On 1 November 1928, the 22-year-old Samuel Beckett presented himself at the hyper-elite École Normale Supérieure in Paris’s Latin Quarter to take up a post as lecteur anglais. He had been nominated for the post by Trinity College Dublin, which had already marked out Beckett as an academic star in his chosen subject of French. He was to spend two years in a sinecure (he had only one pupil) perfecting his French and undertaking research on the novelist and poet Pierre Jean Jouve. It was understood that he would return from Paris bearing considerable research work and be appointed to an earmarked post at Trinity.
Beckett’s lectureship got off to a rocky start. Both he and his French hosts were rather startled to find that his allocated rooms were already occupied by his predecessor, who had not yet bothered to move out. A rather embarrassing moment was resolved when another room was found for the previous lecteur and Beckett moved, slightly later than anticipated, in to his designated rooms. At this point the two Irishmen, Beckett and his new acquaintance Tom MacGreevy, set off to share a drink in one of the neighbouring cafés.