"Time was Soft There is Mercer's account of how Shakespeare & Company, the magnificently chaotic bookstore on the rue de la Bucherie, a mere brioche toss from Notre Dame, became his equivalent of the French Foreign Legion: a place of uncertain sanitation in which to dally until the dust settled. He was one of many such sanctuary seekers. It's well known that George Whitman, the legendarily cantankerous, now nonagenarian proprietor of the store, made in-store beds available to young (mostly) drifters who needed a short-term place to crash and who could lend a hand for a daily hour or two with the business of keeping wholesale entropy at bibliographic bay. By Whitman's count, as reported by Mercer, some 40,000 transients have so far laid claim to one of the Shakespeare & Company cots. (The widely circulated stories of bedbugs -- a not unlikely plague, considering the circumstances -- are apparently untrue.)"

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