Taximeter, 1934.

Source:
Paris en Images, copyright Roger-Viollet (RV-352432):
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Gaito Gazdanov's Paris / 9

The doctor

I remember the bewildered stares of some customers when I replied to them in a way that to me couldn’t have seemed more natural; this method of expressing myself earned me several visits to the police station, but happily in each case all ended well.

These annoyances, and I had a lot of them, began the day a passenger – a doctor, as I learned later – whom I picked up from the station with two enormous suitcases claimed that the meter showed too high a fare.

I told him that he was wrong and that there was an additional two franc charge – one franc for each suitcase. He was scandalized and announced that there was no way he would pay me the two francs.

"It’s robbery!" raged the doctor. "You won’t get a centime more!"

"Very well. Would you like me to make you a present of them? I give two francs to anyone who asks me for a handout. I see no reason to refuse you the same amount, but you’ll have to beg for it like the panhandlers do."

He looked at me with his mouth open and stammered that there must be some mistake, that he was a doctor – it was then that I learned this – and that I understood nothing.

"You’re a doctor," I said, "but you have the mentality of a panhandler. It seems strange but it’s true."

"No, no!" Confused, he paid me the two francs and went off, looking back at me as he did. A policeman who was watching the altercation in case things turned ugly looked at me.

"You’re not crazy, by any chance?"

"I don’t think so. But anyway, less crazy than my customers." [196]