No More Learning

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? FORCEMENT, 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 Eloise 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
cafes 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 realized that it must be
Sainte Eloise, 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.

“‘ECOUTE, 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 Eloise? 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 Eloise, 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 Eloise, if you help me
this once. And be sure, if you send me anything, the first thing I’ 11 do will be to go and
bum 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 comer. 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 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 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
Eloise! 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 Eloise — 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 Eloise? ” said Maria. “What about Sainte Eloise? ”

‘“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 Eloise 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 FOEH Do you mean to tell me you really


knelt down and prayed to that picture? Who told you it was Sainte Eloise? ”

“‘But I made sure it was Sainte Eloise! ” I said.

“‘Imbecile! It isn’t Sainte Eloise 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 Eloise 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

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 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 cafes. 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 Sieyes, 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 servant-girl 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 school-children 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.


CHAPTER 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
Hotel 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 song — the ‘Marseillaise’, or the ‘Internationale’, or
‘Madelon’, or ‘Les Fraises et les Fram-boises’. 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 comer 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
comer 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 Us 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,
‘VIVE 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’HUMANITE.



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 ann 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.


CHAPTER 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 civilized 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 everything, 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? ”

‘I turned to Yvonne. “Stop that insufferable bawling. ” I said, “I have thought of a way to
get food. ”


‘“How? ” she said.

‘“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 CHERE. 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 ragout of beef, a puree of potatoes, bread and cheese and beer, and all
kinds of advice about her baby. Yvonne gorged till she almost burst her skin, and
managed 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 recognized 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 completely. “No,” she actually said again!

‘The nurse was taken aback. “COMMENT! ” she exclaimed, “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. . . ’


CHAPTER XIX

One day, when we had been at the Hotel X five or six weeks, Boris disappeared without
notice.