Down and Out in Paris and London (6 page)

LOCK HOLMES. It was all that I felt equal to, without food.

Hunger reduces one to an utterly spineless, brainless condi-

tion, more like the after-effects of influenza than anything

else. It is as though one had been turned into a jellyfish, or as

though all one’s blood had been pumped out and luke-wann

water substituted. Complete inertia is my chief memory of

Down and Out in Paris and London

hunger; that, and being obliged to spit very frequently, and

the spittle being curiously white and flocculent, like cuck-

oo-spit. I do not know the reason for this, but everyone who

has gone hungry several days has noticed it.

On the third morning I felt very much better. I realized

that I must do something at once, and I decided to go and

ask Boris to let me share his two francs, at any rate for a day

or two. When I arrived I found Boris in bed, and furiously

angry. As soon as I came in he burst out, almost choking:

‘He has taken it back, the dirty thief! He has taken it

back!’

‘Who’s taken what?’ I said.

‘The Jew! Taken my two francs, the dog, the thief! He

robbed me in my sleep!’

It appeared that on the previous night the Jew had flatly

refused to pay the daily two francs. They had argued and

argued, and at last the Jew had consented to hand over the

money; he had done it, Boris said, in the most offensive

manner, making a little speech about how kind he was, and

extorting abject gratitude. And then in the morning he had

stolen the money back before Boris was awake.

This was a blow. I was horribly disappointed, for I had al-

lowed my belly to expect food, a great mistake when one is

hungry. However, rather to my surprise, Boris was far from

despairing. He sat up in bed, lighted his pipe and reviewed

the situation.

‘Now listen, MON AMI, this is a tight comer. We have

only twenty-five centimes between us, and I don’t suppose

the Jew will ever pay my two francs again. In any case his

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behaviour is becoming intolerable. Will you believe it, the

other night he had the indecency to bring a woman in here,

while I was there on the floor. The low animal! And I have a

worse thing to tell you. The Jew intends clearing out of here.

He owes a week’s rent, and his idea is to avoid paying that

and give me the slip at the same time. If the Jew shoots the

moon I shall be left without a roof, and the PATRON will

take my suitcase in lieu of rent, curse him! We have got to

make a vigorous move.’

‘All right. But what can we do? It seems to me that the

only thing is to pawn our overcoats and get some food.’

‘We’ll do that, of course, but I must get my possessions

out of this house first. To think of my photographs being

seized! Well, my plan is ready. I’m going to forestall the Jew

and shoot the moon myself. F—— LE CAMP—retreat, you

understand. I think that is the correct move, eh?’

‘But, my dear Boris, how can you, in daytime? You’re

bound to be caught.’

‘Ah well, it will need strategy, of course. Our PATRON

is on the watch for people slipping out without paying their

rent; he’s been had that way before. He and his wife take it in

turns all day to sit in the office— what misers, these French-

men! But I have thought of a way to do it, if you will help.’

I did not feel in a very helpful mood, but I asked Boris

what his plan was. He explained it carefully.

‘Now listen. We must start by pawning our overcoats.

First go back to your room and fetch your overcoat, then

come back here and fetch mine, and smuggle it out under

cover of yours. Take them to the pawnshop in the rue des

Down and Out in Paris and London

Francs Bourgeois. You ought to get twenty francs for the

two, with luck. Then go down to the Seine bank and fill your

pockets with stones, and bring them back and put them in

my suitcase. You see the idea? I shall 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 PA-

TRON 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 after-

wards 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 miserable

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 kilometres,

on an empty belly) and smuggled Boris’s coat out success-

fully. Then a hitch occurred. 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

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wrapped up in anything. He said that they must be put ei-

ther in a valise or a cardboard 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 al-

ways 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 Eng-

lish obstinacy that I have read of? Courage! We’ll manage

it.’ Boris thought for a little while, and then produced an-

other 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 suit-

case 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. How-

ever, presently Boris coughed. I sneaked rapidly past the

office and out into the street, rejoicing that my shoes did not

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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 pawn-

shop 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’IDENTITE

was not enough, and I must show a passport or addressed

envelopes. Boris had addressed envelopes by the score, but

his CARTE D’IDENTITE was out of order (he never re-

newed 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 pawnshop.

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 ex-

traordinarily unamusing jokes.

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

walking home through the Rue Broca when suddenly, glit-

tering 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

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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 suit-

case? Boris had said twenty francs, but I thought it would be

ten francs, or even five. Worse yet, I might be refused alto-

gether, like poor NUMERO 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: ‘NUMERO 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, say-

ing 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

Down and Out in Paris and London

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 mon-

ey. And that reminds me, I have a friend in the rue Fondary

whom we might go and see. He has cheated me of four thou-

sand 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 Bo-

ris 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

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change for the better after two bad days.

0

Down and Out in Paris and London

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 cob-

bler, and he had managed to borrow another twenty francs

from a Russian friend. He had friends, mostly ex-officers

like himself, here and there all over Paris. Some were wait-

ers 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