The Wonderful Year

I’ve been away. Otherwise I should have answered your note sooner. I’m delighted you’re in this God-forsaken city but what brought you here in August Heaven only knows. We must meet at once. I can’t ask you to my abode because I’ve only one room one chair and a bed and you would be shocked to sit on the chair while I sat on the bed or to sit on the bed while I sat on the chair. And I couldn’t offer you anything but a cigarette (caporal à quatre sous le paquet) and the fag end of a bottle of grenadine syrup and water. So let us dine together at the place where I take such meals as I can afford. Au Petit Cornichon or as the snob of a proprietor yearns to call it The “Restaurant Dufour.” It’s a beast of a hole in the Rue Baret off the Rue Bonaparte; but I don’t think either of us could run to the Café de Paris or Paillard’s and we’ll have it all to ourselves. Meet me there at seven.