used to sell post cards on the Boulevard St. Michel. The
curious thing was that the post cards were sold in sealed
packets as pornographic ones, but were actually photo-
graphs of chateaux on the Loire; the buyers did not discover
this till too late, and of course never complained. The
Rougiers earned about a hundred francs a week, and by
strict economy managed to be always half
starved and half drunk. The filth of their room was
such that one could smell it on the floor below. Accord-
ing to Madame F., neither of the Rougiers had taken off
their clothes for four years.
Or there was Henri, who worked in the sewers. He
was a tall, melancholy man with curly hair, rather
romantic-looking in his long, sewer-man's boots.
Henri's peculiarity was that he did not speak, except for
the purposes of work, literally for days together. Only a
year before he had been a chauffeur in good employ and
saving money. One day he fell in love, and when the girl
refused him he lost his temper and kicked her. On being
kicked the girl fell desperately in love with Henri, and
for a fortnight they lived together and spent a thousand
francs of Henri's money. Then the girl was unfaithful;
Henri planted a knife in her upper arm and was sent to
prison for six months. As soon as she had been stabbed
the girl fell more in love with Henri than ever, and the
two made up their quarrel and agreed that when Henri
came out of jail he should buy a taxi and they would
marry and settle down. But a fortnight later the girl was
unfaithful again, and when Henri came out she was with
child. Henri did not stab her again. He drew out all his
savings and went on a drinking-bout that ended in
another month's imprisonment; after that he went to
work in the sewers. Nothing would induce Henri to talk.
If you asked him why he worked in the sewers he never
answered, but simply crossed his wrists to signify
handcuffs, and jerked his head southward, towards the
prison. Bad luck seemed to have turned him half-witted
in a single day.
Or there was R., an Englishman, who lived six
months of the year in Putney with his parents and six
months in France. During his time in France he drank
four litres of wine a day, and six litres on Saturdays;
he had once travelled as far as the Azores, because the
wine there is cheaper than anywhere in Europe. He was a
gentle, domesticated creature, never rowdy or
quarrelsome, and never sober. He would lie in bed till
midday, and from then till midnight he was in his corner
of the bistro, quietly and methodically soaking. While he
soaked he talked, in a refined, womanish voice, about
antique furniture. Except myself, R. was the only
Englishman in the quarter.
There were plenty of other people who lived lives just
as eccentric as these: Monsieur Jules, the Roumanian,
who had a glass eye and would not admit it, Furex the
Limousin stonemason, Roucolle the miser -he died before
my time, though-old Laurent the rag-merchant, who used
to copy his signature from a slip of paper he carried in his
pocket. It would be fun to write some of their
biographies, if one had time. I am trying to describe the
people in our quarter, not for the mere curiosity, but
because they are all part of the story. Poverty is what I
am writing about, and I had my first contact with poverty
in this slum. The slum, with its dirt and its queer lives,
was first an object-lesson in poverty, and then the
background of my own experiences. It is for that reason
that I try to give some idea of what life was like there.
II
L I F E in the quarter. Our
bistro, for instance, at the
foot of the Hôtel des Trois Moineaux. A tiny brick-
floored room, half underground, with wine-sodden
tables, and a photograph of a funeral inscribed « Crédit
est mort »; and red-sashed workmen carving sausage
with big jack-knives; and Madame F., a splendid
Auvergnat peasant woman with the face of a strong-
minded cow, drinking Malaga all day " for her
stomach"; and games of dice for apéritifs; and songs
about «
Les Fraises et Les Framboises, » and about
Madelon, who said, "
Comment épouser un soldat, moi qui
aime tout le régiment?
»; and extraordinarily public love-
making. Half the hotel used to meet in the bistro in the
evenings. I wish one could find a pub in London a
quarter as cheery.
One heard queer conversations in the
bistro. As a
sample I give you Charlie, one of the local curiosities,
talking.
Charlie was a youth of family and education who
had run away from home and lived on occasional
remittances. Picture him very pink and young, with
the fresh cheeks and soft brown hair of a nice little
boy, and lips excessively red and wet, like cherries. His
feet are tiny, his arms abnormally short, his hands
dimpled like a baby's. He has a way of dancing and
capering while he talks, as though he were too happy
and too full of life to keep still for an instant. It is
three in the afternoon, and there is no one in the bistro
except Madame F. and one or two men who are out of
work; but it is all the same to Charlie whom he talks
to, so long as he can talk about himself. He declaims
like an orator on a barricade, rolling the words on his
tongue and gesticulating with his short arms. His
small, rather piggy eyes glitter with enthusiasm. He is,
somehow, profoundly disgusting to see.
He is talking of love, his favourite subject.
«
Ah, l'amour, l'amour! Ah, que les femmes m'ont tué!
Alas, messieurs et dames,
women have been my ruin,