Les deux magots

Les Deux Magots, is an iconic cafe in the heart of St Germain.  I tried to imagine passing by while Sartre and De Beauvoir wrote their revolutionary philosophy.  Or to imagine sitting in there writing something marvellous.  Its curious, that this little cafe continues ... considering I had only just seen the stone under which Sartre's body was laid.  It continues, though its lost its je ne sais quoi ... a lot of people go there, a tourist bus stop.  It's a stop on the bucket list of must-see in Paris.  In all the faces in the cafe I could only see one person who had gone there with her whole being.  She was alone, plain, with the most marvellous interior landscape possible.  She shielded it from my eyes.  She wasn't a player.  As for me, I couldn't bear to go in, not even for a tiny expresso, I couldn't bring my whole being there with surging, jostling artificiality ...  Something which struck me later while crossing the Pont des Arts, was the irony that Les Deux Magots sits in the shadow of a grand and ancient church...St-Germain-des-Prés.  France's most ardent atheist wrote in the shadow of an icon of the church.  Its shade hovers over the Deux Magots like a chuppah, the palm of God.