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Renault Monasix 25, August 1931, rue de Rivoli

Source:
Taxis Passion : L'histoire du taxi parisien (Administré par Horizon Etudiant):
Click here to view source.

Gaito Gazdanov's Paris / 15

Swift reactions

[My] long years of night work … enforced relentless concentration and swift reactions, indispensable for avoiding a head-on collision or anticipating a car hurtling around a bend….

This reflex enabled me to act with the precision of an automaton because it was perfectly unconscious: I could speed along buried in my thoughts, without looking around me: then, before any hint of danger, I would jam on the brakes: the taxi would stop.

At that instant another vehicle would cut across my path at high speed; I’ve seen this countless times, without thinking about it, without even knowing what I was seeing. [58]