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circumstances . . . compared to what Lili and I have been through in the last twenty years . . . they're amateurs, beginners . . . and the condition it's left us in . . . tender rosebuds . . . give them a third . . . a tenth of it . . . they'd be crawling under the furniture . . . all the furniture . . . bellowing with horror the rest of their lives!
    . . . Listening to their jeremiads, I can't help saying to myself, "You numbskull, how did you get yourself into such a mess? What's wrong with you?" I give up. Ask the cat . . . Thomine here that's purring away . . . brrr . . . brrr . . . on my paper . . . she doesn't give a good goddamn about all my headaches! brrr! brrr! the whole world is indifferent! animals! men! they want a fat man! . . . that's right! . . . as fat as Churchill, Claudel, Picasso, Bulganin all in one! posteri posteras! and brrr! brrr! you'll make it too! . . . Communist- capitalists! All champion belly builders! Coupon-clipping commissars! ghosts of 1900, but improved . . . try and tell my patients for their own good! . . . it's always for their own good! . . . that they might try eating a little less meat . . . to go easy on their digestion! you'll see what hatred is . . . You've stepped on the toes of the gods . . . Food and Drink! no political passion can hold a candle . . . devotion, fervor! . . . an atheist of the beef-steak! an enemy of whiskey? Wipe him out.
    For my part, as I was telling you, life . . . even a very ascetic life . . . is very expensive . . . considering that nobody helps us . . . neither the town hall nor the Social Security, nor any political party, nor the police. . . . far from it . . . all the people I see get help . . . they all pimp . . . one way or another . . . more or less . . . a fat envelope . . . free premises . . . like Abbe Pierre . . . like Boileau ° . . . the Companions of this . . . the Companions of that . . . of the King or the Salvation Army! . . . like Schweitzer, Racine,° Loukoum . . . there's always some feed bag . . . the gravy brothers . . . a penny, if you please.
    It would only be funny, and no more . . . I wouldn't gripe if I hadn't been bugged so much on the subject of racism! for ten years, I'm telling you . . . ten years! too crummy to believe! they gripe about their Suez Canal? . . . if they'd dug it with their hands . . . they'd have something to complain about! what they stole from me on the rue Girardon was the work of my hands! . . . will they take it with them to Paradise? . . . maybe . . . ten years of misery, two of them in a cell . . . while they, Racine, Loukoum, Tartre, and Schweitzer were passing the hat one place or another, picking up the dough and the Nobel prizes! . . . enormous sums! stuffed, bloated like Goering, Churchill, Buddha! Superstuffed, plethoric commissars! Ten years, I say! it sticks in my craw . . . including two in the clink . . . with Article 75 on my tail! Who gives a damn? writers of my asshole! . . . nobody bats an eyelash, I can talk myself hoarse, it's as if I'd been having a "unit party" up there, as if I'd given everything I owned to the alcoholics of Montmartre on purpose! . . . and they're not fixing to put up a plaque, with the neighborhood band and a reception at the town hall, saying: "This place was robbed." I know those customers, what doesn't touch them personally, them and their bowels, doesn't exist! never mind! . . . I haven't forgotten a thing . . . the petty thefts or the big ones . . . or the names either . . . not a thing. Like everybody who's a little soft in the head I make up for it by my memory . . . what a laugh! . . . taking advantage of my absence . . . in the clink with Article 75 on my ass . . . to walk off with everything I owned! I've had news of my looters, I keep informed, they're doing all right! Crime has agreed with them . . . the agent Tartre, for instance! . . . down on his knees to me while the Krauts . . . idol of the Youth, Grand Sar of Blah-Blah . . . flabby chin, flabby