February 3, 1957
Dear Alain:

Alas, it has been too long since we have saan one another. What
inhibits wy correspondence is not a lack of things to talk about, but
the accumulation of so many. If nothing else, L'Expres reminds me
every week how poor a correspoddent I am.

But, as you know, we now have our fisst chance to visit Paris.
Esther and I have the following plan: we arrive fwuemiay Thursday
morning, 1000, on Air France Flight 060 (from Chicago 11:15 the previous
morning). The Club de Physiologie Cellulaire has me signed up for a talk
(that may interest you— on the genetics of Salmonella antigens, which I
had just started to work on while you were here) probably Friday night,
though I hope for my own sake it can be pospponed to Monday. We stay in
Paris until 1900, Tuesday the 12th (flying to London on AF 590).

This is too short a tius, we know, to see Paris for the first tine,

and our many friends there. But we hope it will not be the last tine.

At any rate, we do hope you will not be too busy to spend some tine

with us. You would be our guide le plus prefere—— and we are rather anxious
not to spend sll of our precious tine ingide the laboratories, which can
hardly be distinguishable from our oun. We arealao looking forward to
meeting your wife, of whom you spoke so much here.

L'Expres has lately reminded us that 4t is time for renewal. If we had
more @ime, or were ore fluent in French, this would be a very valuable
investment, ani we do get some Information ami amusement from it — what
go you think of the 'fresh-cell' therapy that may becoming a vogue: it mst
be right up your line. However, it does come more frequently than we can
copes with, and we should postpone until our visit any discussion of the
best alternatives.

Iwill nowt take tim now to review abt what foes on in the lab— we
can do this next month. We are very much involved now in a difficult
decision, as we have two very attractive offers from Stanford University
aod from the University of California, at Berkeley. As you know, we are
also very fund of Madison, and have not lacked for opportunity here either,
go it is a dilemma,af though between choices of equal attractiveness, not
distaste. You will recall that Aristotle's donkey starved between the equi-
distant bales of hay; perhaps the statistical mechanical theory, with
random fluctuations from the mean will hope both of ua.

Alain— can you do one not very easy favor for us? That is, to
help find suitable accomodation for us? We have a acdest budget, and
so would prefer neither ostentatious luxury nor stingy or dirty penury.
We will rely on your judgment of our tastes, and guarantee whatever
investment you may have to make in case of any unforeseen change of
plans. Aa I wrote above, we shall need a room from Thursday night,
March 7, to Tuesday noon, March 12. A double-bed will do wery well,
and I suppose we should take account of the possibility of enteric
indisposition from our flight or the usual traveller's vomplaints.
We have no idea ourselves as to the most suitable losation.

Au revoir