{"product_id":"2940013677104","title":"Memoirs of the Foreign Legion ( with a long introduction by D H lawrence)","description":"On a dark, wet, wintry evening in November, 1919, I arrived in\u003cbr\u003eFlorence, having just got back to Italy for the first time since 1914.\u003cbr\u003eMy wife was in Germany, gone to see her mother, also for the first\u003cbr\u003etime since that fatal year 1914.  We were poor; who was going to\u003cbr\u003ebother to publish me and to pay for my writings, in 1918 and 1919? I\u003cbr\u003elanded in Italy with nine pounds in my pocket and about twelve pounds\u003cbr\u003elying in the bank in London. Nothing more. My wife, I hoped, would\u003cbr\u003earrive in Florence with two or three pounds remaining. We should have\u003cbr\u003eto go very softly, if we were to house ourselves in Italy for the\u003cbr\u003ewinter. But after the desperate weariness of the war, one could not\u003cbr\u003ebother.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo I had written to N----D---- [Norman Douglas]; to get me a cheap\u003cbr\u003eroom somewhere in Florence, and to leave a note at Cook's. I deposited\u003cbr\u003emy bit of luggage at the station, and walked to Cook's in the Via\u003cbr\u003eTornabuoni. Florence was strange to me: seemed grim and dark and\u003cbr\u003erather awful on the cold November evening. There was a note from\u003cbr\u003eD----, who has never left me in the lurch. I went down the Lung' Arno\u003cbr\u003eto the address he gave.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI had just passed the end of the Ponte Vecchio, and was watching the\u003cbr\u003efirst lights of evening and the last light of day on the swollen river\u003cbr\u003eas I walked, when I heard D----'s voice:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Isn't that Lawrence? Why of course it is, of course it is, beard and\u003cbr\u003eall! Well, how are you, eh? You got my note? Well now, my dear boy,\u003cbr\u003eyou just go on to the Cavelotti--straight ahead, straight\u003cbr\u003eahead--you've got the number. There's a room for you there. We shall\u003cbr\u003ebe there in half an hour. Oh, let me introduce you to M----\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI had unconsciously seen the two men approaching, D-----tall and\u003cbr\u003eportly, the other man rather short and strutting. They were both\u003cbr\u003ebuttoned up in their overcoats, and both had rather curly little hats.\u003cbr\u003eBut D----was decidedly shabby and a gentleman, with his wicked red\u003cbr\u003eface and tufted eyebrows. The other man was almost smart, all in grey,\u003cbr\u003eand he looked at first sight like an actor-manager, common. There was\u003cbr\u003ea touch of down-on-his-luck about him too. He looked at me, buttoned\u003cbr\u003eup in my old thick overcoat, and with my beard bushy and raggy because\u003cbr\u003eof my horror of entering a strange barber's shop, and he greeted me in\u003cbr\u003ea rather fastidious voice, and a little patronizingly. I forgot to say\u003cbr\u003eI was carrying a small hand-bag. But I realized at once that I ought,\u003cbr\u003ein this little grey-sparrow man's eyes--he stuck his front out\u003cbr\u003etubbily, like a bird, and his legs seemed to perch behind him, as a\u003cbr\u003ebird's do--I ought to be in a cab. But I wasn't. He eyed me in that\u003cbr\u003eshrewd and rather impertinent way of the world of actor-managers:\u003cbr\u003ecosmopolitan, knocking shabbily round the world.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47183648358640,"sku":"2940013677104","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013677104_p0.jpg?v=1763583833","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013677104","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}