Sometimes we would abandon the Cité for Nizan’s study. He lived with his wife’s parents in a house in the rue Vavin whose façade was covered with glazed earthenware tiles. On the walls of his study there was a large portrait of Lenin, a Cassandre poster and the Venus of Botticelli; I admired his ultra-modern furniture and his very carefully chosen books. Nizan was the most go-ahead member of the trio; he had already had a book published, belonged to various literary circles and had joined the Communist Party; he introduced us to Irish literature and the new American novelists. He was abreast of all the latest fashions in the arts, and even ahead of them. He took us to the dreary Café de Flore ‘to do the old Deux Magots in the eye’, he said, gnawing at his fingernails like a mischievous rat. He was working on a pamphlet attacking ‘official’ philosophies, and was also engaged in writing a book on ‘Marxist Wisdom’. He rarely laughed, but often treated us to his ferocious lop-sided smile. His conversation delighted me, but I found him difficult to talk to because of his air of disdainful abstraction.