One of a fleet of 600 taxis leaving the garage at the beginning of a shift, March 1941.

Source:
Paris en Images, copyright LAPI / Roger-Viollet (LAP-1877A):
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Gaito Gazdanov's Paris / 12

Nothing but a taxi driver

I regretfully left my room, my desk and my couch. Once again at the wheel of the taxi I rolled along slowly, forgetting for a few nightly hours everything that composed my life: memories, ideas, dreams, favourite books, impressions of the preceding day, the latest conversation on whatever subject I deemed to be most important.

Long experience taught me that in order to work efficiently, I had to put all that aside and become nothing but a taxi driver….

Sometimes, if I were in a good mood, I even thought that things weren’t so bad, that these few hours of night work from which I made my living cost me less time than any other occupation would have.

At such times I was ready to forgive my passengers everything which normally angered or disgusted me. [95-96]