George Orwell - Down and Out in Paris and London

afraid. You think vaguely, "I shall be starving in a day or

two-shocking, isn't it?" And then the mind wanders to

other topics. A bread and margarine diet does, to some

extent, provide its own anodyne.

And there is another feeling that is a great consola-

tion in poverty. I believe everyone who has been hard up

has experienced it. It is a feeling of relief, almost of

pleasure, at knowing yourself at last genuinely down

and out. You have talked so often of going to the dogs -

and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached them,

and you can stand it. It takes off a lot of anxiety.

IV

ONE day my English lessons ceased abruptly. The

weather was getting hot and one of my pupils, feeling

too lazy to go on with his lessons, dismissed me. The

other disappeared from his lodgings without notice,

owing me twelve francs. I was left with only thirty

centimes and no tobacco. For a day and a half I had

nothing to eat or smoke, and then, too hungry to put it

off any longer, I packed my remaining clothes into my

suitcase and took them to the pawnshop. This put an

end to all pretence of being in funds, for I could not take

my clothes out of the hotel without asking Madame F.'s

leave. I remember, however, how surprised she was at

my asking her instead of removing the clothes on the

sly, shooting the moon being a common trick in our

quarter.

It was the first time that I had been in a French

pawnshop. One went through grandiose stone portals

(marked, of course, «

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité "-they

write that even over the police stations in France) into a

large, bare room like a school classroom, with a counter

and rows of benches. Forty or fifty people were waiting.

One handed one's pledge over the counter and sat down.

Presently, when the clerk had assessed its value he

would call out, « Numéro such and such, will you take

fifty francs?" Sometimes it was only fifteen francs, or

ten, or five-whatever it was, the whole room knew it.

As I came in the clerk called with an air of offence,

«

Numéro 83-here!" and gave a little whistle and a

beckon, as though calling a dog.

Numéro 83 stepped to

the counter; he was an old bearded man, with an over-

coat buttoned up at the neck and frayed trouser-ends.

Without a word the clerk shot the bundle across the

counter-evidently it was worth nothing. It fell to the

ground and came open, displaying four pairs of men's

woollen pants. No one could help laughing. Poor

Numéro

83 gathered up his pants and shambled out, muttering to

himself.

The clothes I was pawning, together with the suitcase,

had cost over twenty pounds, and were in good condition.

I thought they must be worth ten pounds, and a quarter

of this (one expects quarter value at a pawnshop) was

two hundred and fifty or three hundred francs. I waited

without anxiety, expecting two hundred francs at the

worst.

At last the clerk called my number: «

Numéro 97!"

"Yes," I said, standing up.

"Seventy francs?"

Seventy francs for ten pounds' worth of clothes! But it

was no use arguing; I had seen someone else attempt to

argue, and the clerk had instantly refused the pledge. I

took the money and the pawnticket and walked out. I

had now no clothes except what I stood up in-the coat

badly out at the elbow-an overcoat, moderately pawnable,

and one spare shirt. Afterwards, when it was too late, I

learned that it was wiser to go to a pawnshop in the

afternoon. The clerks are French, and, like most French

people, are in a bad temper till they have eaten their

lunch.

When I got home, Madame F. was sweeping the

bistro floor. She came up the steps to meet me. I could

see in her eye that she was uneasy about my rent.

"Well," she said, "what did you get for your clothes?

Not much, eh?"

"Two hundred francs," I said promptly.

"

Tiens !" she said, surprised; "well, that's not bad.

How expensive those English clothes must be!"

The lie saved a lot of trouble, and, strangely enough, it

came true. A few days later I did receive exactly two

hundred francs due to me for a newspaper article, and,

though it hurt to do it, I at once paid every penny of it in

rent. So, though I came near to starving in the following

weeks, I was hardly ever without a roof.

It was now absolutely necessary to find work, and I

remembered a friend of mine, a Russian waiter named

Boris, who might be able to help me. I had first met him

in the public ward of a hospital, where he was being

treated for arthritis in the left leg. He had told me to come

to him if I were ever in difficulties.

I must say something about Boris, for he was a

curious character and my close friend for a long time. He

was a big, soldierly man of about thirty-five, and had

been good-looking, but since his illness he had grown im-

mensely fat from lying in bed. Like most Russian

refugees, he had had an adventurous life. His parents,

killed in the Revolution, had been rich people, and he had

served through the war in the Second Siberian Rifles,

which, according to him, was the best regiment in the

Russian Army. After the war he had first worked in a

brush factory, then as a porter at Les Halles, then had

become a dishwasher, and had finally worked his way up

to be a waiter. When he fell ill he was at the Hôtel Scribe,

and taking a hundred francs a day in tips. His ambition

was to become a maitre d'hdtel, save fifty thousand

francs, and set up a small, select restaurant on the Right

Bank.

Boris always talked of the war as the happiest time

0f his life. War and soldiering were his passion; he

had read innumerable books 0f strategy and military

history, and could tell you all about the theories 0f

Napoleon, Kutuzof, Clausewitz, Moltke and Foch.

Anything to do with soldiers pleased him. His favourite

café was the Closerie des Lilas in Montparnasse,

simply because the statue 0f Marshal Ney stands

outside it. Later 0n, Boris and I sometimes went to the

Rue du Commerce together. If we went by Metro, Boris

always got out at Cambronne station instead 0f

Commerce, though Commerce was nearer; he liked the

association with General Cambronne, who was called

on to surrender at Waterloo, and answered simply,

«

Merde ! »

The only things left to Boris by the Revolution were

his medals and some photographs of his old regiment;

he had kept these when everything else went to the

pawnshop. Almost every day he would spread the

photographs out on the bed and talk about them:

"

Voila, mon ami ! There you see me at the head 0f my

company. Fine big men, eh? Not like these little rats 0f

Frenchmen. A captain at twenty-not bad, eh? Yes, a

captain in the Second Siberian Rifles; and my father

was a colonel.

«

Ah, mais, mon ami , the ups and downs of life! A

captain in the Russian Army, and then, piff! the Revo-

lution-every penny gone. In 1916 I stayed a week at the

Hotel Édouard Sept; in 1920 I was trying for a job as

night watchman there. I have been night watchman,

cellarman, floor scrubber, dishwasher, porter, lavatory

attendant. I have tipped waiters, and I have been

tipped by waiters.

« Ah, but I have known what it is to live like a