As part of my escape from poetry, am re-reading Rilke's Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge.

Rilke moved to Paris in August 1902, into an apartment at 11, rue Tollier (Ironworker Street?).

The book begins with this inscription : September 11th, rue Tollier.

Here are the first few sentences, trans. by Stephen Mitchell :

"So this is where people come to live; I would have thought it is a city to die in. I have been out. I saw : hospitals. I saw a man who staggered and fell. A crowd formed around him and I was spared the rest."

Weird.