“I never dreamed we were so low as that. With care we can live for a week on twenty-seven francs—but what then?”
“You must try and sell some of your work, darleen; and I—I can sell some hem-broderie.”
“Never! I can’t let you sell those things. They’re lovely. I want to keep them.”
“But I easily do some more. It is pleasure for me.”
“No, no; at least, hold on a bit. I’ll make some money from my work. I’m going to send it off to-morrow.”
Yes, we were surely “getting down to cases.” But what matter! Of course my work will be accepted at once, and paid for on the spot. True, I have no experience in this kind of peddling. My stuff has always appeared virgin in a book. Not that I think I am prostituting it by sending it to a magazine, but that no sooner do I see it in print than my interest in it dies. It belongs to the public then.
Next day I bought a box of big envelopes, a quantity of French and English stamps, and a manuscript book in which I entered the titles of the different items. I also ruled columns: Where Sent: When Sent; even When Returned, though I thought the latter superfluous. Here then was my list:
The Psychology of Sea-sickness.
An Amateur Lazzarone.
A Detail of Two Cities.
The Microbe.
How to be a Successful Wife.
Nurse Gwendolin.
The City of Light.
The City of Laughter.
The City of Love.
and
Three Fairy Stories.
Twelve items in all. So I prepared them for despatch; but where? That was the question. However, after examining the windows of several English book-shops, I took a chance shot, posted them to twelve different destinations, and sat down to await results.
Since then, with a fine sense of freedom, I have been indulging in my mania for old houses. I do not mean houses of historic interest, but ramshackle ruins tucked away in seductive slums. To gaze at an old home and imagine its romance is to me more fascinating than trying to realise romance you know occurred there. I examine doors studded with iron, search mouldering walls for inscriptions, peer into curious courtyards. I commune with the spirit of Old Paris, I step in the footprints of Voltaire and Verlaine, of Rousseau and Racine, of Mirabeau and Molière.