Free text for the story here: http://gutenberg.net.au/fsf/BABYLON-R...
There is an amusing snippet about what might perhaps have been Adelaide Hall's, 'The Pomme Grosse' at 73 Rue Pigalle, just a few steps from Ada Smith's famous Bricktop club. Bricktop was instantiated in Rome and Mexico City by Ada when she fled Paris before the Nazis arrived. Many American Jazz greats were in Paris at this time, but their lives were interrupted by both world wars. Sadly, the quality Jazz is gone from Montmartre, but the catering to carnival-like vice persists. It's too corny to be interesting, and one will tire of trying to round up the day's produce in the middle of it all, chased by sex show barkers on Rue Clichy.
After an hour, he left and strolled toward Montmartre, up the Rue Pigalle into the Place Blanche. The rain had stopped, and there were a few people in evening clothes getting out of taxis in front of cabarets, along with cocottes prowling alone or in pairs, and many Negroes. He passed a lighted door from which music was coming and stopped, feeling a sense of familiarity. It was Bricktop's, where he had spent so many hours and so much money. A few doors further on, he found another old meeting place and incautiously looked inside. Immediately, an eager orchestra started playing, a pair of professional dancers jumped to their feet, and a maître d'hôtel rushed towards him, shouting, "Crowd just arriving, sir!" But he quickly withdrew.
"You have to be damn drunk," he thought. Zelli's was closed, and the bleak and sinister cheap hotels around it were dark. Up in the Rue Blanche, there was more light and a local, colloquial French crowd. The Poet's Cave had disappeared, but the two great mouths of the Café of Heaven and the Café of Hell still yawned - even devouring, as he watched, the meager contents of a tourist bus - a German, a Japanese, and an American couple who looked at him with frightened eyes.
So much for the effort and ingenuity of Montmartre. All the catering to vice and waste was on an utterly childish scale, and he suddenly realized the meaning of the word "dissipate" - to dissipate into thin air; to make nothing out of something. In the early hours of the night, every move from place to place was an enormous human jump, an increase in paying for the privilege of slower and slower motion.
Family quarrels are truly bitter affairs. They do not conform to any set of rules. Unlike physical aches or wounds that can heal with time and proper care, family quarrels are more like deep splits in the skin that seem to resist healing. This is because there often isn't enough emotional material or understanding to bridge the gap. It's a painful story, made even more so by the autobiographical elements that Fitzgerald weaves into it.
Charlie Wales makes his way back to Paris, the city that见证了他在股市崩盘后的起起落落. He has returned to visit his daughter, who has been staying with her aunt since her mother passed away. As the story unfolds, the emotions run high, and we are left wondering if redemption is truly possible for Charlie.
I am truly in awe of how Fitzgerald managed to create such vivid and tangible characters within the limited pages of this story. Each character left a strong impression on me, and I could feel their emotions as if they were my own. It took some effort on my part to push the characters from the film “The Last Time I Saw Paris” out of my mind, as the film version was different yet equally vivid. In fact, I find myself loving both versions for their unique qualities.