Paris

Paris is a grand 'Book of Signs', a thing the great Frenchmen: Hugo, Balzac, de Nerval, Baudelaire - the thoughtful readers of the Book - knew well. Paris sucks poets into a whirl, affects their imagination and sensitivity, forces to contrive new genres of utterance. For Mickiewicz, Paris was infernal for it metaphorically assembled the whole evil, being the capital city of the world of those days. Mickiewicz, who had decided to fight evil and transform people, redeem the world and liberate Poland, became aware that Paris was the only place where to possibly take such actions - as it was the Book and the hell in one. Slowacki deemed Paris a reptile and a dragon, a living entity whose existence was independent of people's will. Paris formed Parisians, and Parisians lived the kind of life permitted by the dragon.