I can't bear it. I was thinking that writing about Paris isn't the height of scintillation but I would do it as an exercise and be glad afterwards etc. and so wrote a long, informative and quite amusing account .... and then the screen froze and then I heard my husband coming upstairs to fiddle with the fuse box which is just near the computer. So I kept pressing desperately to make Iris concealed.... which it did and then froze again and wiped everything.



Anyway..............


If I had read the guidebook personally I would never have entered the Catacombs. (Which probably proves that unimaginative people tend to get out more.) A brisk queue was moving through an archway and once you joined it there was no turning back. We set off in single file down a narrow stone spiral staircase which went on and on until you were dizzy and insane and then went on and on. 'We must be f@cking far under ground', said my son pleasantly. I chose not to reply. At the bottom there was a low passage, also narrow, dimly lit and disappearing into infinity. Behind us a relentless crowd advancing one way. It is not very often that you realise that you have absolutely no choice.

I set off speed-walking, rudely pushing past trembly grannies and sauntering lovers. Herding the children along and ignoring remarks like, 'Ooo look, they've carved the street names to correspond with the ones above. I wonder where we are exactly ....'. Or, 'Mummy, here's a really cool quotation about how we are all going to die'. The floor of the tunnel was made of vile, slimy gravel and the air was warm and clammy but after a bit I got used to it and even paused to try to translate a Latin inscription about Doom. But then we got to the bones.

You probably can't quite picture what six million skeletons look like - I can. Imagine walking along a track for about a mile and on each side of you is a 10 ft. wall made out of stacked bottles. But they aren't bottles, they are the ends of leg bones. Bizarrely, the people who made the walls had used some artistic flair and had incorporated the skulls to make symbols or patterns. There was no form of protection and as you passed you could accidentally brush against ancient faces. One of the nastiest bits was where a section of wall was lower and you could see behind it acres of heaped stained and broken bones not smart enough for the front. Various stone tablets gave the names of the vanished cemetaries and plague pits where the bodies had originated. After the first horror and interest this part too turned into something to get over with and especially when we found that the ceiling was dripping on our heads. 'Isn't it rather like rain?', my daughter said, 'In this warm atmosphere doesn't damp come out of the bones and then gather on the roof?'. We also found our throats feeling rough and sore and I was horribly reminded of a detective story I'd read. The policeman had a theory that, like the tiny flakes of old skin that are meant to fill the air, a room with a putrifying corpse in it would have microscopic particles floating about that you would breathe.

Thank God we must have been walking uphill all the way as I was suddenly struck by the fact that I could never get up a staircase like the one we came down, or at least not in one day, and behind me were countless lithe students and muscular Australian tourists. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad or I was fitter than I remembered. My children disappeared ahead - running. The spiral stairs were literally the width of one person, it would be very hard to squash past a slumped panting woman. I was not fitter than I remembered. After a very long time I didn't seem to be able to breathe. I stopped. This was going to be possibly the most embarrassing moment of my life. 'Mummy, have you stopped? What are you doing, we're at the top'. There were two more turns and I was out. The perfect pleasure and relief at not making a sad 'spectacle' of myself made everything worthwhile. The rain continued to fall gently and our faces glowed in anticipation. 'Demain', we said, 'les egouts!'.
- posted by Iris @ 12/07/2003 12:38:00 AM comment