and send me out to buy cabbages. When I came back
with the cabbages the
patron's wife would tell me to go to
some shop half a mile away and buy a pot of rouge; by
the time I came back there would be more vegetables
waiting, and the plates were still not done. In this way
our incompetence piled one job on another throughout
the day, everything in arrears.
Till ten, things went comparatively easily, though we
were working fast, and no one lost his temper. The cook
would find time to talk about her artistic nature, and say
did I not think Tolstoi was
épatant, and sing in a fine
soprano voice as she minced beef on the board. But at
ten the waiters began clamouring for their lunch, which
they had early, and at eleven the first customers would
be arriving. Suddenly everything became hurry and bad
temper. There was not the same furious rushing and
yelling as at the Hôtel X., but an atmosphere of
muddle, petty spite and exasperation. Discomfort was at
the bottom of it. It was unbearably cramped in the
kitchen, and dishes had to be put on the floor, and one
had to be thinking constantly about not stepping on
them. The cook's vast buttocks banged against me as she
moved to and fro. A ceaseless, nagging chorus of orders
streamed from her:
"Unspeakable idiot! How many times have I told you
not to bleed the beetroots? Quick, let me get to the sink!
Put those knives away; get on with the potatoes. What
have you done with my strainer? Oh, leave those
potatoes alone. Didn't I tell you to skim the
bouillon? Take
that can of water off the stove. Never mind the washing
up, chop this celery. No, not like that, you fool, like this.
There! Look at you letting those peas boil over! Now get
to work and scale these herrings. Look, do you call this
plate clean? Wipe it on your apron. Put that salad on the
floor. That's right, put it where I'm bound to step in it!
Look out, that pot's boiling over! Get me down that
saucepan. No, the other one. Put this on the grill. Throw
those potatoes away. Don't waste time, throw them on
the floor. Tread them in.' Now throw down some sawdust;
this floor's like a skating-rink. Look, you fool, that
steak's burning!
Mon Dieu, why did they send me an idiot
for a
plongeur? Who are you talking to? Do you realise that
my aunt was a Russian countess?" etc. etc. etc.
This went on till three o'clock without much variation,
except that about eleven the cook usually had a
crise de
nerfs
and a flood of tears. From three to five was a fairly
slack time for the waiters, but the cook was still busy,
and I was working my fastest, for there was a pile of dirty
plates waiting, and it was a race to get them done, or
partly done, before dinner began. The washing up was
doubled by the primitive conditions-
a cramped draining-board, tepid water, sodden cloths,
and a sink that got blocked once in an hour. By five the
cook and I were feeling unsteady on our feet, not having
eaten or sat down since seven. We used to collapse, she
on the dustbin and I on the floor, drink a bottle of beer,
and apologise for some of the things we had said in the
morning. Tea was what kept us going. We took care to
have a pot always stewing, and drank pints during the
day.
At half-past five the hurry and quarrelling began
again, and now worse than before, because everyone was
tired out. The cook had a
crise de nerfs at six and another
at nine; they came on so regularly that one could have
told the time by them. She would flop down on the
dustbin, begin weeping hysterically, and cry out that
never, no, never had she thought to come to such a life as
this; her nerves would not stand it; she had studied
music at Vienna; she had a bedridden husband to
support, etc. etc. At another time one would have been
sorry for her, but, tired as we all were, her whimpering
voice merely infuriated us. Jules used. to stand in the
doorway and mimic her weeping. The
patron's wife nagged,
and Boris and Jules quarrelled all day, because Jules
shirked his work, and Boris, as head waiter, claimed the
larger share of the tips. Only the second day after the
restaurant opened, they came to blows in the kitchen over
a two-franc tip, and the cook and I had to separate them.
The only person who never forgot his manners was the
patron
. He kept the same hours as the rest of us, but he
had no work to do, for it was his wife who really managed
things. His sole job, besides ordering the supplies, was to
stand in the bar smoking cigarettes and looking
gentlemanly, and he did that to perfection.
The cook and I generally found time to eat our
dinner between ten and eleven o'clock. At midnight the
cook would steal a packet of food for her husband, stow
it under her clothes, and make off, whimpering that
these hours would kill her and she would give notice in
the morning. Jules also left at midnight, usually after a
dispute with Boris, who had to look after the bar till two.
Between twelve and half-past I did what I could to finish
the washing up. There was no time to attempt doing the
work properly, and I used simply to rub the grease off
the plates with tablenapkins. As for the dirt on the floor,
I let it lie, or swept the worst of it out of sight under the
stoves.
At half-past twelve I would put on my coat and hurry
out. The
patron, bland as ever, would stop me as I went
down the alley-way past the bar. «