Montparnasse

While perusing the online photo collection of the French Ministry of Culture, I stumbled upon a real gem: A set of ten photos of Le Dôme café taken in the winter of 1931-32. The pictures provide a unique glimpse of the café as Henry Miller would have known it.

As he neared his hotel, Miller was stopped in his tracks by the visage of Olga Chekhova staring out from a large theater poster a workman was busy plastering above the Cinéma de Vanves. The movie star’s languid eyes locked with Miller’s. “I’d like to see that film,” Miller called up to the man who smiled down warmly from the top of his ladder, “but I don’t have a cent in my pocket.”

Paris in the winter had all the stark angles of bare sycamores and gray steeples, but we found it welcoming and friendly. So crucial to Miller during the Depression, food became our main preoccupation, being only a few blocks from the markets of Rue Montorgueil.

The Schranks, who are caricatured in Tropic of Cancer as Tania and Sylvester, provided Miller a free meal each Monday night. However, Miller’s principle interest in these visits was not food. Rather, he was smitten with Bertha, largely due to the uncanny physical resemblance she bore to his estranged wife June.

Like August Strindberg, Henry Miller found himself alone in Paris, tormented by the disintegration of his marriage and despairing over his lack of friends or resources. As he recounts in Tropic of Cancer, Miller walked into the Orfila one day and asked to be shown Strindberg’s room…

On this corner, where the Luxembourg Gardens join the rue d’Assas, once stood a public urinal that was a favorite stopping point for Henry Miller.