---
title: "Down and Out in Paris and London"
author: "George Orwell"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Literature"
section: 7 of 38
url: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-down-and-out-fp20180314/7/
cite: "George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London, section 7. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-down-and-out-fp20180314/7/"
---

# 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]

## 7. Chapter VII

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-down-and-out-fp20180314/7/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-down-and-out-fp20180314/7/#p-N

[¶0] My money oozed away—to eight francs, to four francs, to one franc, to
twenty-five centimes; and twenty-five centimes is useless, for it will
buy nothing except a newspaper. We went several days on dry bread, and
then I was two and a half days with nothing to eat whatever. This was an
ugly experience. There are people who do fasting cures of three weeks or
more, and they say that fasting is quite pleasant after the fourth day;
I do not know, never having gone beyond the third day. Probably it seems
different when one is doing it voluntarily and is not underfed at the
start.

[¶1] The first day, too inert to look for work, I borrowed a rod and went
fishing in the Seine, baiting with bluebottles. I hoped to catch enough
for a meal, but of course I did not. The Seine is full of dace, but they
grew cunning during the siege of Paris, and none of them has been caught
since, except in nets. On the second day I thought of pawning my
overcoat, but it seemed too far to walk to the pawnshop, and I spent the
day in bed, reading the _Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes_. It was all that I
felt equal to, without food. Hunger reduces one to an utterly spineless,
brainless condition, more like the after-effects of influenza than
anything else. It is as though one had been turned into a jellyfish, or
as though all one's blood had been pumped out and lukewarm water
substituted. Complete inertia is my chief memory of hunger; that, and
being obliged to spit very frequently, and the spittle being curiously
white and flocculent, like cuckoo-spit. I do not know the reason for
this, but everyone who has gone hungry several days has noticed it.

[¶2] On the third morning I felt very much better. I realized that I must do
something at once, and I decided to go and ask Boris to let me share his
two francs, at any rate for a day or two. When I arrived I found Boris
in bed, and furiously angry. As soon as I came in he burst out, almost
choking:

[¶3] 'He has taken it back, the dirty thief! He has taken it back!'

[¶4] 'Who's taken what?' I said.

[¶5] 'The Jew! Taken my two francs, the dog, the thief! He robbed me in my
sleep!'

[¶6] It appeared that on the previous night the Jew had flatly refused to pay
the daily two francs. They had argued and argued, and at last the Jew
had consented to hand over the money; he had done it, Boris said, in the
most offensive manner, making a little speech about how kind he was, and
extorting abject gratitude. And then in the morning he had stolen the
money back before Boris was awake.

[¶7] This was a blow. I was horribly disappointed, for I had allowed my belly
to expect food, a great mistake when one is hungry. However, rather to
my surprise, Boris was far from despairing. He sat up in bed, lighted
his pipe and reviewed the situation.

[¶8] 'Now listen, _mon ami_, this is a tight corner. We have only twenty-five
centimes between us, and I don't suppose the Jew will ever pay my two
francs again. In any case his behaviour is becoming intolerable. Will
you believe it, the other night he had the indecency to bring a woman in
here, while I was there on the floor. The low animal! And I have a worse
thing to tell you. The Jew intends clearing out of here. He owes a
week's rent, and his idea is to avoid paying that and give me the slip
at the same time. If the Jew shoots the moon I shall be left without a
roof, and the _patron_ will take my suitcase in lieu of rent, curse him!
We have got to make a vigorous move.'

[¶9] 'All right. But what can we do? It seems to me that the only thing is to
pawn our overcoats and get some food.'

[¶10] 'We'll do that, of course, but I must get my possessions out of this
house first. To think of my photographs being seized! Well, my plan is
ready. I'm going to forestall the Jew and shoot the moon myself. _Foutre
le camp_—retreat, you understand. I think that is the correct move,
eh?'

[¶11] 'But my dear Boris, how can you, in daytime? You're bound to be caught.'

[¶12] 'Ah well, it will need strategy, of course. Our _patron_ is on the watch
for people slipping out without paying their rent; he's been had that
way before. He and his wife take it in turns all day to sit in the
office—what misers, these Frenchmen! But I have thought of a way to do
it, if you will help.'

[¶13] I did not feel in a very helpful mood, but I asked Boris what his plan
was. He explained it carefully.

[¶14] 'Now listen. We must start by pawning our overcoats. First go back to
your room and fetch your overcoat, then come back here and fetch mine,
and smuggle it out under cover of yours. Take them to the pawnshop in
the Rue des Francs Bourgeois. You ought to get twenty francs for the
two, with luck. Then go down to the Seine bank and fill your pockets
with stones, and bring them back and put them in my suitcase. You see
the idea? I shall wrap as many of my things as I can carry in a
newspaper, and go down and ask the _patron_ the way to the nearest
laundry. I shall be very brazen and casual, you understand, and of
course the _patron_ will think the bundle is nothing but dirty linen. Or
if he does suspect anything, he will do what he always does, the mean
sneak; he will go up to my room and feel the weight of my suitcase. And
when he feels the weight of stones he will think it is still full.
Strategy, eh? Then afterwards I can come back and carry my other things
out in my pockets.'

[¶15] 'But what about the suitcase?'

[¶16] 'Oh, that? We shall have to abandon it. The miserable thing only cost
twenty francs. Besides, one always abandons something in a retreat. Look
at Napoleon at the Beresina! He abandoned his whole army.'

[¶17] Boris was so pleased with this scheme (he called it _une ruse de
guerre_) that he almost forgot being hungry. Its main weakness—that he
would have nowhere to sleep after shooting the moon—he ignored.

[¶18] At first the _ruse de guerre_ worked well. I went home and fetched my
overcoat (that made already nine kilometres, on an empty belly) and
smuggled Boris's coat out successfully. Then a hitch occurred. The
receiver at the pawnshop, a nasty sour-faced interfering little man—a
typical French official—refused the coats on the ground that they were
not wrapped up in anything. He said that they must be put either in a
valise or a cardboard box. This spoiled everything, for we had no box of
any kind, and with only twenty-five centimes between us we could not buy
one.

[¶19] I went back and told Boris the bad news. '_Merde!_' he said, 'that makes
it awkward. Well, no matter, there is always a way. We'll put the
overcoats in my suitcase.'

[¶20] 'But how are we to get the suitcase past the _patron_? He's sitting
almost in the door of the office. It's impossible!'

[¶21] 'How easily you despair, _mon ami_! Where is that English obstinacy that
I have read of? Courage! We'll manage it.'

[¶22] Boris thought for a little while, and then produced another cunning
plan. The essential difficulty was to hold the _patron_'s attention for
perhaps five seconds, while we could slip past with the suitcase. But,
as it happened, the _patron_ had just one weak spot—that he was
interested in _Le Sport_, and was ready to talk if you approached him on
this subject. Boris read an article about bicycle races in an old copy
of the _Petit Parisien_, and then, when we 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
suitcase 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. However, presently Boris coughed. I sneaked rapidly past the
office and out into the street, rejoicing that my shoes did not 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.

[¶23] And then, after all our trouble, the receiver at the pawnshop 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'identité_ was not enough, and I must show a
passport or addressed envelopes. Boris had addressed envelopes by the
score, but his _carte d'identité_ was out of order (he never renewed 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.

[¶24] 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 had no food for sixty hours. Fate seemed to be playing a series of
extraordinarily unamusing jokes.

[¶25] Then the luck changed as though by a miracle. I was walking home through
the Rue Broca, when suddenly, glittering 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 them skins
and all. After that we felt like new men, and sat playing chess till the
pawnshop opened.

[¶26] 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 suitcase? Boris had said twenty francs, but I
thought it would be ten francs, or even five. Worse yet, I might be
refused altogether, like poor _Numéro 83_ on the previous occasion. I
sat on the front bench, so as not to see people laughing when the clerk
said five francs.

[¶27] At last the clerk called my number: '_Numéro 117_!'

[¶28] 'Yes,' I said, standing up.

[¶29] 'Fifty francs?'

[¶30] 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,
saying nothing. Boris was playing with the chessboard. He looked up
eagerly.

[¶31] '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.'

[¶32] I threw the fifty-franc note onto 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 stove, and gorged.

[¶33] After eating, Boris became more optimistic than I had ever known him.
'What did I tell you?' he said. 'The fortune of war! This morning with
five sous, and now look at us. I have always said it, there is nothing
easier to get than money. And that reminds me, I have a friend in the
Rue Fondary whom we might go and see. He has cheated me of four thousand
francs, the thief. He is the greatest thief alive when he is sober, but
it is a curious thing, he is quite honest when he is drunk. I should
think he would be drunk by six in the evening. Let's go and find him.
Very likely he will pay up a hundred on account. _Merde!_ He might pay
two hundred. _Allons-y!_'

[¶34] We went to the Rue Fondary and found the man, and he was drunk, but we
did not get our hundred francs. As soon as he and Boris met there was a
terrible altercation on the pavement. The other man declared that he did
not owe Boris a penny, but that on the contrary Boris owed _him_ four
thousand francs, and both of them kept appealing to me for my opinion. I
never understood the rights of the matter. The two argued and argued,
first in the street, then in a _bistro_, then in a _prix fixe_
restaurant where we went for dinner, then in another _bistro_. Finally,
having called one another thieves for two hours, they went off together
on a drinking bout that finished up the last sou of Boris's money.

[¶35] Boris slept the night at the house of a cobbler, another Russian
refugee, in the Commerce quarter. Meanwhile I had eight francs left, and
plenty of cigarettes, and was stuffed to the eyes with food and drink.
It was a marvellous change for the better after two bad days.