No More Learning

You say you go in for writing. Writing is bosh. There is only one
way to make money at writing, and that is to marry a publisher’s daughter. But you
would make a good waiter if you shaved that moustache off. You are tall and you speak
English — those are the chief things a waiter needs. Wait till I can bend this accursed leg,
MON AMI. And then, if you are ever out of a job, come to me. ’

Now that I was short of my rent, and getting hungry, I remembered Boris’s promise, and
decided to look him up at once. I did not hope to become a waiter so easily as he had
promised, but of course I knew how to scrub dishes, and no doubt he could get me a job
in the kitchen. He had said that dishwashing jobs were to be had for the asking during the
summer. It was a great relief to remember that I had after all one influential friend to fall
back on.


CHAPTER V

A short time before, Boris had given me an address in the rue du Marche des Blancs
Manteaux. All he had said in his letter was that ‘things were not marching too badly’, and
I assumed that he was back at the Hotel Scribe, touching his hundred francs a day. I was
full of hope, and wondered why I had been fool enough not to go to Boris before. I saw
myself in a cosy restaurant, with jolly cooks singing love-songs as they broke eggs into
the pan, and five solid meals a day. I even squandered two francs fifty on a packet of
Gaulois Bleu, in anticipation of my wages.

In the morning I walked down to the rue du Marche des Blancs Manteaux; with a shock, I
found it a shimmy back street-as bad as my own. Boris’s hotel was the dirtiest hotel in the
street. From its dark doorway there came out a vile, sour odour, a mixture of slops and
synthetic soup — it was Bouillon Zip, twenty-five centimes a packet. A misgiving came
over me. People who drink Bouillon Zip are starving, or near it. Could Boris possibly be
earning a hundred francs a day? A surly PATRON, sitting in the office, said to me. Yes,
the Russian was at home — in the attic. I went up six nights of narrow, winding stairs, the



Bouillon Zip growing stronger as one got higher. Boris did not answer when I knocked at
his door, so I opened it and went in.

The room was an attic, ten feet square, lighted only by a skylight, its sole furniture a
narrow iron bedstead, a chair, and a wash hand- stand with one game leg. A long S-shaped
chain of bugs marched slowly across the wall above the bed. Boris was lying asleep,
naked, his large belly making a mound under the grimy sheet. His chest was spotted with
insect bites. As I came in he woke up, rubbed his eyes, and groaned deeply.

‘Name of Jesus Christ! ’ he exclaimed, ‘oh, name of Jesus Christ, my back! Curse it, I
believe my back is broken! ’

‘What’s the matter? ’ I exclaimed.

‘My back is broken, that is all. I have spent the night on the floor. Oh, name of Jesus
Christ! If you knew what my back feels like! ’

‘My dear Boris, are you ill? ’

‘Not ill, only starving — yes, starving to death if this goes on much longer. Besides
sleeping on the floor, I have lived on two francs a day for weeks past. It is fearful. You
have come at a bad moment, MON AMI. ’

It did not seem much use to ask whether Boris still had his job at the Hotel Scribe. I
hurried downstairs and bought a loaf of bread. Boris threw himself on the bread and ate
half of it, after which he felt better, sat up in bed, and told me what was the matter with
him. He had failed to get a job after leaving the hospital, because he was still very lame,
and he had spent all his money and pawned everything, and finally starved for several
days. He had slept a week on the quay under the Font d’Austerlitz, among some empty
wine barrels. For the past fortnight he had been living in this room, together with a Jew, a
mechanic. It appeared (there was some complicated explanation. ) that the Jew owed
Boris three hundred francs, and was repaying this by letting him sleep on the floor and
allowing him two francs a day for food. Two francs would buy a bowl of coffee and three
rolls. The Jew went to work at seven in the mornings, and after that Boris would leave his



sleeping-place (it was beneath the skylight, which let in the rain) and get into the bed. He
could not sleep much even there owing to the bugs, but it rested his back after the floor.

It was a great disappointment, when I had come to Boris for help, to find him even worse
off than myself. I explained that I had only about sixty francs left and must get a job
immediately. By this time, however, Boris had eaten the rest of the bread and was feeling
cheerful and talkative. He said carelessly:

‘Good heavens, what are you worrying about? Sixty francs — why, it’s a fortune! Please
hand me that shoe, MON AMI. I’m going to smash some of those bugs if they come
within reach. ’

‘But do you think there’s any chance of getting a job? ’

‘Chance? It’s a certainty. In fact, I have got something already. There is a new Russian
restaurant which is to open in a few days in the rue du Commerce. It is UNE CHOSE
ENTENDUE that I am to be MAITRE D’HOTEL. I can easily get you a job in the
kitchen. Five hundred francs a month and your food — tips, too, if you are lucky. ’

‘But in the meantime? I’ve got to pay my rent before long. ’

‘Oh, we shall find something. I have got a few cards-up my sleeve. There are people who
owe me money, for instance — Paris is full of them. One of them is bound to pay up
before long. Then think of all the women who have been my mistress! A woman never
forgets, you know — I have only to ask and they will help me. Besides, the Jew tells me he
is going to steal some magnetos from the garage where he works, and he will pay us five
francs a day to clean them before he sells them. That alone would keep us. Never worry,
MON AMI. Nothing is easier to get than money. ’

‘Well, let’s go out now and look for a job. ’

‘Presently, MON AMI. We shan’t starve, don’t you fear. This is only the fortune of
war — I’ve been in a worse hole scores of times. It’s only a question of persisting.
Remember Foch’s maxim: “ATTAQUEZ! ATTAQUEZ! ATTAQUEZ! ”’



It was midday before Boris decided to get up. All the clothes he now had left were one
suit, with one shirt, collar and tie, a pair of shoes almost worn out, and a pair of socks all
holes. He had also an overcoat which was to be pawned in the last extremity. He had a
suitcase, a wretched twenty-franc cardboard thing, but very important, because the
PATRON of the hotel believed that it was full of clothes — without that, he would
probably have turned Boris out of doors. What it actually contained were the medals and
photographs, various odds and ends, and huge bundles of love-letters. In spite of all this
Boris managed to keep a fairly smart appearance. He shaved without soap and with a
razor-blade two months old, tied his tie so that the holes did not show, and carefully
stuffed the soles of his shoes with newspaper. Finally, when he was dressed, he produced
an i nk -bottle and inked the skin of his ankles where it showed through his socks. You
would never have thought, when it was finished, that he had recently been sleeping under
the Seine bridges.

We went to a small cafe off the rue de Rivoli, a well-known rendezvous of hotel
managers and employees. At the back was a dark, cave-like room where all kinds of hotel
workers were sitting — smart young waiters, others not so smart and clearly hungry, fat
pink cooks, greasy dish-washers, battered old scrubbing-women. Everyone had an
untouched glass of black coffee in front of him. The place was, in effect, an employment
bureau, and the money spent on drinks was the PATRON’S commission. Sometimes a
stout, important-looking man, obviously a restaurateur, would come in and speak to the
bannan, and the bannan would call to one of the people at the back of the cafe. But he
never called to Boris or me, and we left after two hours, as the etiquette was that you
could only stay two hours for one drink. We learned afterwards, when it was too late, that
the dodge was to bribe the barman; if you could afford twenty francs he would generally
get you a job.

We went to the Hotel Scribe and waited an hour on the pavement, hoping that the
manager would come out, but he never did. Then we dragged ourselves down to the rue
du Commerce, only to find that the new restaurant, which was being redecorated, was
shut up and the PATRON away. It was now night. We had walked fourteen kilometres
over pavement, and we were so tired that we had to waste one franc fifty on going home
by Metro. Walking was agony to Boris with his game leg, and his optimism wore thinner
and thinner as the day went on. When he got out of the Metro at the Place d’ltalie he was



in despair. He began to say that it was no use looking for work — there was nothing for it
but to try crime.

‘Sooner rob than starve, MON AMI. I have often planned it. A fat, rich American — some
dark corner down Montparnasse way — a cobblestone in a stocking — bang! And then go
through his pockets and bolt. It is feasible, do you not think? I would not flinch — I have
been a soldier, remember. ’

He decided against the plan in the end, because we were both foreigners and easily
recognized.

When we had got back to my room we spent another one franc fifty on bread and
chocolate. Boris devoured his share, and at once cheered up like magic; food seemed to
act on his system as rapidly as a cocktail. He took out a pencil and began making a list of
the people who would probably give us jobs. There were dozens of them, he said.

‘Tomorrow we shall find something, MON AMI, I know it in my bones. The luck always
changes. Besides, we both have brains — a man with brains can’t starve.

‘What things a man can do with brains! Brains will make money out of anything. I had a
friend once, a Pole, a real man of genius; and what do you think he used to do? He would
buy a gold ring and pawn it for fifteen francs. Then — you know how carelessly the clerks
fill up the tickets — where the clerk had written “EN OR” he would add “ET
DIAMANTS” and he would change “fifteen francs” to “fifteen thousand”. Neat, eh?
Then, you see, he could borrow a thousand francs on the security of the ticket. That is
what I mean by brains. . . ’

For the rest of the evening Boris was in a hopeful mood, talking of the times we should
have together when we were waiters together at Nice or Biarritz, with smart rooms and
enough money to set up mistresses. He was too tired to walk the three kilometres back to
his hotel, and slept the night on the floor of my room, with his coat rolled round his shoes
for a pillow.


CHAPTER VI



We again failed to find work the next day, and it was three weeks before the luck
changed. My two hundred francs saved me from trouble about the rent, but everything
else went as badly as possible. Day after day Boris and I went up and down Paris, drifting
at two miles an hour through the crowds, bored and hungry, and finding nothing. One
day, I remember, we crossed the Seine eleven times. We loitered for hours outside
service doorways, and when the manager came out we would go up to him ingratiatingly,
cap in hand. We always got the same answer: they did not want a lame man, nor a man
without experience. Once we were very nearly engaged. While we spoke to the manager
Boris stood straight upright, not supporting himself with his stick, and the . manager did
not see that he was lame. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘we want two men in the cellars. Perhaps you
would do. Come inside. ’ Then Boris moved, the game was up. ‘Ah,’ said the manager,
‘you limp. MALHEUREUSEMENT— ’

We enrolled our names at agencies and answered advertisements, but walking
everywhere made us slow, and we seemed to miss every job by half an hour. Once we
very nearly got a job swabbing out railway trucks, but at the last moment they rejected us
in favour of Frenchmen. Once we answered an advertisement calling for hands at a
circus. You had to shift benches and clean up litter, and, during the performance, stand on
two tubs and let a lion jump through your legs. When we got to the place, an hour before
the time named, we found a queue of fifty men already waiting. There is some attraction
in lions, evidently.

Once an agency to which I had applied months earlier sent me a PETIT BLEU, telling me
of an Italian gentleman who wanted English lessons. The PETIT BLEU said ‘Come at
once’ and promised twenty francs an hour. Boris and I were in despair. Here was a
splendid chance, and I could not take it, for it was impossible to go to the agency with my
coat out at the elbow. Then it occurred to us that I could wear Boris’s coat — it did not
match my trousers, but the trousers were grey and might pass for flannel at a short
distance. The coat was so much too big for me that I had to wear it unbuttoned and keep
one hand in my pocket. I hurried out, and wasted seventy-five centimes on a bus fare to
get to the agency. When I got there I found that the Italian had changed his mind and left
Paris.



Once Boris suggested that I should go to Les Halles and try for a job as a porter. I arrived
at half-past four in the morning, when the work was getting into its swing. Seeing a short,
fat man in a bowler hat directing some porters, I went up to him and asked for work.
Before answering he seized my right hand and felt the palm.

‘You are strong, eh? ’ he said.

‘Very strong,’ I said untruly.

‘BIEN. Let me see you lift that crate. ’

It was a huge wicker basket full of potatoes. I took hold of it, and found that, so far from
lifting it, I could not even move it. The man in the bowler hat watched me, then shrugged
his shoulders and turned away. I made off. When I had gone some distance I looked back
and saw FOUR men lifting the basket on to a cart. It weighed three hundredweight,
possibly. The man had seen that I was no use, and taken this way of getting rid of me.

Sometimes in his hopeful moments Boris spent fifty centimes on a stamp and wrote to
one of his ex-mistresses, asking for money. Only one of them ever replied. It was a
woman who, besides having been his mistress, owed him two hundred francs. When
Boris saw the letter waiting and recognized the handwriting, he was wild with hope. We
seized the letter and rushed up to Boris’s room to read it, like a child with stolen sweets.
Boris read the letter, then handed it silently to me. It ran:

My Little Cherished Wolf,

With what delight did I open thy channing letter, reminding me of the days of our perfect
love, and of the so dear kisses which I have received from thy lips. Such memories linger
for ever in the heart, like the perfume of a flower that is dead.

As to thy request for two hundred francs, alas! it is impossible. Thou dost not know, my
dear one, how I am desolated to hear of thy embarrassments. But what wouldst thou? In
this life which is so sad, trouble conies to everyone. I too have had my share. My little
sister has been ill (ah, the poor little one, how she suffered! ) and we are obliged to pay I
know not what to the doctor.
All our money is gone and we are passing, I assure thee,
very difficult days.



Courage, my little wolf, always the courage! Remember that the bad days are not for
ever, and the trouble which seems so terrible will disappear at last.


Rest assured, my dear one, that I will remember thee always. And receive the most
sincere embraces of her who has never ceased to love thee, thy

Yvonne

This letter disappointed Boris so much that he went straight to bed and would not look for
work again that day. My sixty francs lasted about a fortnight. I had given up the pretence
of going out to restaurants, and we used to eat in my room, one of us sitting on the bed
and the other on the chair. Boris would contribute his two francs and I three or four
francs, and we would buy bread, potatoes, milk and cheese, and make soup over my spirit
lamp. We had a saucepan and a coffee-bowl and one spoon; every day there was a polite
squabble as to who should eat out of the saucepan and who out of the coffee-bowl (the
saucepan held more), and every day, to my secret anger, Boris gave in first and had the
saucepan. Sometimes we had more bread in the evening, sometimes not. Our linen was
getting filthy, and it was three weeks since I had had a bath; Boris, so he said, had not had
a bath for months. It was tobacco that made everything tolerable. We had plenty of
tobacco, for some time before Boris had met a soldier (the soldiers are given their
tobacco free) and bought twenty or thirty packets at fifty centimes each.

All this was far worse for Boris than for me. The walking and sleeping on the floor kept
his leg and back in constant pain, and with his vast Russian appetite he suffered torments
of hunger, though he never seemed to grow thinner. On the whole he was surprisingly
gay, and he had vast capacities for hope. He used to say seriously that he had a PATRON
saint who watched over him, and when things were very bad he would search the gutter
for money, saying that the saint often dropped a two-franc piece there. One day we were
waiting in the rue Royale; there was a Russian restaurant near by, and we were going to
ask for a job there. Suddenly, Boris made up his mind to go into the Madeleine and bum a
fifty-centime candle to his PATRON saint. Then, coming out, he said that he would be on
the safe side, and solemnly put a match to a fifty-centime stamp, as a sacrifice to the
immortal gods. Perhaps the gods and the saints did not get on together; at any rate, we
missed the job.



On some mornings Boris collapsed in the most utter despair. He would lie in bed almost
weeping, cursing the Jew with whom he lived. Of late the Jew had become restive about
paying the daily two francs, and, what was worse, had begun putting on intolerable airs of
PATRONage. Boris said that I, as an Englishman, could not conceive what torture it was
to a Russian of family to be at the mercy of a Jew.

‘A Jew, MON AMI, a veritable Jew! And he hasn’t even the decency to be ashamed of it.
To think that I, a captain in the Russian Army — have I ever told you, MON AMI, that I
was a captain in the Second Siberian Rifles? Yes, a captain, and my father was a colonel.
And here I am, eating the bread of a Jew. A Jew. . .

‘I will tell you what Jews are like. Once, in the early months of the war, we were on the
march, and we had halted at a village for the night. A horrible old Jew, with a red beard
like Judas Iscariot, came sneaking up to my billet. I asked him what he wanted. “Your
honour,” he said, “I have brought a girl for you, a beautiful young girl only seventeen. It
will only be fifty francs. ” “Tha nk you,” I said, “you can take her away again. I don’t want
to catch any diseases. ” “Diseases! ” cried the Jew, “MAIS, MONSIEUR LE CAPITAINE,
there’s no fear of that. It’s my own daughter! ” That is the Jewish national character for
you.

‘Have I ever told you, MON AMI, that in the old Russian Anny it was considered bad
form to spit on a Jew? Yes, we thought a Russian officer’s spittle was too precious to be
wasted on Jews. . . ’ etc. etc.

On these days Boris usually declared himself too ill to go out and look for work. He
would he till evening in the greyish, verminous sheets, smoking and reading old
newspapers. Sometimes we played chess. We had no board, but we wrote down the
moves on a piece of paper, and afterwards we made a board from the side of a packing —
case, and a set of men from buttons, Belgian coins and the like. Boris, like many
Russians, had a passion for chess. It was a saying of his that the rules of chess are the
same as the rules of love and war, and that if you can win at one you can win at the
others. But he also said that if you have a chessboard you do not mind being hungry,
which was certainly not true in my case.



CHAPTER VII


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.

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 luke-wann 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.

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:

‘He has taken it back, the dirty thief! He has taken it back! ’

‘Who’s taken what? ’ I said.

‘The Jew! Taken my two francs, the dog, the thief! He robbed me in my sleep! ’



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.

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.

‘Now listen, MON AMI, this is a tight comer. 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. ’

‘All right. But what can we do? It seems to me that the only thing is to pawn our
overcoats and get some food. ’

‘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. F LE CAMP — retreat, you understand. I think that is the

correct move, eh? ’

‘But, my dear Boris, how can you, in daytime? You’re bound to be caught. ’

‘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. ’



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

‘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 ha nk 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. ’

‘But what about the suitcase? ’

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

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.

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.



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. ’

‘But how are we to get the suitcase past the PATRON? He’s sitting almost in the door of
the office. It’s impossible! ’

‘How easily you despair, MON AMI! Where is that English obstinacy that I have read
of? Courage! We’ll manage it. ’

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 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 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 comer, and we bolted.

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’lDENTITE was not enough, and I must
show a passport or addressed envelopes. Boris had addressed envelopes by the score, but
his CARTE D’lDENTITE 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.



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 extraordinarily unamusing jokes.

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.

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 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, saying 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.