Prostitutes at the bar of Le Sphinx, a "maison close" or brothel. Paris, boulevard Edgar Quinet (XIVth district), about 1935.

Source:
Paris en Images, copyright Roger-Viollet (RV-335725):
Click here to view source.

Gaito Gazdanov's Paris / 36

Prostitutes

Every night I rubbed shoulders with prostitutes and their clients, but I couldn�t get used to it. It was too much for me, although I understood that my ideas about these women differed considerably from those that their clients could have had.

I knew them as they were: they took me for one of their own and liked to compare our occupations. �We do the same thing,� was their favourite comment.

In the morning, while returning to the garage, I often took them home after their work. Every time I did this they would offer to pay me in trade.

I always made them sit in the back seat, and not beside me, because they used cheap, strong perfume � something like an acrid solution of bad soap � and their proximity left a sickly taste in my mouth. [86]