George Orwell - Down and Out in Paris and London

wrap as many of my things as I can carry in a

newspaper, and go down and ask the patron the way to

the nearest laundry. I shall be very brazen and casual,

you understand, and of course the patron will think the

bundle is nothing but dirty linen. Or, if he does suspect

anything, he will do what he always does, the mean

sneak; he will go up to my room and feel the weight of

my suitcase. And when he feels the weight of stones he

will think it is still full. Strategy, eh? Then afterwards I

can come back and carry my other things out in my

pockets."

   "But what about the suitcase?"

   "Oh, that? We shall have to abandon it. The miser-

able thing only cost about twenty francs. Besides, one

always abandons something in a retreat. Look at

Napoleon at the Beresina! He abandoned his whole

army."

   Boris was so pleased with this scheme (he called it

une

ruse de guerre

) that he almost forgot being hungry. Its

main weakness-that he would have nowhere to sleep

after shooting the moon-he ignored.

   At first the

ruse de guerre worked well. I went home

and fetched my overcoat (that made already nine kilo-

metres, on an empty belly) and smuggled Boris's coat

out successfully. Then a hitch occured. The receiver at

the pawnshop, a nasty, sour-faced interfering, little

man-a typical French official-refused the coats on the

ground that they were not wrapped up in anything. He

said that they must be put either in a valise or a

carboard box. This spoiled everything, for we had no

box of any kind, and with only twenty-five centimes

between us we could not buy one.

   I went back and told Boris the bad news. "

Merde!" he

said, "that makes it awkward. Well, no matter, there is

always a way. We'll put the overcoats in my suitcase."

   "But how are we to get the suitcase past the

patron?

He's sitting almost in the door of the office. It's

impossible!"

   "How easily you despair,

mon ami! Where is that

English obstinacy that I have read of? Courage! We'll

manage it."

   Boris thought for a little while, and then produced

another cunning plan. The essential difficulty was to

hold the

patron's attention for perhaps five seconds,

while we could slip past with the suitcase. But, as it

happened, the

patron had just one weak spot-that he was

interested in

Le Sport, and was ready to talk if you

approached him on this subject. Boris read an article

about bicycle races in an old copy of the

Petit Parisien,

and then, when he had reconnoitred the stairs, went

down and managed to set the

patron talking. Meanwhile,

I waited at the foot of the stairs, with the overcoats

under one arm and the suitcase under the other. Boris

was to give a cough when he thought the moment

favourable. I waited trembling, for at any moment the

patron's

wife might come out of the door opposite the

office, and then the game was up. However, presently

Boris coughed. I sneaked rapidly past the office and out

into the street, rejoicing that my shoes did not creak. The

plan might have failed if Boris had been thinner, for his

big shoulders blocked the doorway of the office. His nerve

was splendid, too; he went on laughing and talking in the

most casual way, and so loud that he quite covered any

noise I made. When I was well away he came and joined

me round the corner, and we bolted.

   And then, after all our trouble, the receiver at the

pawnshop again refused the overcoats. He told me (one

could see his French soul revelling in the pedantry of it)

that I had not sufficient papers of identification; my

carte

d'identité

was not enough, and I must show a passport or

addressed envelopes. Boris had addressed envelopes by

the score, but his

carte d'identité was out of order (he

never renewed it, so as to avoid the tax), so we could not

pawn the overcoats in his name. All we could do was to

trudge up to my room, get the necessary papers, and

take the coats to the pawnshop in the Boulevard Port

Royal.

   I left Boris at my room and went down to the pawn-

shop. When I got there I found that it was shut and

would not open till four in the afternoon. It was now

about half-past one, and I had walked twelve kilometres

and had no food for sixty hours. Fate seemed to be

playing a series of extraordinarily unamusing jokes.

   Then the luck changed as though by a miracle. I was

walking home through the Rue Broca when suddenly,

glittering on the cobbles, I saw a five-sou piece. I

pounced on it, hurried home, got our other five-sou piece

and bought a pound of potatoes. There was only enough

alcohol in the stove to parboil them, and we

had no salt, but we wolfed them, skins and all. After

that we felt like new men, and sat playing chess till the

pawnshop opened.

   At four o'clock I went back to the pawnshop. I was

not hopeful, for if I had only got seventy francs before,

what could I expect for two shabby overcoats in a

cardboard suitcase? Boris had said twenty francs, but I

thought it would be ten francs, or even five. Worse yet, I

might be refused altogether, like poor

Numéro 83 on the

previous occasion. I sat on the front bench, so as not to

see people laughing when the clerk said five francs.

   At last the clerk called my number: «

Numéro 117 !"

   "Yes," I said, standing up.

   "Fifty francs?"

   It was almost as great a shock as the seventy francs

had been the time before. I believe now that the clerk

had mixed my number up with someone else's, for one

could not have sold the coats outright for fifty francs. I

hurried home and walked into my room with my hands

behind my back, saying nothing. Boris was playing with

the chessboard. He looked up eagerly.

   "What did you get?" he exclaimed. "What, not twenty

francs? Surely you got ten francs, anyway?

Nom de Dieu,

five francs-that is a bit too thick.

Mon ami, don't say it

was five francs. If you say it was five francs I shall really

begin to think of suicide."

   I threw the fifty-franc note on to the table. Boris

turned white as chalk, and then, springing up, seized my

hand and gave it a grip that almost broke the bones. We

ran out, bought bread and wine, a piece of meat and

alcohol for the stove, and gorged.

   After eating, Boris became more optimistic than I had

ever known him. "What did I tell you?" he said. "The

fortune of war! This morning with five sous, and

now look at us. I have always said it, there is nothing

easier to get than money. And that reminds me, I have a

friend in the Rue Fondary whom we might go and see.

He has cheated me of four thousand francs, the thief. He

is the greatest thief alive when he is sober, but it is a

curious thing, he is quite honest when he is drunk. I

should think he would be drunk by six in the evening.

Let's go and find him. Very likely he will pay up a

hundred on account.

Merde! He might pay two hundred.

Allons y!"

   We went to the Rue Fondary and found the man, and

he was drunk, but we did not get our hundred francs. As

soon as he and Boris met there was a terrible altercation

on the pavement. The other man declared that he did not

owe Boris a penny, but that on the contrary Boris owed

him

four thousand francs, and both of them kept

appealing to me for my opinion. I never understood the

rights of the matter. The two argued and argued, first in

the street, then in a bistro, then in a

prix fixe restaurant

where we went for dinner, then in another

bistro.

Finally, having called one another thieves for two hours,

they went off together on a drinking bout that finished

up the last sou of Boris's money.

   Boris slept the night at the house of a cobbler,

another Russian refugee, in the Commerce quarter.

Meanwhile, I had eight francs left, and plenty of

cigarettes, and was stuffed to the eyes with food and

drink. It was a marvellous change for the better after two

bad days.

                       VIII

WE had now twenty-eight francs in hand, and could

start looking for work once more. Boris was still

sleeping, on some mysterious terms, at the house of the

cobbler, and he had managed to borrow another twenty

francs from a Russian friend. He had friends, mostly

exofficers like himself, here and there all over Paris.

Some were waiters or dishwashers, some drove taxis, a

few lived on women, some had managed to bring

money away from Russia and owned garages or

dancing-halls. In general, the Russian refugees in Paris

are hard-working people, and have put up with their

bad luck far better than one can imagine Englishmen

of the same class doing. There are exceptions, of

course. Boris told me of an exiled Russian duke whom

he had once met, who frequented expensive

restaurants. The duke would find out if there was a

Russian officer among the waiters, and, after he had

dined, call him in a friendly way to his table.

   « Ah, » the duke would say,

  "so you are an old

soldier, like myself? These are bad days, eh? Well, well,

the Russian soldier fears nothing. And what was your

regiment?"

   "The so-and-so, sir," the waiter would answer.

   "A very gallant regiment! I inspected them in 1912.

By the way, I have unfortunately left my notecase at

home. A Russian officer will, I know, oblige me with

three hundred francs."

   If the waiter had three hundred francs he would hand

it over, and, of course, never see it again. The duke

made quite a lot in this way. Probably the waiters did

not mind being swindled. A duke is a duke, even in

exile.

   It was through one of these Russian refugees that

Boris heard of something which seemed to promise

money. Two days after we had pawned the overcoats,

Boris said to me rather mysteriously:

   "Tell me,

mon ami, have you any political opinions?"

   "No," I said.