Page 39 - down-and-out-in-paris-and-london

of it, and found that, so far from lifting it, I could not even
move it. The man in the bowler hat watched me, then
shrugged his shoulders and turned away. I made off. When
I had gone some distance I looked back and saw FOUR men
lifting the basket on to a cart. It weighed three hundred-
weight, possibly. The man had seen that I was no use, and
taken this way of getting rid of me.
Sometimes in his hopeful moments Boris spent fifty
centimes on a stamp and wrote to one of his ex-mistresses,
asking for money. Only one of them ever replied. It was a
woman who, besides having been his mistress, owed him
two hundred francs. When Boris saw the letter waiting and
recognized the handwriting, he was wild with hope. We
seized the letter and rushed up to Boris’s room to read it,
like a child with stolen sweets. Boris read the letter, then
handed it silently to me. It ran:
My Little Cherished Wolf,
With what delight did I open thy charming letter, re-
minding me of the days of our perfect love, and of the so
dear kisses which I have received from thy lips. Such memo-
ries linger for ever in the heart, like the perfume of a flower
that is dead.
As to thy request for two hundred francs, alas! it is
impossible. Thou dost not know, my dear one, how I am
desolated to hear of thy embarrassments. But what wouldst
thou? In this life which is so sad, trouble conies to everyone.
I too have had my share. My little sister has been ill (ah, the
poor little one, how she suffered!) and we are obliged to pay
I know not what to the doctor. All our money is gone and we

Down and Out in Paris and London