Life Was An Impenetrable Mystery Cloaked In

My First Job Was Working In A Dress Shop In Los Angeles In 1940, For $7 A Week.

And What Movies We Saw! All The Actors And Actresses Whose Photographs I Collected, With Their Look Of Eternity! Their Radiance, Their Eyes, Their Faces, Their Voices, The Suavity Of Their Movements! Their Clothes! Even In Prison Movies, The Stars Shone In Their Prison Clothes As If Tailors Had Accompanied Them In Their Downfall.

When I Had A Few Francs, I Spent Them At A Café On The Place De Longchamps, A Block Or So From My Pension, Where I Could Order A Glass Of Beaujolais And A Plate Of String Beans In Vinaigrette For The Equivalent Of Fifteen Cents.

I've Always Known A Lot Of Very Bad People, Destructive, Brutes Of A Certain Kind. Then I've Seen These Lovely Impulses And What Not, And They've Stayed With Me And Comforted Me.

To Be Human Is To Be In A Story.