It's a bad workman that blames his tools - Part Deux

After I bought my nice pen, which had a textured black surface, almost like the great salt flats, and silver accents, I went to the Louvre. Mostly I went because it was Wednesday and the Louvre was open late on Wednesday. I walked through the museum looking for someplace to sit down but I didn't like the paintings and I didn't want to sit down and look at paintings I didn't like.

I preferred the Musée D'Orsay. I had a card that allowed me free entry to all the museums, and I often went to D'Orsay, even for only a few hours. The first time I went I had been stupefied.

The museum breathed and whispered with the echoed din of the late afternoon crowds. On the cover of the museum maps, there was a flag indicating the language of the map, and all the mingling, meandering spectators proudly showed their national colors, as if they were wearing army uniforms. When I entered, always looking for the perfect camouflage, I had picked up a French map.

There were a number of group tours, and I tried to mooch off one French group. I would pause especially long in front of the painting that happened to be next to the really famous one that they were looking at, trying to eavesdrop. Since I didn't really care about what they thought, it wasn't that hard to keep up.

Museums are designed to encourage a certain flow, a certain path through the works of art. Because of this, you become part of a sort of cohort, a group of visitors who began around the same time and progress through the museum together. You get to know your cohort: the French kid with the curly hair, the girl with the tight braids, the two British young women who go from painting to painting arm in arm.

Tidbits of overheard conversations can reveal a lot. Should some people hide their map and therefore their nationality, a few strategic seconds spend sharing a particular painting can help you ferret out their nationality. Sometimes you learn that people with French maps are British. And some are American.

You get to know which pairs are friends and which are lovers.

Looking at paintings in a museum is supposed to be a silent, and therefore solitary, activity. Some couples spend hours walking in opposite directions around rooms, only sharing knowing glances when they meet midcircuit. Perhaps they can evade suspicion for one room, maybe two, but thereafter you can pick them out easily.