LITMIR.BIZ

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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 forgotten 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 louf! T'es louf! 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 Éloïse! 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 Éloïse—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 Éloïse?" said Maria. "What about Sainte Éloïse?"

      '"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 Éloïse 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 louf! T'es louf! Do you mean to tell me you really knelt down and prayed to that picture? Who told you it was Sainte Éloïse?"

      '"But I made sure it was Sainte Éloïse!" I said.

      '"Imbecile! It isn't Sainte Éloïse at all. Who do you think it is?"

      '"Who?" I said.

      '"It is —, the woman this hotel is called after."

      'I had been praying to —, 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 Éloïse 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.'

      Chapter XVI

       Table of Contents

      Time went on and the Auberge de Jehan Cottart 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 today', 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 halfpenny. It was nick-named '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

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