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 '34. 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'Opéra . . . "Make me a suit, but take care, something really long-wearing . . . Poincaré, supergabardine . . . The Poincaré model!"
Poincaré had just launched the style, that tunic of his, a really special cut . . . I got my money's worth . . . I still have that suit . . . absolutely indestructible . . . as you can see . . . it survived Germany . . . the Germany of 1944 . . . the bombings, and what bombings! . . . and four years . . . when they were making goulash out of people . . . fires, tanks, bombs, and myriad tons of wreckage! It's faded a little, that's all! and after that all the prisons . . . and the five years on the Baltic . . . and to begin with, I'd forgotten, the clandestine life in Bezons-la-Rochelle . . . and the shipwreck at Gibraltar! I already had it . . . Nowadays they boast about "nylon" suits, "Grevin" outfits, atomic kimonos . . . I want to be shown . . . mine is right here, worn, I admit, worn to the weft . , . fourteen years of hard knocks . . . we're worn to the weft ourselves.
I don't try to look picturesque, it's not my way, I don't dress to attract attention . . . painter style . . . Van Dyck, Rembrandt . . . Vlaminck . . . not for me . . . inconspicuous, undistinguished . . . I'm a doctor . . . white smock, imitation nylon . . . neat and proper . . . indoors I look perfectly all right . . . but outside it's not so good with my Poincaré outfit . . . I could buy a new suit . . . of course . . . by scrimping a little more . . . on everything else . . . I hesitate . . . I'm just like my mother . . . thrifty, thrifty! but still I have certain weaknesses . . . My mother died of a heart attack, on a bench, and of hunger too, of privation, I was in prison, in the Vesterfangsel in Denmark . . . I wasn't here when she died, I was in the death house, Section K . . . I was there for eighteen months . . . Nobody's as deaf as the people who refuse to listen . . . don't be afraid of laying it on too thick.
I'll tell you about my mother. In spite of her heart ailment, her exhaustion and hunger and everything else, she died convinced that it was only a bad moment, but that with courage and frugality we'd see the end, that everything would be the same as before, that a sou would be a sou again and a quarter of a pound of butter would be back at twenty-four centimes . . . I'm pre-1914, I admit . . . wild spending horrifies me . . . when I look at the prices, the price of a suit, for instance! . . .
Poincaré had just launched the style, that tunic of his, a really special cut . . . I got my money's worth . . . I still have that suit . . . absolutely indestructible . . . as you can see . . . it survived Germany . . . the Germany of 1944 . . . the bombings, and what bombings! . . . and four years . . . when they were making goulash out of people . . . fires, tanks, bombs, and myriad tons of wreckage! It's faded a little, that's all! and after that all the prisons . . . and the five years on the Baltic . . . and to begin with, I'd forgotten, the clandestine life in Bezons-la-Rochelle . . . and the shipwreck at Gibraltar! I already had it . . . Nowadays they boast about "nylon" suits, "Grevin" outfits, atomic kimonos . . . I want to be shown . . . mine is right here, worn, I admit, worn to the weft . , . fourteen years of hard knocks . . . we're worn to the weft ourselves.
I don't try to look picturesque, it's not my way, I don't dress to attract attention . . . painter style . . . Van Dyck, Rembrandt . . . Vlaminck . . . not for me . . . inconspicuous, undistinguished . . . I'm a doctor . . . white smock, imitation nylon . . . neat and proper . . . indoors I look perfectly all right . . . but outside it's not so good with my Poincaré outfit . . . I could buy a new suit . . . of course . . . by scrimping a little more . . . on everything else . . . I hesitate . . . I'm just like my mother . . . thrifty, thrifty! but still I have certain weaknesses . . . My mother died of a heart attack, on a bench, and of hunger too, of privation, I was in prison, in the Vesterfangsel in Denmark . . . I wasn't here when she died, I was in the death house, Section K . . . I was there for eighteen months . . . Nobody's as deaf as the people who refuse to listen . . . don't be afraid of laying it on too thick.
I'll tell you about my mother. In spite of her heart ailment, her exhaustion and hunger and everything else, she died convinced that it was only a bad moment, but that with courage and frugality we'd see the end, that everything would be the same as before, that a sou would be a sou again and a quarter of a pound of butter would be back at twenty-four centimes . . . I'm pre-1914, I admit . . . wild spending horrifies me . . . when I look at the prices, the price of a suit, for instance! . . .