet are still located in its appropriately-illuminated basement gallery. Other painters represented here, upstairs, are Soutine, Cézanne, Renoir, Picasso, Matisse, Utrillo and the Douanier Rousseau.

The Marmottan Museum (in the 16th, métro Muette) carries on its tradition of presenting its important collection of impressionists, and the dozen or so stolen in 1985 were recovered, including the Monet painting that gave the name to the impressionists - the 'Impression, Soleil Levant.' Besides the paintings, this museum contains mediaeval articles, items from the 16th, 19th and 20th centuries. For the paintings though, this museum is an excellent companion to the Orangerie.

It is possible, if you have time to consider it, that a lot of places are enhanced by plays of light - but in Paris, this seems to be a major feature - put on entirely by nature. I have often wondered myself, 'what is this Paris color?' When it is sunny, as it occasionally is, there is certainly ocher in the grey. If the sky is blue, and you are in a narrow street with shadows, then there is no ocher, only blue - the blue that gives the silkiness to the grey. Printers will put ocher into a black and white print, to make the grey scales more 'real' - but it is nature that does it to Paris. For this, there is no entry charge.

(Walter Conway has told me he is a regular Metropole Paris reader who lives in San Francisco when he is not looking at the grays of Paris.)

Regards, Ric