least, that's how it seems to me now. There was an old
faded print of a woman's head hanging on the wall of
my room, and I took to wondering who it could be; and
after about an hour I realised that it must be Sainte
Éloise, who was the patron saint of the quarter. I had
never taken any notice of the thing before, but now, as I
lay staring at it, a most extraordinary idea came into my
head.
" 'Écoute, mon cher,' I said to myself, 'you'll be
starving to death if this goes on much longer. You've
got to do something. Why not try a prayer to Sainte
Éloise? Go down on your knees and ask her to send you
some money. After all, it can't do any harm. Try it!'
"Mad, eh? Still, a man will do anything when he's
hungry. Besides, as I said, it couldn't do any harm. I got
out of bed and began praying. I said:
" 'Dear Sainte Éloise, if you exist, please send me
some money. I don't ask for much just enough to buy
some bread and a bottle of wine and get my strength
back. Three or four francs would do. You don't know
how grateful I'll be, Sainte Éloise, if you help me this
once. And be sure, if you send me anything, the first
thing I'll do will be to go and burn a candle for you, at
your church down the street. Amen.'
"I put in that about the candle, because I had heard
that saints like having candles burnt in their honour. I
meant to keep my promise, of course. But I am an
atheist and I didn't really believe that anything would
come of it.
"Well, I got into bed again, and five minutes later
there came a bang at the door. It was a girl called Maria,
a big fat peasant girl who lived at our hotel. She was a
very stupid girl, but. a good sort, and I didn't much care
for her to see me in the state I was in.
"She cried out at the sight of me. 'Nom de Dieu!' she
said, 'what's the matter with you? What are you doing
in bed at this time of day? Quelle mine que tu as! You look
more like a corpse than a man.'
"Probably I did look a sight. I had been five days
without food, most of the time in bed, and it was three
days since I had had a wash or a shave. The room was a
regular pigsty, too.
" 'What's the matter?' said Maria again.
" 'The matter!' I said; 'Jesus Christ! I'm starving. I
haven't eaten for five days. That's what's the matter.'
"Maria was horrified. 'Not eaten for five days?' she
said. 'But why? Haven't you any money, then?'
" 'Money!' I said. 'Do you suppose I should be
starving if I had money? I've got just five sous in the
world, and I've pawned everything. Look round the
room and see if there's anything more I can sell or
pawn. If you can find anything that will fetch fifty
centimes, you're cleverer than I am.'
"Maria began looking round the room. She poked
here and there among a lot of rubbish that was lying
about, and then suddenly she got quite excited. Her
great thick mouth fell open with astonishment.
" 'You idiot!' she cried out. 'Imbecile! What's this,
then?'
"I saw that she had picked up an empty oil bidon that
had been lying in the corner. I had bought it weeks
before, for an oil lamp I had before I sold my things.
" 'That?' I said. 'That's an oil bidon. What about it?'
" 'Imbecile! Didn't you pay three francs fifty
deposit on it?'
"Now, of course I had paid the three francs fifty.
They always make you pay a deposit on the bidon, and
you get it back when the bidon is returned. But I'd for-
gotten all about it.
" 'Yes---' I began.
" 'Idiot!' shouted Maria again. She got so excited
that she began to dance about until I thought her
sabots would go through the floor. 'Idiot! T'es fou!T'es
fou! What have you got to do but take it back to the
shop and get your deposit back? Starving, with three
francs fifty staring you in the face! Imbecile!'
"I can hardly believe now that in all those five days
I had never once thought of taking the bidon back to the
shop. As good as three francs fifty in hard cash, and it
had never occurred to me! I sat up in bed. 'Quick!' I
shouted to Maria, 'you take it for me. Take it to the
grocer's at the corner-run like the devil. And bring
back food!
Maria didn't need to be told. She grabbed the bidon
and went clattering down the stairs like a herd of
elephants, and in three minutes she was back with two
pounds of bread under one arm and a half-litre bottle
of wine under the other. I didn't stop to thank her; I
just seized the bread and sank my teeth in it. Have you
noticed how bread tastes when you have been hungry
for a long time? Cold, wet, doughy-like putty almost.
But, Jesus Christ, how good it was! As for the wine, I
sucked it all down in one draught, and it seemed to go
straight into my veins and flow round my body like
new blood. Ah, that made a difference!
"I wolfed the whole two pounds of bread without
stopping to take breath. Maria stood with her hands on
her hips, watching me eat. 'Well, you feel better, eh?'
she said when I had finished.
" 'Better!' I said. 'I feel perfect! I'm not the same
man as I was five minutes ago. There's only one thing
in the world I need now-a cigarette.'
"Maria put her hand in her apron pocket. 'You can't
have it,' she said. 'I've no money. This is all I had left
out of your three francs fifty-seven sous. It's no good;
the cheapest cigarettes are twelve sous a packet.'
" 'Then I can have them!' I said. 'Jesus Christ, what
a piece of luck! I've got five sous-it's just enough.'
"Maria took the twelve sous and was starting out to the
tobacconist's. And then something I had forgotten all
this time came into my head. There was that cursed
Sainte Éloise! I had promised her a candle if she sent
me money; and really, who could say that the prayer
hadn't come true? 'Three or four francs,' I had said;
and the next moment along came three francs fifty.
There was no getting away from it. I should have to
spend my twelve sous on a candle.
"I called Maria back. 'It's no use,' I said; 'there is
Sainte Éloise-I have promised her a candle. The twelve
sous will have to go on that. Silly, isn't it? I can't have
my cigarettes after all.'
« 'Sainte Éloise?' said Maria. 'What about Sainte
Éloise?'
" 'I prayed to her for money and promised her a
candle,' I said. 'She answered the prayer-at any rate,
the money turned up. I shall have to buy that candle.
It's a nuisance, but it seems to me I must keep my
promise.'
" 'But what put Sainte Éloise into your head?' said
Maria.
" 'It was her picture,' I said, and I explained the
whole thing. 'There she is, you see,' I said, and I pointed
to the picture on the wall.
"Maria looked at the picture, and then to my surprise
she burst into shouts of laughter. She laughed more and
more, stamping about the room and holding her fat sides
as though they would burst. I thought she had gone mad.
It was two minutes before she could speak.
" 'Idiot!' she cried at last. 'T'es fou! T'es fou! Do you
mean to tell me you really knelt down and prayed to that
picture? Who told you it was Sainte Éloise?'
" 'But I made sure it was Sainte Éloise!' I said.
" 'Imbecile! It isn't Sainte Éloise at all. Who do you
think it is?'
" 'Who?' I said.
" 'It is Suzanne May, the woman this hotel is called
after.'
"I had been praying to Suzanne May, the famous
prostitute of the Empire. . . .
"But, after all, I wasn't sorry. Maria and I had a good
laugh, and then we talked it over, and we made out that I
didn't owe Sainte Éloise anything. Clearly it wasn't she
who had answered the prayer, and there was no need to
buy her a candle. So I had my packet of cigarettes after
all."
XVI
TIME went on and the Auberge de Jehan Cottard showed
no signs of opening. Boris and I went down there one
day during our afternoon interval and found that none of
the alterations had been done, except the indecent
pictures, and there were three duns instead of two. The
patron greeted us with his usual blandness,
and the next instant turned to me (his prospective
dishwasher) and borrowed five francs. After that I felt
certain that the restaurant would never get beyond talk.
The patron, however, again named the opening for
"exactly a fortnight from to-day," and introduced us to
the woman who was to do the cooking, a Baltic Russian
five feet tall and a yard across the hips. She told us that
she had been a singer before she came down to cooking,
and that she was very artistic and adored English
literature, especially La Case de l'Oncle Tom.
In a fortnight I had got so used to the routine of a
plongeur's life that I could hardly imagine anything
different. It was a life without much variation. At a
quarter to six one woke with a sudden start, tumbled into
grease-stiffened clothes, and hurried out with dirty face
and protesting muscles. It was dawn, and the windows
were dark except for the workmen's cafés. The sky was
like a vast flat wall of cobalt, with roofs and spires of
black paper pasted upon it. Drowsy men were sweeping
the pavements with ten-foot besoms, and ragged families
picking over the dustbins. Workmen, and girls with a
piece of chocolate in one hand and a croissant in the
other, were pouring into the Metro stations. Trams, filled
with more workmen, boomed gloomily past. One
hastened down to the station, fought for a place-one does
literally have to fight on the Paris Metro at six in the
morning-and stood jammed in the swaying mass of
passengers, nose to nose with some hideous French face,
breathing sour wine and garlic. And then one descended
into the labyrinth of the hotel basement, and forgot
daylight till two o'clock, when the sun was hot and the
town black with people and cars.
After my first week at the hotel I always spent the
afternoon interval in sleeping, or, when I had money,
in a bistro. Except for a few ambitious waiters who went
to English classes, the whole staff wasted their leisure in
this way; one seemed too lazy after the morning's work
to do anything better. Sometimes half a dozen plongeurs
would make up a party and go to an abominable brothel
in the Rue de Sieyès, where the charge was only five
francs twenty-five centimes-tenpence half-penny. It was
nicknamed « le prix fixe, » and they used to describe
their experiences there as a great joke. It was a favourite
rendezvous of hotel workers. The plongeurs' wages did
not allow them to marry, and no doubt work in the
basement does not encourage fastidious feelings.
For another four hours one was in the cellars, and
then one emerged, sweating, into the cool street. It was
lamplight-that strange purplish gleam of the Paris lamps-
and beyond the river the Eiffel Tower flashed from top
to bottom with zigzag skysigns, like enormous snakes of
fire. Streams of cars glided silently to and fro, and
women, exquisite-looking in the dim light, strolled up
and down the arcade. Sometimes a woman would glance
at Boris or me, and then, noticing our greasy clothes,
look hastily away again. One fought another battle in the
Metro and was home by ten. Generally from ten to
midnight I went to a little bistro in our street, an
underground place frequented by Arab navvies. It was a
bad place for fights, and I sometimes saw bottles thrown,
once with fearful effect, but as a rule the Arabs fought
among themselves and let Christians alone. Raki, the
Arab drink, was very cheap, and the bistro was open at
all hours, for the Arabs-lucky men-had the power of
working all day and drinking all night.
It was the typical life of a plongeur, and it did not
seem a bad life at the time. I had no sensation of
poverty, for even after paying my rent and setting aside
enough for tobacco and journeys and my food on
Sundays, I still had four francs a day for drinks, and four
francs was wealth. There was-it is hard to express it-a
sort of heavy contentment, the contentment a well-fed
beast might feel, in a life which had become so simple.
For nothing could be simpler than the life of a plongeur.
He lives in a rhythm between work and sleep, without
time to think, hardly conscious of the exterior world; his
Paris has shrunk to the hotel, the Metro, a few bistros
and his bed. If he goes afield, it is only a few streets
away, on a trip with some servantgirl who sits on his
knee swallowing oysters and beer. On his free day he
lies in bed till noon, puts on a clean shirt, throws dice for
drinks, and after lunch goes back to bed again. Nothing
is quite real to him but the boulot, drinks and sleep; and
of these sleep is the most important.
One night, in the small hours, there was a murder just
beneath my window. I was woken by a fearful uproar,
and, going to the window, saw a man lying flat on the
stones below; I could see the murderers, three of them,
flitting away at the end of the street. Some of us went
down and found that the man was quite dead, his skull
cracked with a piece of lead piping. I remember the
colour of his blood, curiously purple, like wine; it was
still on the cobbles when I came home that evening, and
they said the schoolchildren had come from miles round
to see it. But the thing that strikes me in looking back is
that I was in bed and asleep within three minutes of the
murder. So were most of the people in the street; we just
made sure tha
t the man was done for, and went straight
back to bed. We were working people, and where was
the sense of wasting sleep over a murder?
Work in the hotel taught me the true value of sleep,
just as being hungry had taught me the true value of
food. Sleep had ceased to be a mere physical necessity; it
was something voluptuous, a debauch more than a relief.
I had no more trouble with the bugs. Mario had told me
of a sure remedy for them, namely pepper, strewed thick
over the bedclothes. It made me sneeze, but the bugs all
hated it, and emigrated to other rooms.
XVII
WITH thirty francs a week to spend on drinks I could
take part in the social life of the quarter. We had some
jolly evenings, on Saturdays, in the little bistro at the foot
of the Hôtel des Trois Moineaux.
The brick-floored room, fifteen feet square, was
packed with twenty people, and the air dim with smoke.
The noise was deafening, for everyone was either talking
at the top of his voice or singing. Sometimes it was just a
confused din of voices; sometimes everyone would burst
out together in the same songthe " Marseillaise, » or the
" Internationale, » or " Madelon," or " Les Fraises et les
Framboises. » Azaya, a great clumping peasant girl who
worked fourteen hours a day in a glass factory, sang a
song about, " Il a perdu ses pantalons, tout en dansant le
Charleston." Her friend Marinette, a thin, dark Corsican
girl of obstinate virtue, tied her knees together and
danced the danse du ventre. The old Rougiers wandered
in and out, cadging drinks and trying to tell a long,
involved story about someone who had once cheated
them over a bedstead. R., cadaverous and silent, sat in
his corner quietly boozing. Charlie, drunk, half danced,
half staggered to and fro with a glass of sham absinthe
balanced in one fat hand, pinching the women's breasts
and declaiming poetry. People played darts and diced
for drinks. Manuel, a Spaniard, dragged the girls to the
bar and shook the dice-box against their bellies, for
luck. Madame F. stood at the bar rapidly pouring
chopines of wine through the pewter funnel, with a wet
dishcloth always handy, because every man in the room
tried to make love to her. Two children, bastards of big
Louis the bricklayer, sat in a corner sharing a glass of
sirop. Everyone was very happy, overwhelmingly
Down and Out in London and Paris Page 10
