Real Latin Quarter by Frank Berkeley Smith

society, culture, personal, journals, arts, visual · EN-US

"Cocher, drive to the rue Falguière"--this in my best restaurant French.The man with the varnished hat shrugged his shoulders, and raised his eyebrows in doubt. He evidently had never heard of the rue Falguière."Yes, rue Falguière, the old rue des Fourneaux," I continued.Cabby's face broke out into a smile. "Ah, oui, oui, le Quartier Latin."And it was at the end of this crooked street, through a lane that ledinto a half court flanked by a row of studio buildings, and up one pairof dingy waxed steps, that I found a door bearing the name of the authorof the following pages--his visiting card impaled on a tack. He was inhis shirt-sleeves--the thermometer stood at 90° outside--working at hisdesk, surrounded by half-finished sketches and manuscript.The man himself I had met before--I had known him for years, infact--but the surroundings were new to me. So too were his methods ofwork.Nowadays when a man would write of the Siege of Peking or the relief ofsome South African town