I traveled across Europe with a backpack and Eurail Pass -- subsisting on a daily loaf of bread and sleeping in cheap hostels so I could afford admission to all the great galleries and museums. My parsimony paid off. As the trip wound down, I arrived back in Paris flush with nearly two hundred dollars. Having lived so frugally and facing the end of my trip, I felt a sudden desire to splurge, in one day, an amount equal to that which had carried me across much of the Continent for weeks.

After I checked into a pension and headed for the luxuriant purge of a hot shower, I wondered, of all the temptations in Paris, where to spend my money? The mirror on the wall supplied the answer -- my body was nothing but bones. I had gladly sacrificed pounds of flesh for art which had filled my spirit. Now it was time to take the aesthete in another direction.

After indulging in a hair cut and a hot lather shave, I discovered a shop with tailor-made suits on deep-discount sale, where I subsequently emerged the sharp-dressed man. I donated my frayed blue jeans and flannel shirt to the nearest trash bin and took on the air of a boulevardier. It was early afternoon and I had a hundred dollars, which translated into francs would serve me well.

Rounding the corner on rue Royale, I saw Maxim's, a veritable beacon of stylish gastronomy. I hesitated, straightened my tie and walked in. I raised one finger to the tuxedoed maitre d'. He tapped his pen and looked imploringly over my shoulder before turning on his heel and leading me to a table in a far corner. A waiter materialized posthaste with the menu, which I proceeded to scrutinize as if it were a Russian novel. Curiosity piqued, I ordered the truffle sandwich and decided to accompany it with a bottle of Taitinger champagne.

I surveyed the expanse of this illustrious icon synonymous with Paris and its belle epoque. No expense had been spared in this solid, plush establishment, with its gold-framed mirrors and red velvet seats, accented with the finest in silver, linens, and flowers. Any minute I expected to see Gatsby stroll in with Daisy on his arm, or perhaps Piaf followed by a lively entourage. Better still, I thought I actually saw Aristotle and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. But whoever they were. . . he smoked, she ate. And everyone else nonchalantly pretended to look away.

At surrounding tables were the current reigning politicos, titled folk and of course, the ubiquitous coterie of nouveau chic. Bejeweled women and moustachioed men garbed in Chanel, St. Laurent, and Cardin chatted animately. Amidst the soft patter of worldly accents, lilting laughter and crystal glasses ringing toasts, I felt like a spy, hidden away at my table, surfacing from the underground to investigate this elegant environ. A combination of Hemingway and Le Carre.

I had to smile as I reflected that just hours before I had spent the night atop a radiator in the train station waiting room surrounded by a variety of clochards -- a sheltered kid from suburban Ohio beginning to comprehend how far the fall to down-and-out Orwell and so many others had evoked in their writings. I sat in my new suit in a plush chair suffering vertigo from a combination of champagne and the rapid rise to this rarefied restaurant of French gastronomic lore.

More guests stepped briskly into the dining room following the stiff-backed maitre d', heads held high, smiling -- as if given a table at Maxim's was admission to some sacred sanctum.

As I savoured my champagne and awaited the arrival of my truffle sandwich I remembered the historical tidbits I had read in a Paris guide book: how tossing money around Maxim's has always been popular. For example, when the Grand Duke Serge offered a coquette named Augustine a dozen oysters, each containing a pearl worth 200 francs; or when the American Gordon Bennet, owner of the Paris Herald, once paid a flower girl 500 francs for a bunch of violets; and when a New Yorker named Todd flung a fistful of golden louis in the air, and they came down he knew not where, causing a melee among the demi-mondaines -- forty years later, when workmen tore up the seats to renovate the place, they found the louis in nearly every crack and cranny.

My sandwich arrived. I picked it up and took the first bite. What grabs a pig's nose from three feet under surely gives the taste buds a tingle. Bathed in a delicate red wine sauce, served on an open, crisp baguette, the black truffles of Perigord were extremely tasty, with a pungent, bosky flavour.

Truffles range in size from no bigger than a peanut to splendid giants the size of an orange (although most are walnut-sized, which these had been), sliced thin enough to depart all their savouriness.

I was reeling, deliriously pleased, ending a two month backpacking tour of Europe comfortable ensconced in the fabled Maxim's, quaffing the finest champagne and indulging in truffles. Though the sandwich was not very large, I consumed it as if it were a five-course meal, taking one small bite, then sitting back to watch and reflect firsthand a world I previously knew about only between the pages of books.

I thought about how money is a conundrum -- too much of it can shield you from realities everyone should know; too little of it can do the same. I recalled a sidewalk cafe evening when a philosophical Frenchman told me: If you are down to your last two coins -- spend one on bread, the other on art. One gives you the means to live, the other the reason.

I realized that those wise words perfectly described my afternoon in Maxim's -- that during a few special moments in one's life, means and reason, bread and art can be one and the same.

The price of my memorable lunch was a few francs shy of all I had. Even though the service was included in the bill, I stood up and ceremoniously placed all my money on the table -- determined to leave Europe with only expansive memories. Inspired and exhilarated, I took one last survey of the room, catching the eye of an elegant Denueve look-alike. I glided through the foyer, hands in pockets, clutching empty but expensive cloth. As I stepped out on the sidewalk, taking my first breath of a new reality, I stopped and did my best Galic shrug: C'est la vie, I thought to myself. What's money to a young writer hungry for some inspiration and a truffle sandwich?