They had installed him in a garret, high up under a mansarde roof, in
the Rue Lesdiguieres, No. 9, and it was he himself who chose this
lodging because of the ease with which he could reach the Arsenal
library during the daytime, while at night he would stay at home and
work.

Ah, what a long, deep breath he drew, and how heartily he laughed his
silent, inward laugh, as he stood with crossed arms and let his black
eyes make inspection of his cramped and miserable dwelling. He was
free, free! Here was his desk, covered with brown leather, his ink and
pens, here were four chairs and a cupboard in which to hang his clothes
and store away a few plates and his precious coffee pot, there was his
monastic bed, and beyond it some shelves nailed to the wall to hold his
books. He sat down and dreamed, for he had just won his first victory,
he was no longer accountable to anyone in the world for each and every
hour of his life.

"I rejoiced," he has written in The Magic Skin, "at the thought that I
was going to live upon bread and milk, like a hermit in the Thebiade,
plunged in the world of books and ideas, in an inaccessible sphere, in
the midst of all the tumult of Paris, the sphere of work and of
silence, in which, after the manner of a chrysalis, I was about to
build myself a tomb, in order to emerge again brilliant and glorious."
Next, he calculates what his expenses were during this studious
retreat: "Three cents' worth of bread, two of milk, three of sausage
prevented me from dying of hunger and kept my mind in a lucid
condition... My lodgings cost me three cents a day, I burned three
cents' worth of oil per night, I did my own housework, I wore flannel
night-shirts, in order to cut down my laundry bill to two cents a day.
I warmed my room with coal instead of wood, for I found that the cost