be useful. Come downstairs."



He led me down a winding staircase into a narrow


passage, deep underground, and so low that I had to


stoop in places. It was stiflingly hot and very dark, with


only dim, yellow bulbs several yards apart. There seemed


to be miles of dark labyrinthine passages actually, I


suppose, a few hundred yards in all-that reminded one


queerly of the lower decks of a liner; there were the same


heat and cramped space and warm reek of food, and a humming,


whirring noise (it came from the kitchen furnaces) just like


the whir of engines.


We passed doorways which let out sometimes a shouting


of oaths, sometimes the red glare of a fire, once a


shuddering draught from an ice chamber. As we went


along, something struck me violently in the back. It was


a hundred-pound block of ice, carried by a blueaproned


porter. After him came a boy with a great slab of veal on


his shoulder, his cheek pressed into the damp, spongy


flesh. They shoved me aside with a cry of «



Sauve-toi,



idiot


!" and rushed on. On the wall, under one of the


lights, someone had written in a very neat hand: "Sooner


will you find a cloudless sky in winter, than a woman at


the Hôtel X. who has her maidenhead." It seemed a


queer sort of place:



One of the passages branched off into a laundry,


where an old, skull-faced woman gave me a blue apron


and a pile of dishcloths. Then the



chef du personnel took


me to a tiny underground den-a cellar below a cellar, as


it were-where there were a sink and some gas-ovens. It


was too low for me to stand quite upright, and the


temperature was perhaps 11o degrees Fahrenheit. The



chef du personnel


explained that my job was to fetch meals


for the higher hotel employees, who fed in a small


dining-room above, clean their room and wash their


crockery. When he had gone, a waiter, another Italian,


thrust a fierce, fuzzy head into the doorway and looked


down at me.



"English, eh?" he said. "Well, I'm in charge here. If


you work well"-he made the motion of up-ending a


bottle and sucked noisily. "If you don't"-he gave the


doorpost several vigorous kicks. "To me, twisting your


neck would be no more than spitting on the floor. And if


there's any trouble, they'll believe me, not you. So be


careful."



After this I set to work rather hurriedly. Except for


about an hour, I was at work from seven in the morning


till a quarter past nine at night; first at washing


crockery, then at scrubbing the tables and floors of the


employees' dining-room, then at polishing glasses and


knives, then at fetching meals, then at washing crockery


again, then at fetching more meals and washing more


crockery. It was easy work, and I got on well with it


except when I went to the kitchen to fetch meals. The


kitchen was like nothing I had ever seen or imagined-a


stifling, low-ceilinged inferno of a cellar, redlit from the


fires, and deafening with oaths and the clanging of pots


and pans. It was so hot that all the metal-work except


the stoves had to be covered with cloth. In the middle


were furnaces, where twelve cooks skipped to and fro,


their faces dripping sweat in spite of their white caps.


Round that were counters where a mob of waiters and


plongeurs clamoured with trays. Scullions, naked to the


waist, were stoking the fires and scouring huge copper


saucepans with sand. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry


and a rage. The head cook, a fine, scarlet man with big


moustachios, stood in the middle booming


continuously, «



Ça marche deux ouefs brouillés!



Ca marche



un Chateau-briand aux pommes sautées!


» except when he


broke off to curse at a plongeur. There were three


counters, and the first time I went to the kitchen I took


my tray unknowingly to the wrong one. The head cook


walked up to me, twisted his moustaches, and looked


me up and down. Then he beckoned to the breakfast


cook and pointed at me.



"Do you see



that? That is the type of



plongeur they


send us nowadays. Where do you come from, idiot?


From Charenton, I suppose?" (There is a large lunatic


asylum at Charenton.)



"From England," I said.



"I might have known it. Well,



mon cher monsieur



l'Anglais


, may I inform you that you are the son of a


whore? And now the camp to the other counter, where


you belong."



I got this kind of reception every time I went to the


kitchen, for I always made some mistake; I was ex-


pected to know the work, and was cursed accordingly.


From curiosity I counted the number of times I was


called maquereau during the day, and it was thirty-nine.



At half-past four the Italian told me that I could stop


working, but that it was not worth going out, as we


began again at five. I went to the lavatory for a smoke;


smoking was strictly forbidden, and Boris had warned


me that the lavatory was the only safe place. After that


I worked again till a quarter-past nine, when the waiter


put his head into the doorway and told me to leave the


rest of the crockery. To my astonishment, after calling


me pig, mackerel, etc., all day, he had suddenly grown


quite friendly. I realised that the curses I had met with


were only a kind of probation.



"That'll do,



mon p'tit," said the waiter. «



Tu n'es pas



débrouillard


, but you work all right. Come up and have


your dinner. The hotel allows us two litres of wine


each, and I've stolen another bottle. We'll have a fine


booze."



We had an excellent dinner from the leavings of the


higher employees. The waiter, grown mellow, told me


stories about his love-affairs, and about two men whom


he had stabbed in Italy, and about how he had dodged


his military service. He was a good fellow when one


got to know him; he reminded me of Benvenuto


Cellini, somehow. I was tired and drenched with sweat,


but I felt a new man after a day's solid food. The work


did not seem difficult, and I felt that this job would suit


me. It was not certain, however, that it would continue,


for I had been engaged as an "extra" for the day only,


at twenty-five francs. The sour-faced doorkeeper


counted out the money, less fifty centimes which he


said was for insurance (a lie, I discovered afterwards).


Then he stepped out into the passage, made me take off


my coat, and carefully prodded me all over, searching


for stolen food. After this the



chef du personnel appeared


and spoke to me. Like the waiter, he had grown more


genial on seeing that I was willing to work.



"We will give you a permanent job if you like," he


said. "The head waiter says he would enjoy calling an


Englishman names. Will you sign on for a month?"



Here was a job at last, and I was ready to jump at it.


Then I remembered the Russian restaurant, due to open


in a fortnight. It seemed hardly fair to promise working a


month, and then leave in the middle. I said that I had


other work in prospect-could I be engaged for a


fortnight? But at that the



chef du personnel shrugged his


shoulders and said that the hotel only engaged men by


the month. Evidently I had lost my chance of a job.



Boris, by arrangement, was waiting for me in the


Arcade of the Rue de Rivoli. When I told him what had


happened, he was furious. For the first time since I had


known him he forgot his manners and called me a fool.



"Idiot! Species of idiot! What's the good of my


finding you a job when you go and chuck it up the next


moment? How could you be such a fool as to mention


the other restaurant? You'd only to promise you would


work for a month."



"It seemed more honest to say I might have to leave,"


I objected.



"Honest! Honest! Who ever heard of a



plongeur being


honest?



Mon ami"-suddenly he seized my lapel and


spoke very earnestly-"



mon ami, you have worked


here all day. You see what hotel work is like. Do you


think a



plongeur can afford a sense of honour?"



"No, perhaps not."



"Well, then, go back quickly and tell the



chef du



personnel


you are quite ready to work for a month. Say


you will throw the other job over. Then, when our


restaurant opens, we have only to walk out."



"But what about my wages if I break my contract?"



Boris banged his stick on the pavement and cried out


at such stupidity. "Ask to be paid by the day, then you


won't lose a sou. Do you suppose they would prosecute


a



plongeur for breaking his contract? 'A



plongeur is too low


to be prosecuted."



I hurried back, found the



chef du personnel, and told


him that I would work for a month, whereat he signed


me on. This was my first lesson in



plongeur morality.


Later I realised how foolish it had been to have any


scruples, for the big hotels are quite merciless towards


their employees. They engage or discharge men as the


work demands, and they all sack ten per cent. or more


of their staff when the season is over. Nor have they


any difficulty in replacing a man who leaves at short


notice, for Paris is thronged by hotel employees out of


work.




XI



AS it turned out, I did not break my contract, for it


was six weeks before the Auberge de Jehan Cottard


even showed signs of opening. In the meantime I


worked at the Hôtel X., four days a week in the cafe-


terie, one day helping the waiter on the fourth floor,


and one day replacing the woman who washed up for


the dining-room. My day off, luckily, was Sunday, but


sometimes another man was ill and I had to work that


day as well. The hours were from seven in the


morning till two in the afternoon, and from five in the


evening till nine-eleven hours; but it was a fourteen-


hour day when I washed up for the dining-room. By the


ordinary standards of a Paris



plongeur, these are


exceptionally short hours. The only hardship of life was


the fearful heat and stuffiness of these labyrinthine


cellars. Apart from this the hotel, which was large and


well organised, was considered a comfortable one.



Our cafeterie was a murky cellar measuring twenty


feet by seven by eight high, and so crowded with coffee-


urns, breadcutters and the like that one could hardly


move without banging against something. It was lighted


by one dim electric bulb, and four or five gas-fires that


sent out a fierce red breath. There was a thermometer


there, and the temperature never fell below 11o


degrees Fahrenheit-it neared 13o at some times of the


day. At one end were five service lifts, and at the other


an ice cupboard where we stored milk and butter.


When you went into the ice cupboard you dropped a


hundred degrees of temperature at a single step; it


used to remind me of the hymn about Greenland's icy


mountains and India's coral strand. Two men worked


in the cafeterie besides Boris and myself. One was


Mario, a huge, excitable Italian-he was like a city


policeman with operatic gestures-and the other, a


hairy, uncouth animal whom we called the Magyar; I


think he was a Transylvanian, or something even more


remote. Except the Magyar we were all big men, and at


the rush hours we collided incessantly.



The work in the cafeterie was spasmodic. We were


never idle, but the real work only came in bursts of two


hours at a time-we called each burst «



un coup defeu."


The first



coup de feu came at eight, when the guests


upstairs began to wake up and demand breakfast. At


eight a sudden banging and yelling would break out all through


the basement; bells rang on all sides, blue-aproned men


rushed through the passages, our service lifts came


down with a simultaneous crash, and the waiters on all


five floors began shouting Italian oaths down the


shafts. I don't remember all our duties, but they


included making tea, coffee and chocolate, fetching


meals from the kitchen, wines from the cellar and fruit


and so forth from the dining-room, slicing bread,


making toast, rolling pats of butter, measuring jam,


opening milk-cans, counting lumps of sugar, boiling


eggs, cooking porridge, pounding ice, grinding coffee-


all this for from a hundred to two hundred customers.


The kitchen was thirty yards away, and the dining-


room sixty or seventy yards. Everything. we sent up in


the service lifts had to be covered by a voucher, and the


vouchers had to be carefully filed, and there was


trouble if even a lump of sugar was lost. Besides this,


we had to supply the staff with bread and coffee, and


fetch the meals for the waiters upstairs. All in all, it


was a complicated job.



I calculated that one had to walk and run about


fifteen miles during the day, and yet the strain of the


work was more mental than physical. Nothing could be


easier, on the face of it, than this stupid scullion work,


but it is astonishingly hard when one is in a hurry. One


has to leap to and fro between a multitude of jobs -it is


like sorting a pack of cards against the clock. You are,


for example, making toast, when bang! down comes a


service lift with an order for tea, rolls and three


different kinds of jam, and simultaneously bang! down


comes another demanding scrambled eggs, coffee and


grapefruit; you run to the kitchen for the eggs and to


the dining-room for the fruit, going like lightning so as


to be back before your toast burns, and having to re-


member about the tea and coffee, besides half a dozen


other orders that are still pending; and at the same time


some waiter is following you and making trouble about


a lost bottle of soda-water, and you are arguing with


him. It needs more brains than one might think. Mario


said, no doubt truly, that it took a year to make a


reliable cafetier.



The time between eight and half-past ten was a sort


of delirium. Sometimes we were going as though we


had only five minutes to live; sometimes there were


sudden lulls when the orders stopped and everything


seemed quiet for a moment. Then we swept up the litter


from the floor, threw down fresh sawdust, and


swallowed gallipots of wine or coffee or water-any-


thing, so long as it was wet. Very often we used to


break off chunks of ice and suck them while we


worked. The heat among the gas-fires was nauseating;


we swallowed quarts of drink during the day, and after


a few hours even our aprons were drenched with sweat.


At times we were hopelessly behind with the work, and


some of the customers would have gone without their


breakfast, but Mario always pulled us through. He had


worked fourteen years in the cafeterie, and he had the


skill that never wastes a second between jobs. The


Magyar was very stupid and I was inexperienced, and


Boris was inclined to shirk, partly because of his lame


leg, partly because he was ashamed of working in the


cafeterie after being a waiter; but Mario was wonderful.


The way he would stretch his great arms right across


the cafeterie to fill a coffee-pot with one hand and boil


an egg with the other, at the same time watching toast


and shouting directions to the Magyar, and between


whiles singing snatches from



Rigoletto, was beyond all


praise. The



patron knew his value, and he was paid a


thousand francs a month, instead of five hundred like


the rest of us.




The breakfast pandemonium stopped at half-past ten.


Then we scrubbed the cafeterie tables, swept the floor


and polished the brasswork, and, on good mornings,


went one at a time to the lavatory for a smoke. This was


our slack time-only relatively slack, however, for we


had only ten minutes for lunch, and we never got


through it uninterrupted. The customers' luncheon hour,


between twelve and two, was another period of turmoil


like the breakfast hour. Most of our work was fetching


meals from the kitchen, which meant constant



engueulades


from the cooks. By this time the cooks had


sweated in front of their furnaces for four or five hours,


and their tempers were all warmed up.



At two we were suddenly free men. We threw off our


aprons and put on our coats, hurried out of doors, and,


when we had money, dived into the nearest



bistro. It was


strange, coming up into the street from those firelit


cellars. The air seemed blindingly clear and cold, like


arctic summer; and how sweet the petrol did smell, after


the stenches of sweat and food! Sometimes we met


some of our cooks and waiters in the bistros, and they


were friendly and stood us drinks. Indoors we were their


slaves, but it is an etiquette in hotel life that between


hours everyone is equal, and the



engueulades do not


count.



At a quarter to five we went back to the hotel. Till


half-past six there were no orders, and we used this time


to polish silver, clean out the coffee-urns, and do other


odd jobs. Then the grand turmoil of the day started-the


dinner hour. I wish I could be Zola for a little while, just


to describe that dinner hour. The essence of the situation


was that a hundred or two hundred people were


demanding individually different meals of five or six


courses, and that fifty or sixty people had to cook and


serve them and clean up the mess


afterwards; anyone with experience of catering will


know what that means. And at this time when the work


was doubled, the whole staff was tired out, and a


number of them were drunk. I could write pages about


the scene without giving a true idea of it. The chargings


to and fro in the narrow passages, the collisions, the


yells, the struggling with crates and trays and blocks of


ice, the heat, the darkness, the furious festering quarrels


which there was no time to fight out-they pass


description. Anyone coming into the basement for the


first time would have thought himself in a den of


maniacs. It was only later, when I understood the


working of a hotel, that I saw order in all this chaos.



At half-past eight the work stopped very suddenly.


We were not free till nine, but we used to throw our-


selves full length on the floor, and lie there resting our


legs, too lazy even to go to the ice cupboard for a drink.


Sometimes the



chef du personnel would come in with


bottles of beer, for the hotel stood us an extra beer when


we had had a hard day. The food we were given was no


more than eatable, but the



patron was not mean about


drink; he allowed us two litres of wine a day each,


knowing that if a



plongeur is not given two litres he will


steal three. We had the heeltaps of bottles as well, so


that we often drank too much-a good thing, for one


seemed to work faster when partially drunk.



Four days of the week passed like this; of the other


two working days, one was better and one worse. After


a week of this life I felt in need of a holiday. It was


Saturday night, so the people in our



bistro were busy


getting drunk, and with a free day ahead of me I was


ready to join them. We all went to bed, drunk, at two in


the morning, meaning to sleep till noon. At half-past


five I was suddenly awakened. A night-watchman,


sent from the hotel, was standing at my bedside. He


stripped the clothes back and shook me roughly.



"Get up!" he said. «



Tu t'es bien saoulé la gueule, eh?


Well, never mind that, the hotel's a man short. You've


got to work to-day."



"Why should I work?" I protested. "This is my day


off."



"Day off, nothing! The work's got to be done. Get


up!»


I got up and went out, feeling as though my back


were broken and my skull filled with hot cinders. I did


not think that I could possibly do a day's work. And yet,


after only an hour in the basement, I found that I was


perfectly well. It seemed that in the heat of those


cellars, as in a turkish bath, one could sweat out almost


any quantity of drink.



Plongeurs know this, and count on


it. The power of swallowing quarts of wine, and then


sweating it out before it can do much damage, is one of


the compensations of their life.




XII



BY far my best time at the hotel was when I went to help


the waiter on the fourth floor. We worked in a small


pantry which communicated with the cafeterie by


service lifts. It was delightfully cool after the cellars,


and the work was chiefly polishing silver and glasses,


which is a humane job. Valenti, the waiter, was a decent


sort, and treated me almost as an equal when we were


alone, though he had to speak roughly when there was


anyone else present, for it does not do for a waiter to be


friendly with plongeurs. He used sometimes to tip me five


francs when he had had a good day. He was a comely


youth, aged twenty-four but looking eighteen,


and, like most waiters, he carried himself well and knew


how to wear his clothes. With his black tail-coat and


white tie, fresh face and sleek brown hair, he looked just


like an Eton boy; yet he had earned his living since he


was twelve, and worked his way up literally from the


gutter. Crossing the Italian frontier without a passport,


and selling chestnuts from a barrow on the northern


boulevards, and being given fifty days' imprisonment in


London for working without a permit, and being made


love to by a rich old woman in a hotel, who gave him a


diamond ring and afterwards accused him of stealing it,


were among his experiences. I used to enjoy talking to


him, at slack times when we sat smoking down the lift


shaft.



My bad day was when I washed up for the diningroom.


I had not to wash the plates, which were done in the


kitchen, but only the other crockery, silver, knives and


glasses; yet, even so, it meant thirteen hours' work, and


I used between thirty and forty dishcloths during the


day. The antiquated methods used in France double the


work of washing up. Plate-racks are unheard-of, and


there are no soap-flakes, only the treacly soft soap,


which refuses to lather in the hard, Paris water. I worked


in a dirty, crowded little den, a pantry and scullery


combined, which gave straight on the diningroom.


Besides washing up, I had to fetch the waiters' food and


serve them at table; most of them were intolerably


insolent, and I had to use my fists more than once to get


common civility. The person who normally washed up


was a woman, and they made her life a misery.



It was amusing to look round the filthy little scullery


and think that only a double door was between us and


the dining-room. There sat the customers in all their


splendour-spotless table-cloths, bowls of flowers,


mirrors and gilt cornices and painted cherubim; and


here, just a few feet away, we in our disgusting filth. For


it really was disgusting filth. There was no time to


sweep the floor till evening, and we slithered about in a


compound of soapy water, lettuce-leaves, torn paper and


trampled food. A dozen waiters with their coats off,


showing their sweaty armpits, sat at the table mixing


salads and sticking their thumbs into the cream pots. The


room had a dirty, mixed smell of food and sweat.


Everywhere in the cupboards, behind the piles of


crockery, were squalid stores of food that the waiters


had stolen. There were only two sinks, and no washing


basin, and it was nothing unusual for a waiter to wash


his face in the water in which clean crockery was


rinsing. But the customers saw nothing of this. There


were a coco-nut mat and a mirror outside the dining-


room door, and the waiters used to preen themselves up


and go in looking the picture of cleanliness.



It is an instructive sight to see a waiter going into a


hotel dining-room. As he passes the door a sudden


change comes over him. The set of his shoulders alters;


all the dirt and hurry and irritation have dropped off in


an instant. He glides over the carpet, with a solemn


priest-like air. I remember our assistant maitre d'hôtel, a


fiery Italian, pausing at the dining-room door to address


an apprentice who had broken a bottle of wine. Shaking


his fist above his head he yelled (luckily the door was


more or less soundproof)



«



Tu me fais-----


Do you call yourself a waiter, you


young bastard? You a waiter! You're not fit to scrub


floors in the brothel your mother came from.


Maquereau! »



Words failing him, he turned to the door; and as he


opened it he delivered a final insult in the same manner


as Squire Western in



Tom Jones.



Then he entered the dining-room and sailed across it


dish in hand, graceful as a swan. Ten seconds later he


was bowing reverently to a customer. And you could


not help thinking, as you saw him bow and smile, with


that benign smile of the trained waiter, that the cus-


tomer was put to shame by having such an aristocrat to


serve him.



This washing up was a thoroughly odious job-not


hard, but boring and silly beyond words. It is dreadful


to think that some people spend their whole decades at


such occupations. The woman whom I replaced was


quite sixty years old, and she stood at the sink thirteen


hours a day, six days a week, the year round; she was,


in addition, horribly bullied by the waiters. She gave


out that she had once been an actress-actually, I


imagine, a prostitute; most prostitutes end as char-


women. It was strange to see that in spite of her age and


her life she still wore a bright blonde wig, and darkened


her eyes and painted her face like a girl of twenty. So


apparently even a seventy-eight-hour week can leave


one with some vitality.




XIII



ON my third day at the hotel the



chef du personnel, who


had generally spoken to me in quite a pleasant tone,


called me up and said sharply:



"Here, you, shave that moustache off at once!



Nom de



Dieu


, who ever heard of a



plongeur with a moustache?"



I began to protest, but he cut me short. "A



plongeur


with a moustache-nonsense! Take care I don't see you


with it to-morrow."



On the way home I asked Boris what this meant.


He shrugged his shoulders. "You must do what he says,



mon ami


. No one in the hotel wears a moustache, except


the cooks. I should have thought you would have


noticed it. Reason? There is no reason. It is the


custom."



I saw that it was an etiquette, like not wearing a white


tie with a dinner jacket, and shaved off my moustache.


Afterwards I found out the explanation of the custom,


which is this: waiters in good hotels do not wear


moustaches, and to show their superiority they decree


that



plongeurs shall not wear them either; and the cooks


wear their moustaches to show their contempt for the


waiters.



This gives some idea of the elaborate caste system


existing in a hotel. Our staff, amounting to about a


hundred and ten, had their prestige graded as accurately


as that of soldiers, and a cook or waiter was as much


above a



plongeur as a captain above a private. Highest of


all came the manager, who could sack anybody, even the


cooks. We never saw the



patron, and all we knew of him


was that his meals had to be prepared more carefully than


that of the customers; all the discipline of the hotel


depended on the manager. He was a conscientious man,


and always on the lookout for slackness, but we were too


clever for him. A system of service bells ran through the


hotel, and the whole staff used these for signalling to one


another. A long ring and a short ring, followed by two


more long rings, meant that the manager was coming,


and when we heard it we took care to look busy.



Below the manager came the



maitre d'hôtel. He did not


serve at table, unless to a lord or someone of that kind,


but directed the other waiters and helped with the


catering. His tips, and his bonus from the champagne


companies (it was two francs for each cork he


returned to them), came to two hundred francs a day. He


was in a position quite apart from the rest of the staff,


and took his meals in a private room, with silver on the


table and two apprentices in clean white jackets to serve


him. A little below the head waiter came the head cook,


drawing about five thousand francs a month; he dined in


the kitchen, but at a separate table, and one of the


apprentice cooks waited on him. Then came the



chef du



personnel


; he drew only fifteen hundred francs a month,


but he wore a black coat and did no manual work, and he


could sack



plongeurs and fine waiters. Then came the other


cooks, drawing anything between three thousand and


seven hundred and fifty francs a month; then the waiters,


making about seventy francs a day in tips, besides a


small retaining fee; then the laundresses and sewing


women; then the apprentice waiters, who received no


tips, but were paid seven hundred and fifty francs a


month; then the



plongeurs, also at seven hundred and fifty


francs; then the chambermaids, at five or six hundred


francs a month; and lastly the cafetiers, at five hundred a


month. We of the cafeterie were the very dregs of the


hotel, despised and tutoied by everyone.



There were various others-the office employees,


called generally couriers, the storekeeper, the cellarman,


some porters and pages, the ice man, the bakers, the


night-watchman, the doorkeeper. Different jobs were


done by different races. The office employees and the


cooks and sewing-women were French, the waiters


Italians and Germans (there is hardly such a thing as a


French waiter in Paris), the



plongeurs of every race in


Europe, beside Arabs and negroes. French was the lingua


franca, even the Italians speaking it to one another.



All the departments had their special perquisites.


In all Paris hotels it is the custom to sell the broken


bread to bakers for eight sous a pound, and the kitchen


scraps to pigkeepers for a trifle, and to divide the pro-


ceeds of this among the



plongeurs. There was much


pilfering, too. The waiters all stole food-in fact, I


seldom saw a waiter trouble to eat the rations provided


for him by the hotel-and the cooks did it on a larger


scale in the kitchen, and we in the cafeterie swilled


illicit tea and coffee. The cellarman stole brandy. By a


rule of the hotel the waiters were not allowed to keep


stores of spirits, but had to go to the cellarman for each


drink as it was ordered. As the cellarman poured out the


drinks he would set aside perhaps a teaspoonful from


each glass, and he amassed quantities in this way. He


would sell you the stolen brandy for five sous a swig if


he thought he could trust you.



There were thieves among the staff, and if you left


money in your coat pockets it was generally taken. The


doorkeeper, who paid our wages and searched us for


stolen food, was the greatest thief in the hotel. Out of


my five hundred francs a month, this man actually


managed to cheat me of a hundred and fourteen francs in


six weeks. I had asked to be paid daily, so the door-


keeper paid me sixteen francs each evening, and, by not


paying for Sundays (for which of course payment was


due), pocketed sixty-four francs. Also, I sometimes


worked on a Sunday, for which, though I did not know


it, I was entitled to an extra twenty-five francs. The


doorkeeper never paid me this either, and so made away


with another seventy-five francs. I only realised during


my last week that I was being cheated, and, as I could


prove nothing, only twenty-five francs were refunded.


The doorkeeper played similar tricks on any employee


who was fool enough to be taken in. He called


himself a Greek, but in reality he was an Armenian.


After knowing him I saw the force of the proverb


"Trust a snake before a Jew and a Jew before a Greek,


but don't trust an Armenian."



There were queer characters among the waiters. One


was a gentleman-a youth who had been educated at a


university, and had had a well-paid job in a business


office. He had caught a venereal disease, lost his job,


drifted, and now considered himself lucky to be a


waiter. Many of the waiters had slipped into France


without passports, and one or two of them were spies --it


is a common profession for a spy to adopt. One day


there was a fearful row in the waiters' dining-room


between Morandi, a dangerous-looking man with eyes


set too far apart, and another Italian. It appeared that


Morandi had taken the other man's mistress. The other


man, a weakling and obviously frightened of Morandi,


was threatening vaguely.



Morandi jeered at him. "Well, what are you going to


do about it? I've slept with your girl, slept with her three


times. It was fine. What can you do, eh?"



"I can denounce you to the secret police. You are an


Italian spy."



Morandi did not deny it. He simply produced a razor


from his tail pocket and made two swift strokes in the


air, as though slashing a man's cheeks open. Whereat the


other waiter took it back.



The queerest type I ever saw in the hotel was an


"extra." He had been engaged at twenty-five francs for


the day to replace the Magyar, who was ill. He was a


Serbian, a thick-set nimble fellow of about twenty-five,


speaking six languages, including English. He seemed to


know all about hotel work, and up till midday he worked


like a slave. Then, as soon as it had struck twelve, he


turned sulky, shirked his work, stole wine,


and finally crowned all by loafing about openly with a


pipe in his mouth. Smoking, of course, was forbidden


under severe penalties. The manager himself heard of it


and came down to interview the Serbian, fuming with


rage.



"What the devil do you mean by smoking here?" he


cried.



"What the devil do you mean by having a face like


that?" answered the Serbian, calmly.



I cannot convey the blasphemy of such a remark. The


head cook, if a



plongeur had spoken to him like that,


would have thrown a saucepan of hot soup in his face.


The manager said instantly, "You're sacked!" and at two


o'clock the Serbian was given his twenty-five francs and


duly sacked. Before he went out Boris asked him in


Russian what game he was playing. He said the Serbian


answered



"Look here,



mon vieux, they've got to pay me a day's


wages if I work up to midday, haven't they? That's the


law. And where's the sense of working after I get my


wages? So I'll tell you what I do. I go to a hotel and get


a job as an extra, and up to midday I work hard. Then,


the moment it's struck twelve, I start raising such hell


that they've no choice but to sack me. Neat, eh? Most


days I'm sacked by half-past twelve; to-day it was two


o'clock; but I don't care, I've saved four hours' work.


The only trouble is, one can't do it at the same hotel


twice."



It appeared that he had played this game at half the


hotels and restaurants in Paris. It is probably quite an


easy game to play during the summer, though the hotels


protect themselves against it as well as they can by


means of a black list.




XIV



IN a few days I had grasped the main principles on


which the hotel was run. The thing that would astonish


anyone coming for the first time into the service


quarters of a hotel would be the fearful noise and


disorder during the rush hours. It is something so


different from the steady work in a shop or a factory


that it looks at first sight like mere bad management.


But it is really quite unavoidable, and for this reason.


Hotel work is not particularly hard, but by its nature it


comes in rushes and cannot be economised. You cannot,


for instance, grill a steak two hours before it is wanted;


you have to wait till the last moment, by which time a


mass of other work has accumulated, and then do it all


together, in frantic haste. The result is that at meal-


times everyone is doing two men's work, which is


impossible without noise and quarrelling. Indeed the


quarrels are a necessary part of the process, for the pace


would never be kept up if everyone did not accuse


everyone else of idling. It was for this reaon that during


the rush hours the whole staff raged and cursed like


demons. At those times there was scarcely a verb in the


hotel except foutre. A girl in the bakery, aged sixteen,


used oaths that would have defeated a cabman. (Did not


Hamlet say "cursing like a scullion"? No doubt


Shakespeare had watched scullions at work.) But we are


not losing our heads and wasting time; we were just


stimulating one another for the effort of packing four


hours' work into two hours.



What keeps a hotel going is the fact that the em-


ployees take a genuine pride in their work, beastly and


silly though it is. If a man idles, the others soon find him


out, and conspire against him to get him sacked.



Cooks, waiters and



plongeurs differ greatly in outlook,


but they are all alike in being proud of their efficiency.



Undoubtedly the most workmanlike class, and the


least servile, are the cooks. They do not earn quite so


much as waiters, but their prestige is higher and their


employment steadier. The cook does not look upon


himself as a servant, but as a skilled workman; he is


generally called «



un ouvrier, » which a waiter never is.


He knows his power-knows that he alone makes or mars


a restaurant, and that if he is five minutes late


everything is out of gear, He despises the whole non-


cooking staff, and makes it a point of honour to insult


everyone below the head waiter. And he takes a genuine


artistic pride in his work, which demands very great


skill. It is not the cooking that is so difficult, but the


doing everything to time. Between breakfast and lun-


cheon the head cook at the Hôtel X. would receive


orders for several hundred dishes, all to be served at


different times; he cooked few of them himself, but he


gave instructions about all of them and inspected them


before they were sent up. His memory was wonderful.


The vouchers were pinned on a board, but the head cook


seldom looked at them; everything was stored in his


mind, and exactly to the minute, as each dish fell due,


he would call out, «



Faites marcher une côtelette de veau » (or


whatever it was) unfailingly. He was an insufferable


bully, but he was also an artist. It is for their punctu-


ality, and not for any superiority in technique, that men


cooks are preferred to women.



The waiter's outlook is quite different. He too is


proud in a way of his skill, but his skill is chiefly in


being servile. His work gives him the mentality, not of a


workman, but of a snob. He lives perpetually in sight of


rich people, stands at their tables, listens to their conver


sation, sucks up to them with smiles and discreet little


jokes. He has the pleasure of spending money by proxy.


Moreover, there is always the chance that he may


become rich himself, for, though most waiters die poor,


they have long runs of luck occasionally. At some cafés


on the Grand Boulevard there is so much money to be


made that the waiters actually pay the



patron for their


employment. The result is that between constantly


seeing money, and hoping to get it, the waiter comes to


identify himself to some extent with his employers. He


will take pains to serve a meal in style, because he feels


that he is participating in the meal himself.



I remember Valenti telling me of some banquet at


Nice at which he had once served, and of how it cost


two hundred thousand francs and was talked of for


months afterwards. "It was splendid,



mon p'tit, mais



magnifique


! Jesus Christ! The champagne, the silver, the


orchids-I have never seen anything like them, and I have


seen some things. Ah, it was glorious!"



"But, " I said, "you were only there to wait?"



"Oh, of course. But still, it was splendid."



The moral is, never be sorry for a waiter. Sometimes


when you sit in a restaurant, still stuffing yourself half


an hour after closing time, you feel that the tired waiter


at your side must surely be despising you. But he is not.


He is not thinking as he looks at you, "What an overfed


lout"; he is thinking, "One day, when I have saved


enough money, I shall be able to imitate that man." He is


ministering to a kind of pleasure he thoroughly


understands and admires. And that is why waiters are


seldom Socialists, have no effective trade union, and


will work twelve hours a day-they work fifteen hours,


seven days a week, in many cafés. They are snobs, and


they find the servile nature of their work rather con-


genial.




The



plongeurs, again, have a different outlook. Theirs


is a job which offers no prospects, is intensely exhaust-


ing, and at the same time has not a trace of skill or


interest; the sort of job that would always be done by


women if women were strong enough. All that is re-


quired of them is to be constantly on the run, and to put


up with long hours and a stuffy atmosphere. They have


no way of escaping from this life, for they cannot save a


penny from their wages, and working from sixty to a


hundred hours a week leaves them no time to train for


anything else. The best they can hope for is to find a


slightly softer job as night-watchman or lavatory


attendant.



And yet the



plongeurs, low as they are, also have a


kind of pride. It is the pride of the drudge-the man who


is equal to no matter what quantity of work. At that


level, the mere power to go on working like an ox is


about the only virtue attainable.



Débrouillard is what


every plongeur wants to be called. A



débrouillard is a man


who, even when he is told to do the impossible, will



se



débrouille


r-get it done somehow. One of the kitchen


plongeurs at the Hôtel X., a German, was well known as


a



débrouillard. One night an English lord came to the


hotel, and the waiters were in despair, for the lord had


asked for peaches, and there were none in stock; it was


late at night, and the shops would be shut. "Leave it to


me," said the German. He went out, and in ten minutes


he was back with four peaches. He had gone into a


neighbouring restaurant and stolen them. That is what is


meant by a



débrouillard. The English lord paid for the


peaches at twenty francs each.



Mario, who was in charge of the cafeterie, had the


typical drudge mentality. All he thought of was getting


through the «



boulot, » and he defied you to give him


too much of it. Fourteen years underground had


left him with about as much natural laziness as a piston


rod. «



Faut étre dur, » he used to say when anyone


complained. You will often hear plongeurs boast, «



Je suis



dur


"-as though they were soldiers, not male charwomen.



Thus everyone in the hotel had his sense of honour,


and when the press of work came we were all ready for a


grand concerted effort to get through it. The constant


war between the different departments also made for


efficiency, for everyone clung to his own privileges and


tried to stop the others idling and pilfering.



This is the good side of hotel work. In a hotel a huge


and complicated machine is kept running by an inade-


quate staff, because every man has a well-defined job


and does it scrupulously. But there is a weak point, and


it is this-that the job the staff are doing is not necessarily


what the customer pays for. The customer pays, as he


sees it, for good service; the employee is paid, as he sees


it, for the boulot-meaning, as a rule, an imitation of good


service. The result is that, though hotels are miracles of


punctuality, they are worse than the worst private houses


in the things that matter.



Take cleanliness, for example. The dirt in the Hôtel


X., as soon as one penetrated into the service quarters,


was revolting. Our cafeterie had year-old filth in all the


dark corners, and the bread-bin was infested with cock-


roaches. Once I suggested killing these beasts to Mario.


"Why kill the poor animals?" he said reproachfully. The


others laughed when I wanted to wash my hands before


touching the butter. Yet we were clean where we


recognised cleanliness as part of the boulot. We


scrubbed the tables and polished the brasswork regu-


larly, because we had orders to do that; but we had no


orders to be genuinely clean, and in any case we had no


time for it. We were simply carrying out our duties;


and as our first duty was punctuality, we saved time by


being dirty.



In the kitchen the dirt was worse. It is not a figure of


speech, it is a mere statement of fact to say that a


French cook will spit in the soup-that is, if he is not


going to drink it himself. He is an artist, but his art is


not cleanliness. To a certain extent he is even dirty


because he is an artist, for food, to look smart, needs


dirty treatment. When a steak, for instance, is brought


up for the head cook's inspection, he does not handle it


with a fork. He picks it up in his fingers and slaps it


down, runs his thumb round the dish and licks it to


taste the gravy, runs it round and licks again, then


steps back and contemplates the piece of meat like an


artist judging a picture, then presses it lovingly into


place with his fat, pink fingers, every one of which he


has licked a hundred times that morning. When he is


satisfied, he takes a cloth and wipes his fingerprints


from the dish, and hands it to the waiter. And the


waiter, of course, dips his fingers into the gravy-his


nasty, greasy fingers which he is for ever running


through his brilliantined hair. Whenever one pays more


than, say, ten francs for a dish of meat in Paris, one may


be certain that it has been fingered in this manner. In


very cheap restaurants it is different; there, the same


trouble is not taken over the food, and it is just forked


out of the pan and flung on to a plate, without handling.


Roughly speaking, the more one pays for food, the more


sweat and spittle one is obliged to eat with it.



Dirtiness is inherent in hotels and restaurants,


because sound food is sacrificed to punctuality and


smartness. The hotel employee is too busy getting food


ready to remember that it is meant to be eaten. A meal


is simply «



une commande » to him, just as a man dying of


cancer is simply "



a case" to the doctor. A customer


orders, for example, a piece of toast. Somebody, pressed


with work in a cellar deep underground, has to prepare it.


How can he stop and say to himself, "This toast is to be


eaten-I must make it eatable"? All he knows is that it must


look right and must be ready in three minutes. Some large


drops of sweat fall from his forehead on to the toast. Why


should he worry? Presently the toast falls among the filthy


sawdust on the floor. Why trouble to make a new piece? It


is much quicker to wipe the sawdust off. On the way


upstairs the toast falls again, butter side down. Another


wipe is all it needs. And so with everything. The only food


at the Hôtel X. which was ever prepared cleanly was the


staff's, and the



patron's. The maxim, repeated by everyone,


was: "Look out for the



patron, and as for the clients,



s'en f--



pas mal


! » Everywhere in the service quarters dirt festered-a


secret vein of dirt, running through the great garish hotel


like the intestines through a man's body.



Apart from the dirt, the



patron swindled the customers


wholeheartedly. For the most part the materials of the food


were very bad, though the cooks knew how to serve it up in


style. The meat was at best ordinary, and as to the


vegetables, no good housekeeper would have looked at


them in the market. The cream, by a standing order, was


diluted with milk. The tea and coffee were of inferior sorts,


and the jam was synthetic stuff out of vast, unlabelled tins.


All the cheaper wines, according to Boris, were corked vin


ordinaire. There was a rule that employees must pay for


anything they spoiled, and in consequence damaged things


were seldom thrown away. Once the waiter on the third


floor dropped a roast chicken down the shaft of our service


lift, where it fell into a litter of broken bread, torn paper


and so forth at the bottom. We simply wiped it with a cloth and


sent it up again. Upstairs there were dirty tales of once-used


sheets not being washed, but simply damped, ironed and put back


on the beds. The patron was as mean to us as to the


customers. Throughout the vast hotel there was not,


for instance, such a thing as a brush and pan; one had


to manage with a broom and a piece of cardboard. And


the staff lavatory was worthy of Central Asia, and there


was no place to wash one's hands, except the sinks


used for washing crockery.



In spite of all this the Hôtel X. was one of the dozen


most expensive hotels in Paris, and the customers paid


startling prices. The ordinary charge for a night's


lodging, not including breakfast, was two hundred


francs. All wine and tobacco were sold at exactly double


shop prices, though of course the patron bought at the


wholesale price. If a customer had a title, or was


reputed to be a millionaire, all his charges went up


automatically. One morning on the fourth floor an


American who was on diet wanted only salt and hot


water for his breakfast. Valenti was furious. "Jesus


Christ!" he said, "what about my ten per cent.? Ten per


cent. of salt and water!" And he charged twentyfive


francs for the breakfast. The customer paid without a


murmur.



According to Boris, the same kind of thing went on


in all Paris hotels, or at least in all the big, expensive


ones. But I imagine that the customers at the Hotel X.


were especially easy to swindle, for they were mostly


Americans, with a sprinkling of English-no Frenchand


seemed to know nothing whatever about good food.


They would stuff themselves with disgusting American


"cereals," and eat marmalade at tea, and drink ver-


mouth after dinner, and order a poulet à la reine at a


hundred francs and then souse it in Worcester sauce.


One customer, from Pittsburg, dined every night in his


bedroom on grape-nuts, scrambled eggs and cocoa.


Perhaps it hardly matters whether such people are


swindled or not.




XV



HEARD queer tales in the hotel. There were tales of


dope fiends, of old debauchees who frequented hotels in


search of pretty page boys, of thefts and blackmail.


Mario told me of a hotel in which he had been, where a


chambermaid stole a priceless diamond ring from an


American lady. For days the staff were searched as they


left work, and two detectives searched the hotel from


top to bottom, but the ring was never found. The


chambermaid had a lover in the bakery, and he had


baked the ring into a roll, where it lay unsuspected


until the search was over.



Once Valenti, at a slack time, told me a story about


himself.



"You know,



mon p'tit, this hotel life is all very well,


but it's the devil when you're out of work. I expect you


know what it is to go without eating, eh?



Forcément,


otherwise you wouldn't be scrubbing dishes. Well, I'm


not a poor devil of a



plongeur; I'm a waiter, and I went


five days without eating, once. Five days without even a


crust of bread Jesus Christ!



"I tell you, those five days were the devil. The only


good thing was, I had my rent paid in advance. I was


living in a dirty, cheap little hotel in the Rue Sainte


Éloise up in the Latin quarter. It was called the Hotel


Suzanne May, after some famous prostitute of the time


of the Empire. I was starving, and there was nothing I


could do; I couldn't even go to the cafés where the hotel


proprietors come to engage waiters, because I



hadn't the price of a drink. All I could do was to lie in


bed getting weaker and weaker, and watching the bugs


running about the ceiling. I don't want to go through


that again, I can tell you.



"In the afternoon of the fifth day I went half mad; at


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 that 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


certain that the world was a good place and we a notable


set of people.



For an hour the noise scarcely slackened. Then about


midnight there was a piercing shout of «



Citoyens! » and


the sound of a chair falling over. A blond, red-faced


workman had risen to his feet and was banging a bottle


on the table. Everyone stopped singing; the word went


round, "Sh! Furex is starting!" Furex was a strange


creature, a Limousin stonemason who worked steadily


all the week and drank himself into a kind of paroxysm


on Saturdays. He had lost his memory and could not


remember anything before the war, and he would have


gone to pieces through drink if Madame F. had not taken


care of him. On Saturday evenings at about five o'clock


she would say to someone, "Catch Furex before he


spends his wages," and when he had been caught she


would take away his money, leaving him enough for one


good drink. One week he escaped, and, rolling blind


drunk in the Place Monge, was run over by a car and


badly hurt.



The queer thing about Furex was that, though he was


a Communist when sober, he turned violently patriotic


when drunk. He started the evening with good


Communist principles, but after four or five litres he


was a rampant Chauvinist, denouncing spies,



challenging all foreigners to fight, and, if he was not


prevented, throwing bottles. It was at this stage that he


made his speech-for he made a patriotic speech every


Saturday night. The speech was always the same, word


for word. It ran:



"Citizens of the Republic, are there any Frenchmen


here? If there are any Frenchmen here, I rise to remind


them-to remind them in effect, of the glorious days of


the war. When one looks back upon that time of


comradeship and heroism-one looks back, in effect,


upon that time of comradeship and heroism. When one


remembers the heroes who are dead-one remembers, in


effect, the heroes who are dead. Citizens of the


Republic, I was wounded at Verdun


"



Here he partially undressed and showed the wound


he had received at Verdun. There were shouts of


applause. We thought nothing in the world could be


funnier than this speech of Furex's. He was a well-


known spectacle in the quarter; people used to come in


from other



bistros to watch him when his fit started.



The word was passed round to bait Furex. With a


wink to the others someone called for silence, and asked


him to sing the « Marseillaise. » He sang it well, in a fine


bass voice, with patriotic gurgling noises deep down in


his chest when he came to



« Aux arrmes, citoyens!



Forrmez vos bataillons!


» Veritable tears rolled down his


cheeks; he was too drunk to see that everyone was


laughing at him. Then, before he had finished, two


strong workmen seized him by either arm and held him


down, while Azaya shouted, "Vine l'Allemagne! » just out


of his reach. Furex's face went purple at such infamy.


Everyone in the bistro began shouting together, "



Vive



l'Allemagne! A bas la France!"


while Furex struggled to


get at them. But suddenly he spoiled the fun. His face


turned pale and doleful, his limbs went limp, and before


anyone could stop him he was sick on the table. Then Madame


F. hoisted him like a sack and carried him up to bed. In the


morning he reappeared quiet and civil, and bought a copy of



L'Humanité


.



The table was wiped with a cloth, Madame F.


brought more litre bottles and loaves of bread, and we


settled down to serious drinking. There were more


songs. An itinerant singer came in with his banjo and


performed for five-sou pieces. An Arab and a girl from


the



bistro down the street did a dance, the man wielding


a painted wooden phallus the size of a rolling-pin.


There were gaps in the noise now. People had begun to


talk about their love-affairs, and the war, and the barbel


fishing in the Seine, and the best way to



faire la



revolution


, and to tell stories. Charlie, grown sober again,


captured the conversation and talked about his soul for


five minutes. The doors and windows were opened to


cool the room. The street was emptying, and in the


distance one could hear the lonely milk train thundering


down the Boulevard St. Michel. The air blew cold on


our foreheads, and the coarse African wine still tasted


good: we were still happy, but meditatively, with the


shouting and hilarious mood finished.



By one o'clock we were not happy any longer. We


felt the joy of the evening wearing thin, and called


hastily for more bottles, but Madame F. was watering


the wine now, and it did not taste the same. Men grew


quarrelsome. The girls were violently kissed and hands


thrust into their bosoms and they made off lest worse


should happen. Big Louis, the bricklayer, was drunk,


and crawled about the floor barking and pretending to


be a dog. The others grew tired of him and kicked at


him as he went past. People seized each other by the


arm and began long rambling confessions, and were



angry when these were not listened to. The crowd


thinned. Manuel and another man, both gamblers, went


across to the Arab



bistro, where card-playing went on till


daylight. Charlie suddenly borrowed thirty francs from


Madame F. and disappeared, probably to a brothel. Men


began to empty their glasses, call briefly, «



'Sieurs, dames!"


and go off to bed.



By half-past one the last drop of pleasure had


evaporated, leaving nothing but headaches. We perceived


that we were not splendid inhabitants of a splendid


world, but a crew of underpaid workmen grown squalidly


and dismally drunk. We went on swallowing the wine,


but it was only from habit, and the stuff seemed suddenly


nauseating. One's head had swollen up like a balloon, the


floor rocked, one's tongue and lips were stained purple.


At last it was no use keeping it up any longer. Several


men went out into the yard behind the bistro and were


sick. We crawled up to bed, tumbled down half dressed,


and stayed there ten hours.



Most of my Saturday nights went in this way. On the


whole, the two hours when one was perfectly and wildly


happy seemed worth the subsequent headache. For


many men in the quarter, unmarried and with no future


to think of, the weekly drinking-bout was the one thing


that made life worth living.





XVIII



CHARLIE told us a good story one Saturday night in the



bistro


. Try and picture him-drunk, but sober enough to


talk consecutively. He bangs on the zinc bar and yells for


silence:



"Silence,



messieurs et dames-silence, I implore you!


Listen to this story, that I am about to tell you. A


memorable story, an instructive story, one of the


souvenirs of a refined and civilised life. Silence,



messieurs



et dames


!



"It happened at a time when I was hard up. You


know what that is like-how damnable, that a man of


refinement should ever be in such a condition. My


money had not come from home; I had pawned every-


thing, and there was nothing open to me except to


work, which is a thing I will not do. I was living with a


girl at the time-Yvonne her name was-a great half-witted


peasant girl like Azaya there, with yellow hair and fat


legs. The two of us had eaten nothing in three days.



Mon



Dieu


, what sufferings! The girl used to walk up and


down the room with her hands on her belly, howling


like a dog that she was dying of starvation. It was


terrible.



"But to a man of intelligence nothing is impossible. I


propounded to myself the question, 'What is the easiest


way to get money without working?' And immediately


the answer came: 'To get money easily one must be a


woman. Has not every woman something to sell?' And


then, as I lay reflecting upon the things I should do if I


were a woman, an idea came into my head. I


remembered the Government maternity hospitals-you


know the Government maternity hospitals? They are


places where women who are enceinte are given meals


free and no questions are asked. It is done to encourage


childbearing. Any woman can go there and demand a


meal, and she is given it immediately.



«



'Mon Dieu!' I thought, 'if only I were a woman! I


would eat at one of those places every day. Who can


tell whether a woman is enceinte or not, without an


examination?' 7



"I turned to Yvonne. 'Stop that insufferable


bawling.' I said, 'I have thought of a way to get food.'



" 'How?' said she.



" 'It is simple,' I said. "Go to the Government


maternity hospital. Tell them you are enceinte and ask for


food. They will give you a good meal and ask no


questions.'



« Yvonne was appalled.



'Mais, mon Dieu,' she cried, 'I


am not



enceinte!'



" 'Who cares?' I said. 'That is easily remedied. What


do you need except a cushion-two cushions if


necessary? It is an inspiration from heaven, ma chére.


Don't waste it.'



"Well, in the end I persuaded her, and then we


borrowed a cushion and I got her ready and took her to


the maternity hospital. They received her with open


arms. They gave her cabbage soup, a ragoût of beef, a


purée of potatoes, bread and cheese and beer, and all


kinds of advice about her baby. Yvonne gorged till she


almost burst her skin. and mangaed to slip some of the


bread and cheese into her pocket for me. I took her there


every day until I had money again. My intelligence had


saved us.



"Everything went well until a year later. I was with


Yvonne again, and one day we were walking down the


Boulevard Port Royal, near the barracks. Suddenly


Yvonne's mouth fell open, and she began turning red


and white, and red again.



"



'Mon Dieu!' she cried, 'look at that who is coming! It


is the nurse who was in charge at the maternity hospital.


I am ruined!'



" 'Quick!' I said, 'run!' But it was too late. The nurse


had recognised Yvonne, and she came straight up to us,


smiling. She was a big fat woman with a


gold pince-nez and red cheeks like the cheeks of an


apple. A motherly, interfering kind of woman.



" 'I hope you are well,



ma petite?' she said kindly.


'And your baby, is he well too? Was it a boy, as you


were hoping?'



« Yvonne had begun trembling so hard that I had to


grip her arm. 'No,' she said at last.



" 'Ah, then,



evidemment, it was a girl?'



"Thereupon Yvonne, the idiot, lost her head com-


pletely. 'No,' she actually said again!



"The nurse was taken aback.



'Comment!' she ex-


claimed, 'neither a boy nor a girl! But how can that be?'



"Figure to yourselves,



messieurs et dames, it was a


dangerous moment. Yvonne had turned the colour of a


beetroot and she looked ready to burst into tears; another


second and she would have confessed everything.


Heaven knows what might have happened. But as for


me, I had kept my head; I stepped in and saved the


situation.



" 'It was twins,' I said calmly.



" 'Twins!' exclaimed the nurse. And she was so


pleased that she took Yvonne by the shoulders and


embraced her on both cheeks, publicly.



"Yes, twins. . . ."




XIX



ONE day, when we had been at the Hôtel X. five or six


weeks, Boris disappeared without notice. In the evening


I found him waiting for me in the Rue de Rivoli. He


slapped me gaily on the shoulder.



"Free at last,



mon ami! You can give notice in the


morning. The Auberge opens to-morrow."



"Tomorrow?"



"Well, possibly we shall need a day or two to arrange


things. But, at any rate, no more



cafeterie!



Nous



sommes lancés


, mon ami! My tail coat is out of pawn


already."



His manner was so hearty that I felt sure there was


something wrong, and I did not at all want to leave my


safe and comfortable job at the hotel. However, I had


promised Boris, so I gave notice, and the next morning at


seven went down to the Auberge de Jehan Cottard. It


was locked, and I went in search of Boris, who had once


more bolted from his lodgings and taken a room in the


Rue de la Croix Nivert. I found him asleep, together with


a girl whom he had picked up the night before, and who


he told me was "of a very sympathetic temperament." As


to the restaurant, he said that it was all arranged; there


were only a few little things to be seen to before we


opened.



At ten I managed to get Boris out of bed, and we un-


locked the restaurant. At a glance I saw what the "few


little things" amounted to. It was briefly this: that the


alterations had not been touched since our last visit. The


stoves for the kitchen had not arrived, the water and


electricity had not been laid on, and there was all


manner of painting, polishing and carpentering to be


done. Nothing short of a miracle could open the restau-


rant within ten days, and by the look of things it might


collapse without even opening. It was obvious what had


happened. The



patron was short of money, and he had


engaged the staff (there were four of us) in order to use


us instead of workmen. He would be getting our services


almost free, for waiters are paid no wages, and though he


would have to pay me, he would not be feeding me till


the restaurant opened. In effect, he had swindled us of


several hundred francs by sending for us before the


restaurant was open. We had thrown up a good job for


nothing.



Boris, however, was full of hope. He had only one


idea in his head, namely, that here at last was a chance


of being a waiter and wearing a tail coat once more. For


this he was quite willing to do ten days' work unpaid,


with the chance of being left jobless in the end.


"Patience!" he kept saying. "That will arrange itself. Wait


till the restaurant opens, and we'll get it all back.


Patience,



mon ami! »



We needed patience, for days passed and the restau-


rant did not even progress towards opening. We cleaned


out the cellars, fixed the shelves, distempered the walls,


polished the woodwork, whitewashed the ceiling, stained


the floor; but the main work, the plumbing and


gasfitting and electricity, was still not done, because the



patron


could not pay the bills. Evidently he was almost


penniless, for he refused the smallest charges, and he


had a trick of swiftly disappearing when asked for


money. His blend of shiftiness and aristocratic manners


made him very hard to deal with. Melancholy duns came


looking for him at all hours, and by instruction we


always told them that he was at Fontainebleau, or Saint


Cloud, or some other place that was safely distant.


Meanwhile, I was getting hungrier and hungrier. I had


left the hotel with thirty francs, and I had to go back


immediately to a diet of dry bread. Boris had managed


in the beginning to extract an advance of sixty francs


from the



patron, but he had spent half of it, in


redeeming his waiter's clothes, and half on the girl of


sympathetic temperament. He borrowed three francs a


day from Jules, the second waiter, and spent it on


bread. Some days we had not even money for tobacco.



Sometimes the cook came to see how things were


getting on, and when she saw that the kitchen was still


bare of pots and pans she usually wept. Jules, the


second waiter, refused steadily to help with the work. He


was a Magyar, a little dark, sharp-featured fellow in spec-


tacles, and very talkative; he had been a medical


student, but had abandoned his training for lack of


money. He had a taste for talking while other people


were working, and he told me all about himself and his


ideas. It appeared that he was a Communist, and had


various strange theories (he could prove to you by


figures that it was wrong to work), and he was also,


like most Magyars, passionately proud. Proud and lazy


men do not make good waiters. It was Jules's dearest


boast that once when a customer in a restaurant had


insulted him, he had poured a plate of hot soup down


the customer's neck, and then walked straight out


without even waiting to be sacked.



As each day went by Jules grew more and more en-


raged at the trick the



patron had played on us. He had a


spluttering, oratorical way of talking. He used to walk


up and down shaking his fist, and trying to incite me


not to work:



"Put that brush down, you fool! You and I belong to


proud races; we don't work for nothing, like these


damned Russian serfs. I tell you, to be cheated like


this is torture to me. There have been times in my life,


when someone has cheated me even of five sous, when


I have vomited-yes, vomited with rage.



"Besides,



mon vieux, don't forget that I'm a Commu-


nist. A



bas la bourgeoisie! Did any man alive ever see me


working when I could avoid it? No. And not only I don't


wear myself out working, like you other fools, but I


steal, just to show my independence. Once I was in a


restaurant where the



patron thought he could treat me


like a dog. Well, in revenge I found out a way to steal


milk from the milk-cans and seal them up again so


that no one should know. I tell you I just swilled that


milk down night and morning. Every day I drank four


litres of milk, besides half a litre of cream. The patron


was at his wits' end to know where the milk was going.


It wasn't that I wanted milk, you understand, because I


hate the stuff, it was principle, just principle.



"Well, after three days I began to get dreadful pains


in my belly, and I went to the doctor. 'What have you


been eating?' he said. I said: 'I drink four litres of milk


a day, and half a litre of cream.' 'Four litres!' he said.


'Then stop it at once. You'll burst if you go on.' 'What


do I care?' I said. 'With me principle is everything. I


shall go on drinking that milk, even if I do burst.'



"Well, the next day the



patron caught me stealing


milk. 'You're sacked,' he said; 'you leave at the end of


the week.'



'Pardon, monsieur,' I said, 'I shall leave this


morning.' 'No, you won't,' he said, 'I can't spare you till


Saturday.' 'Very well,



mon patron,' I thought to myself,


'we'll see who gets tired of it first.' And then I set to


work to smash the crockery. I broke nine plates the


first day and thirteen the second; after that the



patron


was glad to see the last of me.



« Ah, I'm not one of your Russian



moujiks . . ."



Ten days passed. It was a bad time. I was absolutely at


the end of my money, and my rent was several days


overdue. We loafed about the dismal empty restaurant,


too hungry even to get on with the work that remained.


Only Boris now believed that the restaurant would


open. He had set his heart on being



maitre d'hôtel, and


he invented a theory that the



patron's money was tied


up in shares and he was waiting a favourable moment


for selling. On the tenth day I had nothing to eat or


smoke, and I told the



patron that I could not continue


working without an advance on my wages. As blandly


as usual, the



patron promised the advance, and then,


according to his custom, vanished. I walked part of


the way home, but I did not feel equal to a scene with


Madame F. over the rent, so I passed the night on a


bench on the boulevard. It was very uncomfortable-the


arm of the seat cuts into your back-and much colder


than I had expected. There was plenty of time, in the


long boring hours between dawn and work, to think


what a fool I had been to deliver myself into the hands


of these Russians.



Then, in the morning, the luck changed. Evidently


the



patron had come to an understanding with his


creditors, for he arrived with money in his pockets, set


the alterations going, and gave me my advance. Boris


and I bought macaroni and a piece of horse's liver, and


had our first hot meal in ten days.



The workmen were brought in and the alterations


made, hastily and with incredible shoddiness. The


tables, for instance, were to be covered with baize, but


when the



patron found that baize was expensive he


bought instead disused army blankets, smelling incor-


rigibly of sweat. The table-cloths (they were check, to go


with the "Norman" decorations) would cover them, of


course. On the last night we were at work till two in the


morning, getting things ready. The crockery did not


arrive till eight, and, being new, had all to be washed.


The cutlery did not arrive till the next morning, nor the


linen either, so that we had to dry the crockery with a


shirt of the



patron's and an old pillowslip belonging to


the concierge. Boris and I did all the work. Jules was


skulking, and the



patron and his wife sat in the bar with


a dun and some Russian friends, drinking success to


the restaurant. The cook was in the kitchen with her


head on the table, crying, because she was expected to


cook for fifty people, and there were not pots and pans


enough for ten. About midnight there was a fearful


interview with some duns, who came intending to


seize eight copper saucepans which the



patron had


obtained on credit. They were bought off with half a


bottle of brandy.



Jules and I missed the last Metro home and had to


sleep on the floor of the restaurant. The first thing we


saw in the morning were two large rats sitting on the


kitchen table, eating from a ham that stood there. It


seemed a bad omen, and I was surer than ever that the


Auberge de Jehan Cottard would turn out a failure.




XX



THE



patron had engaged me as kitchen



plongeur; that is,


my job was to wash up, keep the kitchen clean, prepare


vegetables, make tea, coffee and sandwiches, do the


simpler cooking, and run errands. The terms were, as


usual, five hundred francs a month and food, but I had


no free day and no fixed working hours. At the Hôtel X. I


had seen catering at its best, with unlimited money and


good organisation. Now, at the Auberge, I learned how


things are done in a thoroughly bad restaurant. It is


worth describing, for there are hundreds of similar


restaurants in Paris, and every visitor feeds in one of


them occasionally.



I should add, by the way, that the Auberge was not


the ordinary cheap eating-house frequented by students


and workmen. We did not provide an adequate meal at


less than twenty-five francs, and we were picturesque


and artistic, which sent up our social standing. There


were the indecent pictures in the bar, and the Norman


decorations-sham beams on the walls, electric lights


done up as candlesticks, "peasant" pottery, even a


mounting-block at the door-and the



patron and the head


waiter were Russian officers, and many of the



customers titled Russian refugees. In short, we were


decidedly chic.



Nevertheless, the conditions behind the kitchen door


were suitable for a pigsty. For this is what our service


arrangements were like.



The kitchen measured fifteen feet long by eight


broad, and half this space was taken up by the stoves


and tables. All the pots had to be kept on shelves out of


reach, and there was only room for one dustbin. This


dustbin used to be crammed full by midday, and the


floor was normally an inch deep in a compost of


trampled food.



For firing we had nothing but three gas-stoves,


without ovens, and all joints had to be sent out to the


bakery.



There was no larder. Our substitute for one was a


half-roofed shed in the yard, with a tree growing in the


middle of it. The meat, vegetables and so forth lay there


on the bare earth, raided by rats and cats.



There was no hot water laid on. Water for washing up


had to be heated in pans, and, as there was no room for


these on the stoves when meals were cooking, most of


the plates had to be washed in cold water. This, with


soft soap and the hard Paris water, meant scraping the


grease off with bits of newspaper.



We were so short of saucepans that I had to wash


each one as soon as it was done with, instead of leaving


them till the evening. This alone wasted probably an


hour a day.



Owing to some scamping of expense in the installa-


tion, the electric light usually fused at eight in the


evening. The patron would only allow us three candles


in the kitchen, and the cook said three were unlucky, so


we had only two.



Our coffee-grinder was borrowed from a



bistro near


by, and our dustbin and brooms from the concierge.


After the first week a quantity of linen did not come back


from the wash, as the bill was not paid. We were in


trouble with the inspector of labour, who had discovered


that the staff included no Frenchmen; he had several


private interviews with the



patron, who, I believe, was


obliged to bribe him. The electric company was still


dunning us, and when the duns found that we would


buy them off with



apéritifs, they came every morning. We


were in debt at the grocery, and credit would have been


stopped, only the grocer's wife (a moustachio'd woman of


sixty) had taken a fancy to Jules, who was sent every


morning to cajole her. Similarly I had to waste an hour


every day haggling over vegetables in the Rue du


Commerce, to save a few centimes.



These are the results of starting a restaurant on in-


sufficient capital. And in these conditions the cook and I


were expected to serve thirty or forty meals a day, and


would later on be serving a hundred. From the first day


it was too much for us. The cook's working hours were


from eight in the morning till midnight, and mine from


seven in the morning till half-past twelve the next


morning-seventeen and a half hours, almost without a


break. We never had time to sit down till five in the


afternoon, and even then there was no seat except the


top of the dustbin. Boris, who lived near by and had not


to catch the last Metro home, worked from eight in the


morning till two the next morning-eighteen hours a day,


seven days a week. Such hours, though not usual, are


nothing extraordinary in Paris.



Life settled at once into a routine that made the Hôtel


X. seem like a holiday. Every morning at six I drove


myself out of bed, did not shave, sometimes washed,


hurried up to the Place d'Italie and fought for



a place on the Metro. By seven I was in the desolation of


the cold, filthy kitchen, with the potato skins and bones

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