Ed van der Elsken

I stayed in a quartier I learned that Ann's friends lived by their wits. Mostly they begged. They stole a little, they got themselves kept by another boy or girl, they dealt in hashish.Or they worked in les Halles for a night, carrying baskets and cases. For the rest they were underfed. So they made ends meet. Dinner was a piece of bread eaten on the street. At night you could swipe milk bottles left on the pavement outside dairies. For thirty francs you could get chips at the Place de l'Odeon. When the going was good you might blow a hundred francs on a meat-ball or spaghetti Levantin. You could buy a liter of wine for less than sixty francs. You could sleep in cafes, on a bench in the Luxembourg, or in parked cars on the Place Saint Sulpice. During the day you could sleep in the cinema or the metro. When you had a new girlfriend you stood yourself to a room in a hotel. - Ed van der Elsken, 'Love on the Leftbank'