The early fifties found me in Paris, fresh out of college, in search of I'm not sure what gods or ghosts but convinced they could be discovered only in that magic city. I had found quarters, if that term can be applied to an abandoned warehouse, on the rue du Sabot, a tiny street directly behind St.-Germain-des-Prés. The owner was a Swiss dealer in primitive art. In return for my tending the shop a few hours a week, he gave me free lodging in an empty ground-floor warehouse at the end of the courtyard. I mention the geography because this dépôt— which, my Swiss landlord proudly informed me, had once been a banana-drying shed— was destined to become the headquarters of the magazine- and book-publishing enterprise known to history as Merlin and also because it was a scant fifty yards from the offices of the most daring and perceptive French publisher of the time, Les Editions de Minuit.

There were two routes from my warehouse-home to the bright cafés of St.-Germain-des-Prés, one by the rue du Dragon, the other by the rue Bernard- Palissy, and since I took at least two trips to St.-Germain every day and always tried to avoid taking the same route twice in a row, it happened, almost inevitably, that I passed number 7 of the latter street at least once a day.