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Taxi and driver seen from the rear, 1927. Photo by S�eberger (fr�res).

Source:
Minist�re de la Culture (France), M�diath�que de l'architecture
et du patrimoine (archives photographiques)
diffusion RMN (photo no. FSK24-07 ):
Click here to view source.

Gaito Gazdanov's Paris / 19

The back seat

At night Paris swarmed with people possessed by a sexual frenzy. They often behaved in the taxi as though they were in a hotel bedroom.

One day, I brought a tall young woman back from a ball; she wore a sumptuous fur mantle and was accompanied by a gentleman about 70 years old.

He ordered me to stop in front of a building on boulevard Haussmann; since they didn�t get out of the car and weren�t talking, and since I couldn�t imagine that this candidate for P�re Lachaise cemetery was capable of any indecent act, I turned round to see what was going on.

She was stretched out on the back seat, her dress pulled up to her waist, while the old man�s bluish hand, with its distended veins and arthritic joints, slowly stroked the brilliant white skin of her thigh. [194]