---
title: "Down and Out in Paris and London"
author: "George Orwell"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Literature"
section: 23 of 38
url: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-down-and-out-fp20180314/23/
cite: "George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London, section 23. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-down-and-out-fp20180314/23/"
---

# Down and Out in Paris and London

*George Orwell*

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> Title: Down and Out in Paris and London
Date of first publication: 1933
Author: George Orwell (1903-1950)
Date first posted: Mar. 14, 2018
Date last updated: Mar. 14, 2018
Faded Page eBook #20180314

> This eBook was produced by: Delphine Lettau, Howard Ross
& the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

> GEORGE ORWELL

> _Down and Out_
    _in Paris and London_

> O scathful harm, condicion of poverte!
       CHAUCER

> PENGUIN BOOKS

> First published by Victor Gollancz 1933

> Copyright 1933 by Eric Blair

> [The end of _Down and Out in Paris and London_ by George Orwell]

## 23. Chapter XXIII

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-down-and-out-fp20180314/23/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-down-and-out-fp20180314/23/#p-N

[¶0] As soon as I left the Auberge de Jehan Cottard I went to bed and slept
the clock round, all but one hour. Then I washed my teeth for the first
time in a fortnight, bathed and had my hair cut, and got my clothes out
of pawn. I had two glorious days of loafing. I even went in my best suit
to the Auberge, leant against the bar and spent five francs on a bottle
of English beer. It is a curious sensation, being a customer where you
have been a slave's slave. Boris was sorry that I had left the
restaurant just at the moment when we were _lancés_ and there was a
chance of making money. I have heard from him since, and he tells me
that he is making a hundred francs a day and has set up a girl who is
_très serieuse_ and never smells of garlic.

[¶1] I spent a day wandering about our quarter, saying goodbye to everyone.
It was on this day that Charlie told me about the death of old Roucolle
the miser, who had once lived in the quarter. Very likely Charlie was
lying as usual, but it was a good story.

[¶2] Roucolle died, aged seventy-four, a year or two before I went to Paris,
but the people in the quarter still talked of him while I was there. He
never equalled Daniel Dancer[2] or anyone of that kind, but he was an
interesting character. He went to Les Halles every morning to pick up
damaged vegetables, and ate cat's meat, and wore newspaper instead of
underclothes, and used the wainscoting of his room for firewood, and
made himself a pair of trousers out of a sack—all this with half a
million francs invested. I should like very much to have known him.

[¶3] [2] _The French translation has this note_ (_in French_): A famous
English miser.

[¶4] -----

[¶5] Like many misers, Roucolle came to a bad end through putting his money
into a wildcat scheme. One day a Jew appeared in the quarter, an alert,
businesslike young chap who had a first-rate plan for smuggling cocaine
into England. It is easy enough, of course, to buy cocaine in Paris, and
the smuggling would be quite simple in itself, only there is always some
spy who betrays the plan to the customs or the police. It is said that
this is often done by the very people who sell the cocaine, because the
smuggling trade is in the hands of a large combine, who do not want
competition. The Jew, however, swore that there was no danger. He knew a
way of getting cocaine direct from Vienna, not through the usual
channels, and there would be no blackmail to pay. He had got into touch
with Roucolle through a young Pole, a student at the Sorbonne, who was
going to put four thousand francs into the scheme if Roucolle would put
six thousand. For this they could buy ten pounds of cocaine, which would
be worth a small fortune in England.

[¶6] The Pole and the Jew had a tremendous struggle to get the money from
between old Roucolle's claws. Six thousand francs was not much—he had
more than that sewn into the mattress in his room—but it was agony for
him to part with a sou. The Pole and the Jew were at him for weeks on
end, explaining, bullying, coaxing, arguing, going down on their knees
and imploring him to produce the money. The old man was half frantic
between greed and fear. His bowels yearned at the thought of getting,
perhaps, fifty thousand francs' profit, and yet he could not bring
himself to risk the money. He used to sit in a corner with his head in
his hands, groaning and sometimes yelling out in agony, and often he
would kneel down (he was very pious) and pray for strength, but still he
couldn't do it. But at last, more from exhaustion than anything else, he
gave in quite suddenly; he slit open the mattress where his money was
concealed and handed over six thousand francs to the Jew.

[¶7] The Jew delivered the cocaine the same day, and promptly vanished. And
meanwhile, as was not surprising after the fuss Roucolle had made, the
affair had been noised all over the quarter. The very next morning the
hotel was raided and searched by the police.

[¶8] Roucolle and the Pole were in agonies. The police were downstairs,
working their way up and searching every room in turn, and there was the
great packet of cocaine on the table, with no place to hide it and no
chance of escaping down the stairs. The Pole was for throwing the stuff
out of the window, but Roucolle would not hear of it. Charlie told me
that he had been present at the scene. He said that when they tried to
take the packet from Roucolle he clasped it to his breast and struggled
like a madman, although he was seventy-four years old. He was wild with
fright, but he would go to prison rather than throw his money away.

[¶9] At last, when the police were searching only one floor below, somebody
had an idea. A man on Roucolle's floor had a dozen tins of face-powder
which he was selling on commission; it was suggested that the cocaine
could be put into the tins and passed off as face-powder. The powder was
hastily thrown out of the window and the cocaine substituted, and the
tins were put openly on Roucolle's table, as though there were nothing
to conceal. A few minutes later the police came to search Roucolle's
room. They tapped the walls and looked up the chimney and turned out the
drawers and examined the floorboards, and then, just as they were about
to give it up, having found nothing, the inspector noticed the tins on
the table.

[¶10] '_Tiens_,' he said, 'have a look at those tins. I hadn't noticed them.
What's in them, eh?'

[¶11] 'Face-powder,' said the Pole as calmly as he could manage. But at the
same instant Roucolle let out a loud groaning noise, from alarm, and the
police became suspicious immediately. They opened one of the tins and
tipped out the contents, and after smelling it, the inspector said that
he believed it was cocaine. Roucolle and the Pole began swearing on the
names of the saints that it was only face-powder; but it was no use, the
more they protested the more suspicious the police became. The two men
were arrested and led off to the police station, followed by half the
quarter.

[¶12] At the station, Roucolle and the Pole were interrogated by the
Commissaire while a tin of the cocaine was sent away to be analysed.
Charlie said that the scene Roucolle made was beyond description. He
wept, prayed, made contradictory statements and denounced the Pole all
at once, so loud that he could be heard half a street away. The
policemen almost burst with laughing at him.

[¶13] After an hour a policeman came back with the tin of cocaine and a note
from the analyst. He was laughing.

[¶14] 'This is not cocaine, _monsieur_,' he said.

[¶15] 'What, not cocaine?' said the Commissaire. '_Mais, alors_—what is it,
then?'

[¶16] 'It is face-powder.'

[¶17] Roucolle and the Pole were released at once, entirely exonerated but
very angry. The Jew had double-crossed them. Afterwards, when the
excitement was over, it turned out that he had played the same trick on
two other people in the quarter.

[¶18] The Pole was glad enough to escape, even though he had lost his four
thousand francs, but poor old Roucolle was utterly broken down. He took
to his bed at once, and all that day and half the night they could hear
him thrashing about, mumbling, and sometimes yelling out at the top of
his voice:

[¶19] 'Six thousand francs! _Nom de Jésus Christ!_ Six thousand francs!'

[¶20] Three days later he had some kind of stroke, and in a fortnight he was
dead—of a broken heart, Charlie said.