Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell Read Free Book Online Page A

PARISIEN, and then, when he
    had reconnoitred the stairs, went down and managed to
    set the PATRON talking. Meanwhile, I waited at the foot of
    the stairs, with the overcoats under one arm and the suit-
    case under the other. Boris was to give a cough when he
    thought the moment favourable. I waited trembling, for at
    any moment the PATRON’S wife might come out of the
    door opposite the office, and then the game was up. How-
    ever, presently Boris coughed. I sneaked rapidly past the
    office and out into the street, rejoicing that my shoes did not

    Down and Out in Paris and London
    creak. The plan might have failed if Boris had been thinner,
    for his big shoulders blocked the doorway of the office. His
    nerve was splendid, too; he went on laughing and talking in
    the most casual way, and so loud that he quite covered any
    noise I made. When I was well away he came and joined me
    round the corner, and we bolted.
    And then, after all our trouble, the receiver at the pawn-
    shop again refused the overcoats. He told me (one could see
    his French soul revelling in the pedantry of it) that I had not
    sufficient papers of identification; my CARTE D’IDENTITE
    was not enough, and I must show a passport or addressed
    envelopes. Boris had addressed envelopes by the score, but
    his CARTE D’IDENTITE was out of order (he never re-
    newed it, so as to avoid the tax), so we could not pawn the
    overcoats in his name. All we could do was to trudge up to
    my room, get the necessary papers, and take the coats to the
    pawnshop in the Boulevard Port Royal.
    I left Boris at my room and went down to the pawnshop.
    When I got there I found that it was shut and would not
    open till four in the afternoon. It was now about half-past
    one, and I had walked twelve kilometres and had no food
    for sixty hours. Fate seemed to be playing a series of ex-
    traordinarily unamusing jokes.
    Then the luck changed as though by a miracle. I was
    walking home through the Rue Broca when suddenly, glit-
    tering on the cobbles, I saw a five-sou piece. I pounced on
    it, hurried home, got our other five-sou piece and bought
    a pound of potatoes. There was only enough alcohol in the
    stove to parboil them, and we had no salt, but we wolfed
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    them, skins and all. After that we felt like new men, and sat
    playing chess till the pawnshop opened.
    At four o’clock I went back to the pawnshop. I was not
    hopeful, for if I had only got seventy francs before, what
    could I expect for two shabby overcoats in a cardboard suit-
    case? Boris had said twenty francs, but I thought it would be
    ten francs, or even five. Worse yet, I might be refused alto-
    gether, like poor NUMERO 83 on the previous occasion. I
    sat on the front bench, so as not to see people laughing when
    the clerk said five francs.
    At last the clerk called my number: ‘NUMERO 117!’
    ‘Yes,’ I said, standing up.
    ‘Fifty francs?’
    It was almost as great a shock as the seventy francs had
    been the time before. I believe now that the clerk had mixed
    my number up with someone else’s, for one could not have
    sold the coats outright for fifty francs. I hurried home and
    walked into my room with my hands behind my back, say-
    ing nothing. Boris was playing with the chessboard. He
    looked up eagerly.
    ‘What did you get?’ he exclaimed. ‘What, not twenty
    francs? Surely you got ten francs, anyway? NOM DE DIEU,
    five francs—that is a bit too thick. MON AMI, DON’T say
    it was five francs. If you say it was five francs I shall really
    begin to think of suicide.’
    I threw the fifty-franc, note on to the table. Boris turned
    white as chalk, and then, springing up, seized my hand
    and gave it a grip that almost broke the bones. We ran out,
    bought bread and wine, a piece of meat and alcohol for the

    Down and Out in Paris and London
    stove, and gorged.
    After eating, Boris became more optimistic than I had
    ever known him. ‘What did I tell you?’ he said. ‘The