Frankly, just between you and me, I’m ending up even worse than I started . . . Yes, my beginnings weren’t so hot . . . I was born, I repeat, in Courbevoie, Seine . . . I’m repeating it for the thousandth time . . . after a great many round trips I’m ending very badly . . . old age, you’ll say . . . yes, old age, that’s a fact . . . at sixty-three and then some, it’s hard to break in again . . . to build up a new practice . . . no matter where . . . I forgot to tell you . . . I’m a doctor . . . A medical practice, confidentially between you and me, isn’t just a question of knowing your job and doing it properly . . . what really counts . . . more than anything else . . . is personal charm . . . personal charm after sixty? . . . there might still be a future for you in the wax works, or as an antique vase in a museum . . . a few old fogies in search of enigmas might still take an interest . . . but the ladies? Your dapper graybeard, painted, perfumed, and lacquered? Doctor or not, practice or no practice, the old scarecrow will stick in people’s craw . . . If he’s loaded? . . . well, maybe . . . hmm, hmm, . . . he’ll be barely tolerated . . . but a white-haired pauper? . . . take him away. Just listen to the ladies, on any street corner, in any shop . . . talking about some young colleague . . . “Oh, Madame, oh, Madame, that doctor, what eyes . . . he understood my case at a glance . . . and those drops he prescribed . . . noon and night . . . those miraculous drops . . . why, that young doctor’s a wonder . . .” Then wait and see what they have to say about you: “Crabby, toothless, ignorant, hunchbacked, always hawking and spitting . . .” you’re cooked . . . the ladies’ chit-chat rules the country . . . the men bat out laws, the ladies attend to the serious business: public opinion . . . or a medical practice is made by the ladies . . . you haven’t got them behind you? . . . go drown yourself . . . the ladies in your neighborhood are feebleminded, they’re blithering idiots? . . . perfect! The stupider, the more bigoted, the more chronically asinine they are, the better they rule! . . . you can put your shingle away, and all the rest . . . The rest? Everything was stolen from me in Montmartre . . . everything . . . on the rue Girardon . . . I repeat . . . I can’t repeat it enough . . . people pretend not to hear . . . the exact things they need to hear . . . though I’ve said it plainly enough . . . the works! . . . Somebody, liberators, avengers, broke into my place and carried everything off to the Flea Market . . . they sold it all . . . I’m not exaggerating, I’ve got proof, witnesses, names . . . all my books and instruments, my furniture, my manuscripts . . . the whole shebang . . . I didn’t find one thing . . . not a handkerchief, not a chair . . . they’d sold even the walls . . . the apartment, everything . . . put it in all their pockets . . . and there you have it . . . Oh, I know what you think . . . it’s only natural . . . I can hear you . . . that such things can never happen to you, that you’ve taken your precautions . . . that you’re as good a Communist as any millionaire, as good a Poujadist as Poujade, as Russian as the dressing, more American than Buffalo . . . hand in glove with everything that counts, Lodge, Cell, Sacristy, the Law! . . . the champion new-style Vrenchman . . . the historical trend runs straight through your asshole . . . honorary brother? . . . certainly! . . . executioner’s helper? we’ll see . . . guillotine licker? . . . Oh, well!

Meanwhile I haven’t even got a “Pachon” . . . I borrowed one to get rid of the pests, there’s nothing like it . . . you sit them down, you take their blood pressure . . . They eat too much, drink too much, and smoke too much, so it’s unusual when they don’t run a maximum of 220 . . . or 230 . . . to them life is a tire . . . the only thing that worries them is their maximum . . . a blowout . . . death! . . . 250! . . . all of a sudden they’re not so droll and sceptical anymore . . . you tell them about their 230 . . . and you never see them again! That look they give you as they leave . . . what hatred! . . . You’re a murderer, a sadist! “Good-bye, good-bye!”

Okay . . . at any rate I take care of them with my Pachon . . . they’d come to get a laugh out of my poverty . . . 220! . . . 230! I never see them again . . . all in all, without going into details, I’d be glad not to practice anymore . . . but I’ve got to survive . . . it’s hell . . . until the retirement age! Or maybe . . . but there’s no “maybe” about the need to economize! On everything! and right away! first the heat! . . . never more than forty degrees all last winter. Of course we’re used to it . . . we’ve had our training all right . . . Norse training. We stuck it out up there for four winters . . . nearly five . . . at twenty below . . . in a wrecked stable . . . without heat, absolutely without heat, pigs would have died of the cold . . . take it from me! . . . we’re trained! . . . the thatch blew away . . . the snow and the wind danced in that place! . . . Five years, five months of ice! . . . Lili sick, she’d been operated . . . and don’t take it into your head that that icebox was free . . . not at all! . . . make no mistake . . . I paid for everything . . . I’ve got the bills, signed by my lawyer . . . certified by the Consulate . . . which explains why I’m so flat . . . it wasn’t only the pirates of Montmartre . . . there were the pirates of the Baltic, too . . . the pirates of Montmartre wanted to bleed me till my guts ran down the rue Lepic . . . the Baltic pirates thought they’d get me with scurvy . . . so I’d leave my bones in their “Venstre” prison . . . it was touch and go . . . two years in a pit . . . seven by ten . . . then they thought of the cold . . . the blizzards of the Great Belt . . . we stuck it out! for five years! Paid for, I repeat! my savings, you can imagine . . . all my royalties . . . blown away by the blizzards . . . plus the court seizures . . . some joke! Oh, I’d kind of foreseen it all . . . a faint suspicion! . . . my suit, my one and only, dates from ’33. That was my hunch! I’m not the Poujade type, I don’t discover catastrophes twenty-five years later, when it’s all over, dead and buried! . . . just for a laugh I’ll tell you about my premonition of ’34 . . . that we were headed for times that would be rough on coquetry . . . I had a tailor on the Avenue de l’Opera . . . “Make me a suit, but take care, something really long-wearing . . . Poincare, supergabardine . . . the Poincare model!”