The Pathos of Distance: A Book of a Thousand and One Moments (Classic Reprint)Excerpt from The Pathos of Distance: A Book of a Thousand and One Moments More than a quarter Of a century has passed since I first entered the Café Guerbois, on the Batignolles, where begins the avenue de Clichy. A student Of music, sans le sou, I lived in a little street that ran Off the boulevard des Ba tignolles, no. 5 rue Puteaux, in a sunless room, at the top Of a dark, damp building. I studied finger-problems on a tuneless upright pianoforte. Like the instrument, I was out Of tune myself, for I was hungry at least eighteen hours Of the twenty-four. Dining, as I grandly called it, was an important event in my day; a bowl of choco late and a dry roll had to sufi'ice me until the evening. Then What joy! Soup, succeeded by the meat Of the same, followed by a salad and cheese. The wine cost eight sous a litre; it was Sharp, thin, and blue: yet it warmed, and when one is not twenty, and possesses a ferocious ap petite, coupled with a yearning for the ideal, the human machine needs much stoking to keep up steam and soul. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. |
