Suzanne: Of Love and Art

Marie

The Awakening

I felt nothing after the delivery. It was as though a searing pain had wiped out all feeling and I marveled that for all the pangs of childbirth and bouts of nursing, I felt little connection with the infant. Months later, I stood on the model’s platform at Cormon’s atelier, about to pose as a nymph in the Elysian Fields and paused to watch the strange tableau taking place before me at one of the easels. Émile Bernard, a young student, was being threatened expulsion from the Academy for having painted a nude in streaks of vermilion and emerald green. My eyes scanned the room while waiting to begin and I controlled a sudden impulse to pull my chignon under a cap and cover my breasts swollen with milk with a loose fitting artist’s smock . . . and I would sit at an easel and call myself Marcel and draw as well as the best of them. And you, Professor Cormon would discover that your Marcel was really Marie. What great fun to have a woman slip into the Academy.

I usually posed in the nude, but today I was to be draped as a Greek statue and it’s going to be a clever feat to hide my poor swollen stomach with the miserable drapery so worn it’s shredding. I felt an icy chill which settled on the easels and stiffened the brushes, and I shouted to the massier to have him put more coal in the huge stove at the front of the room. Cormon rapped on a desk for me to begin posing and the students began to sketch me and murmured among themselves glancing at one another’s work. I watched them from my modeling position in the center of that huge room, digesting some of their techniques. Some of the students judged my proportions through narrowed eyes, some were painting, some just drawing using greased pencils, taking care with hatching indicating shadows, and erasing and redrawing. All the same, I always had the thrill of importance standing before them on the model’s platform with all eyes focused on me. This was what I waited for, this moment, this marvelous moment, as though I had almost arrived.

That bastard Cormon sending out his usual lengthy warnings. I am a member of the Salon Jury of the Academy des Beaux Arts and don’t forget it. You will paint the way the finest of our artists painted in the true classical tradition. How his posture droops in his cutaway, and how he struts in his awful spats . . . and poor Émile Bernard seems to shrink as Cormon glares at him. The old goat gets pleasure from scaring the wits out of the students. He walks around their easels looking for the unmentionable terrible emerald green, and he waves Émile’s painting about as a dreadful example. And furthermore . . . I want no portrayal of lewd pubic hair, sensuality that is too graphic. A woman’s body in its natural state without a hand covering the vital parts is crude, undignified. It should conform to the standards of antiquity which bare nature itself can scarcely match. I wonder if he ever had a woman, the worm. I say there’s nothing wrong with painting a woman the way she really is with hair on her vagin and I’ll do it many times because it is natural and I’ll draw her with fat hanging from her arse and her breast if that’s the way she is. I’m not a terrified stupid fool who trembles with every chalk line and dab of paint I put on the canvas.

Dieu, Cormon is trying to scare the daylights out of that newcomer. "I’ll be kind to you, but I can bar you from the Salon as I shall do to Monsieur Bernard at the proper time. Just persist in demonstrations of flagrant color such as this. I told you all repeatedly to beware of that demon, color. Because you are new here, I’ll be charitable and hope to see improvement in your work." But I must say that little one doesn’t seem to care what Cormon says . . . he intrigues me. Why, he’s a midget. Gauzi just called him, Henri . . . of course, it must be Gauzi’s friend from Toulouse . . . he’s a little one, alright, but I warrant he has a big cock on him . . . those small men always surprise you that way, but he paints with such glorious colors . . . Mon Dieu, he is small, but he does have nice eyes . . . who cares so I’d let him foutre me anyway if he would teach me how to paint like that . . . how he gets around on those little stumps, but what an artist, worth a dozen of the others . . . now look at Louis Anquetin sitting so smugly at his easel as though nothing happened between us . . . why was I ever with him when he talks about every woman he’s ever had . . . good looking with golden hair and he struts about acting as though every woman would die not having him . . . now Guichet, the sailor, always knows what makes a woman feel good . . . I could have him this very instant, yes I could. I’m not like other women waiting for the man to make advances . . . if I want a man I make no bones about it and undress first like a free woman not a hypocrite like those simpering jeune filles I meet every day and of course there’s the curse of another baby and that’s why women are trapped as much as they think they are free . . . merde, I’m filling up with milk and I’ll have to leave so Cormon is in for a great shock when his nymph steps down, the worm. Oh, listen to the devil . . .

"The delicacy and refinement of colour of centuries past have been desecrated and violated by such atrocities as cadmium and chrome yellow, pure colors of the spectrum slopped on canvases without dilution, without that subtle blending one calls art, paintings done by barbaric men in the name of art in the name of something heinous called Impressionism, the scourge of the art world . . . as I have said, beware of that demon, color, and . . ."

I stepped off the model’s platform as the drapery fell to the floor and with rising voices from the easels he whirled about and just gaped and there I was as naked as you please . . . Dieu, let him stare at me, the fool . . .

And where do you think you’re going, Mademoiselle? Exactly where do you think you’re going?

I have to nurse my child, I said with great innocence.

Laughter rose up from the easels.

He cupped his ear. What are you saying? Did I hear correctly? And I asked for a draped nymph today so have the decency to cover your private parts when not modeling, woman.

But there I stood as naked as a babe. Of course his little nothing is probably standing at attention by now.

Can you please repeat yourself Mademoiselle.

You heard correctly . . . I have to nurse my baby. Did you never hear of a woman nursing, Monsieur? I’m very surprised, I said as sweetly, as I dared.

You be still, woman! Cormon’s voice cracked. Don’t use that nauseating tone with me. You have too much to say for a model and I want no further comment from the students. He delicately wiped his lips with his trimmed handkerchief.

I’ll say what I think! I retorted. Cormon’s eyes swept my entire body as though looking for something, and then he turned his back on me. I imitated his motions while listening to the rising laughter coming from the students.

And inform me why I couldn’t employ props who don’t talk back? He said bitterly.

I’m not one of your props and if I were one of your students, I would paint as I please, I assure you. I answered with great bravado but my heart beat wildly.

The laughter rose deliciously and some of the students were banging on their easels. Anquetin and Émile Bernard were delirious over the sudden twitching of Cormon’s face. The midget beamed and swallowed nervously so that his huge Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.

Fortunately, my dear Mademoiselle, you will never have that opportunity to show us your dismal talent. And what delusion lets you think that a woman would ever be admitted into this Academy? Enough! Don’t bother posing tomorrow. I’m not running a nursery, and incidentally I would learn how to speak in a proper fashion to your superiors or I can remove you from our model’s registry. We have many models eager to replace you.

He reached into his ridiculous cutaway jacket and took out a small pill box. His hand was shaking. We all watched him lean his head back, drop a pill in his mouth, and then bend down and brush his spats. Another thing, he said slowly, his eyes narrowing, fixed at something awful in the class, "if any of the students proves to be the father of one of her bastards, I will throw him out." His voice was calm flooding the room with guilt.

Animal, I murmured bravely, retrieved my clothing, held myself very erect and vowed that I would never return. Cormon smiled, a mocking smile and turned his back. Maman waited for me outside the atelier with Maurice in the carriage, and we went to a sheltered square where I nursed him in a warming embrace. Cormon’s students passed by holding huge portfolios. I waved and some stared, some laughed and some looked away embarrassed.

But on most days when I returned from modeling, the house was empty and silent. Maman was usually out with little Maurice. Each afternoon, she bundled him up, tucked him into his carriage and took him for an airing, sometimes in the bitter cold. And during that time I would wait. Oh, how I would wait. I would wait so long that I feared that I would cease to be. Was that possible, I wondered? Of course I was being punished for leading the life of the free woman as I called myself, and I was caught in the old trap, the trap of pregnancy. What did I expect when so many got into my culotte. Merde, I would not be destroyed by all of this. It wasn’t meant for me to bear the drudgery of being tied to the infant and will go on with my life. That’s the way it will be. C’est ça!

I tried to reach out into past events and make sense of what had happened. And slowly like a gathering storm, I saw a whole host of impressions of the passing years which melded one into the other, and like a kaleidoscope there were flickering scenes, patterns and colors; they flared up and then faded in my memory.

* * *

I was younger, so much younger then. It was 1875, and I was just a child of ten looking down at the countryside and I thought I heard the echoes of the husky tones of my mother, a drinker’s voice, a voice which seeped through the rocks and played with the insects in the grasses of the Butte Montmartre, it filtered through the trees bruising the leaves with its hoarseness until it crept its way to the top. I can still imagine her voice calling . . .

Marie-Clementine . . . where are you?

I skipped along merrily swinging my hips from side to side. I’m coming Maman. I’ll simply skip right down the hills again just like this . . . two skips and one jump, two hops on the left foot . . . And then I began to sing a dirty French ditty I picked up from a drunken artist where Maman scrubbed. I didn’t understand the words but I chanted it anyway, chanting it as loud as the birds would allow. Perhaps I could shock someone, but nobody was listening. I paused and looked at the windmills turning lazily in the breeze. All Paris spread magnificently before me, a panoramic sea of dark roofs dotted with church spires. And I could see the Seine, a winding curving stream shimmering with light, dividing Paris. Everything flowed down to the valley of the Seine.

It was later in my life that I learned that the golden age of Montmartre was beginning then. The hill of Montmartre climbing high above the Seine, overlooked the colorful tortuous streets, picturesque and saturated in the Bohemian atmosphere filled with artists of all sorts, artiste-peintres, composers, sculptors and writers. Montmartre was a village which sat on a hill, drenched with the clear green color the impressionists used. Dieu, I had seen them paint, yes I had. And then there were the farmyards noisy with the scampering and squealing of chickens and pigs, and manure made dank dark trails down the walkways . . . yes, Montmartre was a country village in 1875, and I danced its crooked little streets which wound to the top. How marvelous it all was. And it was all mine, my own playground, and I hugged myself in joy.

I sketched a small kitten sitting on a rock watching me. I sketched with a pencil from my bag. "And that’s enough of you, petit chat, funny little cat." I slipped the pencil back between the pages of the pad, placed the notebook into the pouch and then looked again at the windmills of Montmartre turning, turning, and it was all magic. I felt like a princess as I claimed it all as my own special territory, and then placed a hand on each hip and took a deep breath.

How I love you Montmartre, I shouted. How I love you my Montmartre! Do you hear me down there? I flung myself down in the grass and looked upward at a marvelous sky.

I often wondered how Maman had ever come to such a wondrous place. I vaguely remembered the Commune and the Siege. I recalled that Saturday in 1871, when I was six years old, how a rumor spread about Paris that the government troops from Versailles were on the march against the capital. Suddenly I was in the streets being tossed about by a frenzied mob. Maman began to scream when she spotted me as she hurried home from washing people’s floors, and some drunk threw me into the air. But I wasn’t frightened. I took out a pencil and jabbed him in the balls and he dropped me in the street. I was almost trampled by a carriage. The drunken mob surged on and I gleefully saw bandits, prostitutes and two poor men dragged to rue du Chevalier de la Barre, stood against the wall and shot. Dieu, I just remember the blood, so much blood. I found my rag doll in a ditch trampled by carriage wheels and took it home. Its head was crushed and it was missing a leg. It was the only doll I ever owned.

But all this didn’t frighten me because I knew petit chat that I would spend my life here in Montmartre and never leave.

How the nuns at the Convent of St. Vincent de Paul tried to keep me in school, but they couldn’t hold me. I skipped and danced down these funny twisted streets and drew little pictures of birds and the trees . . . what a wonderful world this was. I remained stretched out on the grass on the top of the Butte and closed my eyes, and I felt the soothing warmth of the sun with my cat sleeping by my side.

When I skipped along rue Lepic I saw a young artist and watched him paint; his face was so kind with strange blue eyes which could go right through you; how beautiful he was and what lovely colors he used.

Renoir

The Artist

"You’re very handsome, Monsieur. Are you an artiste-peintre Of course you are. And you have beautiful light blue eyss and paint with wonderful colors and you know I can draw with pencil and crayon," the child said

"Vraiment! And what do you draw?" I answered.

Everything . . . mostly my cat, Monsieur.

"Well . . . isn’t she a very pretty little sprite, Choqueti’ I said to my friend.

"Why don’t you sign your name to the picture, Monsieur, so I can always remember it. You paint very well and you should continue being an artist and that’s my advice, c’est ça! Just remember I am Mademoiselle Villon, daughter of François Villon, the great poet. I’m so glad you believe me, everyone doesn’t."

of course I believe you and I winked at my friend Choquet who laughed.. You’re quite famous, Mademoiselle Villon, he said. Thank you for your excellent advice and l sign your name on this canvas for you,, just for you,"

Renoir, she read aloud.

Well, what do you think? I said.

Oh thank you, Monsieur. You see, Monsieur, I hardly go to school The nuns are looking for me right now, but I can read. I’m very clever, you know. Well, good-bye, Monsieur Renoir, and don’t forget me. Just be an artist and I’ll remember you, forever and ever.

You’re a hard one to forget, mademoiselle, Renoir laughed.

And I can’t wait to grow up so I can love you. I

Well then, I certainly will look forward to it.

Good-bye, Monsieur Next time I will kiss you.

Marie

Childhood

Maman stood at the entrance of the house on the Boulevard Rochechouart and scolded, Well the sisters told me you weren’t in school, so don’t lie!. I scrubbed four floors for a rich old hag and you waltz about like a princess never learning anything. I’ll always have misery. It’s my fate. Then she went for a flask under her skirt and slurped her brandy.

I’m in my playground, Maman. I skip and I dance and draw pictures, and today a most marvelous thing happened . . . I met a handsome painter. I’ll marry him someday, just you wait.

"You’ll never amount to anything, and I can tell you I’m ashamed when you dance in the streets when you should be in school! What devil prompts you? Why can’t you behave like a jeune fille, like the others?"

Don’t be angry, Maman . . . just look at the picture I drew for you, but my mother pushed me away.

A pox on your father . . . how glad I am that he was crushed to death. Oh, how I would like to see him burn in hell! She began to mutter about him in her funny whiskey voice. I guessed from the way she cursed him that my father must have been someone quite terrible falling off a bridge one day and crushed by a millstone on another . . . but all the same I made him the poet, François Villon, and I of course became his famous daughter, Mademoiselle Villon.

You don’t understand how I suffer, Marie, she always said.

But I tried to understand, at least some of it. Of course I was only two months old when late in 1865 we went to live in this one room on the Boulevard Rochechouart where Maman promptly became a charwoman. She carried a huge canvas bag at the bottom of which lay a bottle of brandy, and she would drink it on the job. I was so ashamed when she came back in a haze of alcohol, so ashamed! I saw her scrubbing the floors and cleaning the rooms of the Café Guerbois on the Boulevard Clichy. I knew there were painters and musicians there, and constant shouting as I crept closer and peeked in and saw and heard artists torn to shreds by the most marvelous of young men, and it fascinated me, but Maman scarcely understood them and did her work in her half drunken stupor.

How Maman ranted afterwards, how she ranted, for to be an artist was to be a lunatic. And to be a woman artist was as bad as being an artist’s model or a prostitute. She raved about a new freedom in which there were women artists, a horror in itself. A woman is not free . . . she is not free and everyone knows she has to be protected by a man and have his children, not be a dried up old spinster when she could well afford a dowry. What are the mothers of these lady artists thinking of? Then she would finish it all off with a drink, always that damn drink . . . and how I hated Maman when she drank . . . with the odor of brandy which filled the air about her and filtered through her soiled muslin . . . and the smell which drenched my frock after I attempted to embrace her.

You’re getting drunk, Maman. Why must you drink? Why? My friends’ mothers don’t drink. I’m just not going to listen to your stories anymore . . . I’m not listening to a drunk and from now on, I’ll go where I please. I hate, hate, hate you because if you cared for me you wouldn’t drink you stinking woman!

"And you’re fou to go dancing up and down the streets like an idiot with your bare feet, so that everyone laughs at you; the diable possesses you for sure," and Maman crossed herself.

I held my ears and slammed the door behind me and skipped back to the Butte clutching a pad and pencil in my hand and did more sketching, and then sat with my face in my hands and felt sad and empty as I watched my cat stalking a worm. "Oh, my petit chat, how Maman is a chore to me. I hate her sometimes . . . how I really hate her. Doesn’t she realize that the others at the convent can’t draw the way I do? And why does Maman drink so much? Are you a clever cat who can tell me the answers? All you do is sit and purr and want me to stroke your back," and I smoothed his fur with my bare toes.

I lay in the grass and looked up at the tops of the trees, at the sunlight dancing on the leaves and all the sadness left. I felt warm and safe and I thought of what Maman told me about her life. I wondered how it felt to clean people’s houses after having managed a whole household, a job that Maman said was once very important. And so what if I’m a bastard . . . see if I care. I would just enjoy myself in this life and make up my own rules. I would never, never look like Maman, so dirty and ugly and I would never, never drink, and maybe, maybe, I would be married to a beautiful man like that artiste-peintre in rue Lepic.

It’s all quite marvelous, I called across the fields of the Butte and into the trees, and my voice came back on a balmy breeze which rustled the leaves of my drawing pad. and I decided that I would never be just like anybody . . . like the ordinary women in the streets with their big aprons and disheveled hair doing baskets of laundry, someone else’s filthy laundry with sudsy arms, calling their small babies . . . endless babies. And husbands who came home so grimy, sometimes beating their wives. How can people make love, touch bodies when they act like this? Oh, I had found out about it all from Babette, my friend at school, how people make love . . . but I can wait. I would see about making love when I was older . . . yes, I would see and if I liked it I would do it many, many times and with men who were beautiful. Oh, my little Villon, isn’t it all so wonderful? Yes, I’ll call you François Villon, my little cat. Then you’ll be great.

My Villon sat curled up on a limb intently watching a bird.

When I dropped out of school I worked as a waitress, sold vegetables in Les Halles and then did a stint as a dishwasher in rapid order. The position as a dishwasher was a temporary one at La Nouvelle-Athènes, a restaurant where artists met in endless conversations. I did little dishwashing. Now that I was twelve, I could sit with them, yes, that’s what I might do. How very clever I was. Why must I do those miserable dishes when they made my hands so red? How I would love to be one of the artists. I’ll become one of them before the day is out and no one will know the difference, I thought that afternoon.

You’re fired, said Jacques, the manager smiling.

What?

You heard me. You’re fired, he said still smiling.

I’m shocked, Monsieur, and deeply wounded, I said repeating a passage I had heard in a play in school. It was the way François Villon would have spoken.

You are deeply wounded? Don’t think you fooled me behind that pole because I’ve been watching you. Why do you stand and listen to the artists? Why are you so interested? You’re supposed to be helping out in the kitchen, and that’s all!

"Pig! Give me my money and I’ll leave, you . . . bâtard!"

"Sacrebleu! A mouth like this . . . oh, but you’re a little slut, and a wicked one at that."

Give me my money, you . . . you son of a bitch!

He raised his hand as though to strike me but I stood looking as fierce as I could.

His eyes narrowed and then he shrugged his shoulders, reached into his pocket and handed me a franc.

You promised me three francs.

Three francs? You’re not worth five sous. You think you’re Marie Antoinette? You’re Marie-Clémentine a worthless little runt.

I spat in his face. He wiped the spittle off and lunged at me. Now you’re going to get it! he growled in anger. I kicked him in the groin and he doubled up.

A proper looking man in tweeds got up and raised a cane in intervention.

Monsieur Degas, please let me handle this bundle of evil. A gentleman like you, such a famous artist, shouldn’t dirty your hands with this kind of garbage. She’s rotten all the way through. Look at her eyes . . . like the eyes of the devil himself.

I see unusual eyes, said this Monsieur Degas. What’s wrong, child?

He just fired me, that wicked one did, and now my family will all starve. We’ll starve, and he’ll burn in hell, I said borrowing one of Maman’s oaths about my father.

Don’t listen to her. She’s a liar, Monsieur! Jacques shouted.

Why did you fire her? Degas asked.

She does nothing, Monsieur, but stand around and listen to artists’ conversations. Why she does, I don’t understand. But she’s worthless, worthless in the kitchen.

"I’ve worked for many weeks, Monsieur, like a slave for only a franc and now we’ll have nothing to eat. I haven’t eaten for three days and my mother is starving and my sister begs for a crust of bread. Surely you must have seen her selling herself with the other lorettes poor thing, and my five brothers are without shoes and my father beats me . . . oh, it’s all too horrible. I cried into a handkerchief. And that’s not the end of my misery. My father wants me to sell my body like my sister on the street for a franc, may he burn in hell," I imitated my mother’s wailing.

Do you see what you’re doing? You’re paying her slave wages, said this Degas angrily to Jacques. This child could become a hopeless whore because of you.

Monsieur, this little saint has worked exactly four days out of five weeks. The child lives in the streets the rest of the time and is completely uncivilized . . . a liar and a cheat, and if you start with her, she’ll chew you up and spit you out.

Nonsense! She’s only a child. How old are you, mademoiselle? asked Degas.

I am ten, Monsieur. I could lie so easily.

Well, here are ten francs to feed your family, one franc for each of your years.

How stupid I was. I should have said I was twenty.

You see . . . what did I tell you? She’s an inveterate liar, Monsieur. She is twelve and has no brothers or sisters or father, a bastard for sure . . . and as for selling herself, even the pimps wouldn’t put up with her. You’ve been taken, Monsieur, taken by this demon who passes as a child. He rubbed his groin.

Is it true what he said? Degas questioned me angrily.

Look at her eyes, how shifty she is. Look at her eyes, Monsieur. She grins at you even now like a devil.

Degas stared but I turned and fled like the wind dashing along the tortuous path of the Butte with the ten francs of Degas and the one franc of Jacques in my pocket. I went a distance to the rue Clauzel where an artist’s colour shop had opened two years before by a little man we all called Père Tanguy, and stared at its blue front.

When I entered the shop, Tanguy smiled at me. How very nice he was. I could easily fool him. I bought a new pad of sketching paper, my first pieces of red chalk and a wondrous box of pastels. Each pastel was like a jewel to me, and he wrapped each one in a magic tissue, and lay them in a wooden box which smelled delicious. I couldn’t wait to use them.

They are the best pastels in Montmartre, mademoiselle . . . I don’t always carry them, smiled Père Tanguy. But, mademoiselle, it’s a wonder that you’re not in school.

Oh, I’m much older than I appear, Monsieur, I said. I look twelve but I’m really eighteen and am a famous artist with a studio in Montmartre. My name is Marie-Clémentine Valadon. Surely you’ve heard of me.

Oh, of course, mademoiselle . . . I’m sure all of Paris has heard of you. He believed me. I was so very clever.

Well you can find me daily at la Nouvelle-Athènes with the other artists . . . in fact I just sat at a table with Monsieur Degas, the famous artist, and had a glass of wine and he spoke . . .

Certainly, he spoke of your greatness, laughed Tanguy.

"Exactement!" What a fool this man was.

But Tanguy smiled, wrapped up my purchases and muttered to himself, A little devil, to be sure.

And I returned to my home and drew a cat and a dog with the new red crayon, and several days later I gave Maman a nude pastel drawing of myself as a Christmas gift and she slapped me, Have you nothing better to do but to take off your clothes and parade yourself? It’s the devil in you that makes you do this, and she crossed herself with a grimy hand.

I’ll never, never, show you my drawings again! I screamed.

But I did again and again, and there were interminable drawings of chickens and dogs and even naked people. And then I offered these scribblings to my mother who saw them as the work of idle hands and then drank half a bottle of brandy.

The years followed swiftly, one after another, and by my sixteenth birthday it amazed me when an artist described me as a headstrong lively creature, a wild gamine of the streets of Montmartre, with a saucy look, full ripe figure, sapphire blue eyes fringed with heavy lashes, and sun streaked reddish brown hair, a real beauty. Is that what I was like? It amazed me that he took notice of me. And I gazed at my reflection in a three way mirror, turning my head this way and that, marveling at the arrogance and defiance in my face, and was struck by my appearance. Yes, I thought, It’s true. I am a beauty. But I stood motionless and looked into the glass with mixed feelings. Could I use my striking appearance in some way?

And then, by chance, a neighbor, a model, changed my life.

I felt something miraculous was about to unfold. I was instructed to go to the fountain of the Place Pigalle and I quivered with anticipation. I had watched the models thronging about the fountain and now I would be one of them. If I had to pose in the nude it concerned me little. I only felt how very marvelous it all was. How very marvelous The world opened before me.

* * *

It was delicious in the sparkling sunlight at the Place Pigalle when The Marché aux Modèles was held on Sundays beside the fountain. It was a loud and hectic market which was further complicated by the horse-drawn trams of the La Villette-Trocadéro line which added to the din. We arrived in the morning and waited beside the fountain for the painters to appear and choose, and the whole proceeding filled me with awe and excitement. It was a parade where one displayed her wares and now I knew I could match the best of them. And after my first sitting for a minor artist I said to myself, This is it! over and over again. I didn’t understand why it was so important to me but I knew that I was somewhere at last.

That Sunday morning I stood with my neighbor, a tall voluptuous blond Amazon dubbed la grosse Adèle who became my immediate friend assuming a proprietary interest. You had better learn the ropes, Marie, or they’ll all take advantage of you; how lucky you are you have me. What did the last one pay?

Five francs.

"They cheated you. Don’t let them pay you less than ten francs, and don’t sit more than four hours. When you get