Tropic of Cancer - Miller, Henry [100]
"What's it going to cost?" asked Fillmore cautiously.
It would cost a lot, she let him know that immediately. "But listen, if you take me to Bricktop's, I promise to go home with you." She was honest enough to add that it might cost him five or six hundred francs. "But I'm worth it! You don't know what a woman I am. There isn't another woman like me in all Paris… "
"That's what you think!" His Yankee blood was coming to the fore. "But I don't see it. I don't see that you're worth anything. You're just a poor crazy son-of-a-bitch. Frankly, I'd rather give fifty francs to some poor French girl; at least they give you something in return."
She hit the ceiling when he mentioned the French girls. "Don't talk to me about those women! I hate them! They're stupid… they're ugly… they're mercenary. Stop it, I tell you!"
In a moment she had subsided again. She was on a new tack. "Darling," she murmured, "you don't know what I look like when I'm undressed. I'm beautiful!" And she held her breasts with her two hands.
But Fillmore remained unimpressed. "You're a bitch!" he said coldly. "I wouldn't mind spending a few hundred francs on you, but you're crazy. You haven't even washed your face. Your breath stinks. I don't give a damn whether you're a princess or not… I don't want any of your high-assed Russian variety. You ought to get out in the street and hustle for it. You're no better than any little French girl. You're not as good. I wouldn't piss away another sou on you. You ought to go to America – that's the place for a bloodsucking leech like you…"
She didn't seem to be at all put out by this speech. "I think you're just a little afraid of me," she said.
"Afraid of you? Of you?"
"You're just a little boy," she said. "You have no manners. When you know me better you will talk differently… Why don't you try to be nice? If you don't want to go with me tonight, very well. I will be at the Rond-Point tomorrow between five and seven. I like you."
"I don't intend to be at the Rond-Point tomorrow, or any other night! I don't want to see you again… ever. I'm through with you. I'm going out and find myself a nice little French girl. You can go to hell!"
She looked at him and smiled wearily. "That's what you say now. But wait! Wait until you've slept with me. You don't know yet what a beautiful body I have. You think the French girls know how to make love… wait! I will make you crazy about me. I like you. Only you're uncivilized. You're just a boy. You talk too much…"
"You're crazy," said Fillmore. "I wouldn't fall for you if you were the last woman on earth. Go home and wash your face." He walked off without paying for the drinks.
In a few days, however, the princess was installed. She's a genuine princess, of that we're pretty certain. But she has the clap. Anyway, life is far from dull here. Fillmore has bronchitis, the princess, as I was saying, has the clap, and I have the piles. Just exchanged six empty bottles at the Russian épicerie across the way. Not a drop went down my gullet. No meat, no wine, no rich game, no women. Only fruit and paraffin oil, arnica drops and adrenalin ointment. And not a chair in the joint that's comfortable enough. Right now, looking at the princess, I'm propped up like a pasha. Pasha! That reminds me of her name: Macha. Doesn't sound so damned aristocratic to me. Reminds me of The Living Corpse.
At first I thought it was going to be embarrassing, a ménage à trois, but not at all. I thought when I saw her move in that it was all up with me again, that I should have to find another place, but Fillmore soon gave me to understand that he was only putting her up until she got on her feet. With a