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.