Another night he came home later. The scolding became a
philippic. Again he did not come home at all. His father ordered him
never more to darken his doors. Murger took him at his word, and went to
share a friend's bed in another garret. The friend was little better off
in worldly goods; he lived in a chamber for which he paid twenty dollars
a year, and which was furnished "with one of those lots of furniture
which are the terror of landlords, especially when quarter-day comes."
Murger now began to know what it was to be poor, to go to bed without
having tasted a morsel of food the whole day, to be dressed ludicrously
shabby. He had never before known these horrors of poverty; for under
his father's roof the meals, though humble, were always regularly
served, and quarter-day never came. As eight dollars,--less by a great
deal than an ordinary servant earns by sweeping rooms and washing
dishes, besides being fed and lodged,--which Count Tolstoy gave his
secretary, was not enough to enable Murger to live, he tried to add
something to his income by his pen. He wrote petty tales for children's
magazines, and exerted himself to gain admission into other and more
profitable periodicals, but for a long time without success.
Pages:
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81