I have vomited-yes, vomited with rage.
"Besides,
mon vieux, don't forget that I'm a Commu-
nist. A
bas la bourgeoisie! Did any man alive ever see me
working when I could avoid it? No. And not only I don't
wear myself out working, like you other fools, but I
steal, just to show my independence. Once I was in a
restaurant where the
patron thought he could treat me
like a dog. Well, in revenge I found out a way to steal
milk from the milk-cans and seal them up again so
that no one should know. I tell you I just swilled that
milk down night and morning. Every day I drank four
litres of milk, besides half a litre of cream. The patron
was at his wits' end to know where the milk was going.
It wasn't that I wanted milk, you understand, because I
hate the stuff, it was principle, just principle.
"Well, after three days I began to get dreadful pains
in my belly, and I went to the doctor. 'What have you
been eating?' he said. I said: 'I drink four litres of milk
a day, and half a litre of cream.' 'Four litres!' he said.
'Then stop it at once. You'll burst if you go on.' 'What
do I care?' I said. 'With me principle is everything. I
shall go on drinking that milk, even if I do burst.'
"Well, the next day the
patron caught me stealing
milk. 'You're sacked,' he said; 'you leave at the end of
the week.'
'Pardon, monsieur,' I said, 'I shall leave this
morning.' 'No, you won't,' he said, 'I can't spare you till
Saturday.' 'Very well,
mon patron,' I thought to myself,
'we'll see who gets tired of it first.' And then I set to
work to smash the crockery. I broke nine plates the
first day and thirteen the second; after that the
patron
was glad to see the last of me.
« Ah, I'm not one of your Russian
moujiks . . ."
Ten days passed. It was a bad time. I was absolutely at
the end of my money, and my rent was several days
overdue. We loafed about the dismal empty restaurant,
too hungry even to get on with the work that remained.
Only Boris now believed that the restaurant would
open. He had set his heart on being
maitre d'hôtel, and
he invented a theory that the
patron's money was tied
up in shares and he was waiting a favourable moment
for selling. On the tenth day I had nothing to eat or
smoke, and I told the
patron that I could not continue
working without an advance on my wages. As blandly
as usual, the
patron promised the advance, and then,
according to his custom, vanished. I walked part of
the way home, but I did not feel equal to a scene with
Madame F. over the rent, so I passed the night on a
bench on the boulevard. It was very uncomfortable-the
arm of the seat cuts into your back-and much colder
than I had expected. There was plenty of time, in the
long boring hours between dawn and work, to think
what a fool I had been to deliver myself into the hands
of these Russians.
Then, in the morning, the luck changed. Evidently
the
patron had come to an understanding with his
creditors, for he arrived with money in his pockets, set
the alterations going, and gave me my advance. Boris
and I bought macaroni and a piece of horse's liver, and
had our first hot meal in ten days.
The workmen were brought in and the alterations
made, hastily and with incredible shoddiness. The
tables, for instance, were to be covered with baize, but
when the
patron found that baize was expensive he
bought instead disused army blankets, smelling incor-
rigibly of sweat. The table-cloths (they were check, to go
with the "Norman" decorations) would cover them, of
course. On the last night we were at work till two in the
morning, getting things ready. The crockery did not
arrive till eight, and, being new, had all to be washed.
The cutlery did not arrive till the next morning, nor the
linen either, so that we had to dry the crockery with a
shirt of the
patron's and an old pillowslip belonging to
the concierge. Boris and I did all the work. Jules was
skulking, and the
patron and his wife sat in the bar with
a dun and some Russian friends, drinking success to
the restaurant. The cook was in the kitchen with her
head on the table, crying, because she was expected to
cook for fifty people, and there were not pots and pans
enough for ten. About midnight there was a fearful
interview with some duns, who came intending to
seize eight copper saucepans which the
patron had
obtained on credit. They were bought off with half a
bottle of brandy.
Jules and I missed the last Metro home and had to
sleep on the floor of the restaurant. The first thing we
saw in the morning were two large rats sitting on the
kitchen table, eating from a ham that stood there. It
seemed a bad omen, and I was surer than ever that the
Auberge de Jehan Cottard would turn out a failure.
XX
THE
patron had engaged me as kitchen
plongeur; that is,