None of the brats came back from Easter vacation. There was nobody left at Meanwell but Jongkind and me. The joint was a desert.
To save on housework they closed off a whole floor. The furniture had gone, they sold it piece by piece, first the chairs, then the tables, the two cupboards, and even the beds. There was nothing left but our two beds. They were really liquidating . . . There was more to eat though . . . Quantities of jam . . . all we wanted . . . we could take seconds on pudding . . . The food was plentiful, what a change . . . that was really something new . . . Nora did the heavy work, but she prettied up all the same. At the table she was perfectly charming, almost playful . . .
The old geezer didn't hang around long, he'd fill up in a hurry and start off again on his tricycle. Jongkind kept the conversation going, all by himself. "No trouble!" And he'd learned another word: "No fear!" He was proud of that, it made him jump with joy. He never stopped saying it. "Ferdinand! No Fear!" he kept saying to me between mouthfuls.
Outside I didn't like to be noticed . . . I gave him a few kicks in the ass . . . He got the drift, he left me alone . . . As a reward I gave him pickles. I always took a supply with me, my pockets were full of them . . . They were his favorite delicacy, that way I made him behave . . . He'd let himself be torn limb from limb for pickles . . .
-- Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Death on the Installment Plan, tr. Ralph Manheim (New York: New Directions, 1966), 254-55.