Follow Kritica on Google
Add Kritica to your favourite sources.
Se esistono dei pionieri e pioniere, o fondatori e fondatrici, del cosiddetto journalism narrativo, fra loro figura senz’altro anche George Orwell. His first book, Senza un soldo a Paris e Londra, è un memoir personale e al tempo stesso di grande afflato generale sulle condizioni di vita nelle due metropoli all’inizio degli anni ’30, dove lo scrittore si trova a vivere da lavoratore povero con l’esplicito intento di calarsi nel sottoproletariato metropolitano e nella sua realtà di sofferenza e angherie subite, allo scopo di documentarla. Pubblichiamo il quarto capitolo, ambientato a Parigi. Tutte le opere della nostra rubrica Orwell sono tradotte dalla mano esperta e attenta di Anna Martini.
Chapter 4
One day my English lessons stopped abruptly. It was starting to get hot and one of my students, overcome by laziness, didn't want to continue the lessons and dismissed me. The other, who owed me twelve francs, disappeared from his room without notice. I was left with thirty centimes and no tobacco. For a day and a half I didn't eat or smoke, then, too hungry to put it off any longer, I packed the clothes I still had and took them to the pawn shop. It was the end of any pretension of being a well-off man, as I couldn't take my clothes out of the hotel without asking Madame F. for permission. I remember, however, how surprised she was that I asked her, instead of sneaking the clothes out: in our neighbourhood it was quite typical to slip away without paying.
It was the first time I set foot in a French pawn shop. From imposing stone portals (on which, naturally, stood out Liberty, Equality, Fraternityin France (They even write it on the gendarmerie) you entered a large, bare room like a classroom, with a counter and rows of benches. There were forty or fifty people waiting. You put your pawn on the counter and sat down. The clerk immediately valued it and called out: “Number ”What about fifty francs?“ Sometimes it was fifteen, or ten, or five... whatever the figure, the whole room found out. As I entered, the clerk called out in a combative tone: "Number ”83 – Come on!" and he gave a short whistle and a nod, as if calling a dog. The number 83 reached the counter; it was a bearded old man with a coat buttoned up to his neck and frayed trouser hems. Without opening his mouth, the clerk tossed the bundle across the counter; apparently, it was worthless. It fell to the floor and split open, revealing four pairs of men's woollen underpants. No one could help but laugh. The poor Number 83 picked up his pants and shuffled out, muttering to himself.
The clothes I wanted to pawn, along with the suitcase, had cost me more than twenty pounds and were in good condition. I thought they should be worth ten pounds, and a quarter of that sum (at the pawnbrokers, a quarter is what you expect to get) amounted to two hundred and fifty or three hundred francs. I waited without anxiety, foreseeing at the very worst two hundred francs.
Finally, the employee called my number: “Number 97!”
“Yes,” I said, standing up.
“Seventy francs?”
Seventy francs for ten pounds worth of clothes! However, it was useless to argue; I had seen someone try and the clerk had instantly refused the pledge. I took the money and the receipt and left. I was left with no clothes apart from the ones I was wearing: the jacket worn at the elbows, a coat that could be discreetly pawned, and a change of shirt. Later, too late, I learned that it was wiser to go to the pawnshop in the afternoon: the clerks are French and, like almost all Frenchmen, grumpy until they have had lunch.
When I arrived home, Madame F. was sweeping the floor of the Bistro. She came up the stairs to meet me. I read in her eyes that she was worried about my rent.
“Well,’ he said, ”how much did they give you for the clothes? Not much, eh?“
“Two hundred francs,” I replied quickly.
“Well!”Well, not bad,“ she said, surprised. ’Those English clothes must be expensive!”
The lie saved me a lot of trouble and, strange to say, turned into Truth. A few days later, I really did receive exactly two hundred francs for a newspaper article and, although with pain, li spesi subito tutti per la pigione. Così, anche se nelle settimane seguenti patii la Fame, mi rimase sempre un tetto sulla testa.
Ormai era indispensabile trovare un lavoro, e mi ricordai di un amico, un cameriere russo di nome Boris, che forse avrebbe potuto aiutarmi. L’avevo conosciuto in una corsia d’ospedale, dove lo curavano per un’artrite alla gamba left. He'd told me to go to him if I ever found myself in trouble.
Qui devo spendere qualche parola per Boris, perché era un personaggio bizzarro ed è stato un caro amico per lungo tempo. Era grosso e marziale, sui trentacinque anni, ed era stato un bell’uomo, ma con la malattia era enormemente ingrassato a forza di restare a letto. Come molti profughi russi, aveva avuto una vita avventurosa. I suoi genitori, uccisi durante la Rivoluzione, erano stati gente ricca, e in guerra lui aveva prestato servizio nella Seconda Divisione Fucilieri Siberiani, che a suo dire era il reggimento migliore dell’esercito russo. Dopo la guerra aveva prima lavorato in una fabbrica di spazzole, poi come portiere a Les Halles, quindi aveva fatto il lavapiatti e infine era riuscito a diventare cameriere. Quando si ammalò era all’ Hotel and would make a hundred francs a day in tips. His ambition was to become Maitre d'hotel, set aside fifty thousand francs and open a small, exclusive restaurant on the Right Bank.
Boris parlava sempre della guerra come del periodo più felice della sua vita. La guerra e il mestiere del soldato erano la sua passione; aveva letto innumerevoli libri di strategia e storia militare, e sapeva tutto delle teorie di Napoleone, Kutuzof, Clausewitz, Moltke e Foch. Gli piaceva qualunque cosa avesse a che fare con i soldati. Il suo coffee preferito era la Closerie [AM1] of lilacs in Montparnasse, just because Marshal Ney's statue was in front of it. Later on, Boris and I sometimes went to rue du Commerce together. If we took the Métro, Boris always got off at Cambronne instead of Commerce, even though the latter station was closer; he liked the association with General Cambronne, who, when asked to surrender at Waterloo, simply replied “Bloody hell!”.
The Revolution had left Boris with nothing but his medals and a few photographs of his old regiment; everything else had ended up at the pawn shop, but he had kept those. Almost every day he would spread the photographs on his bed and tell tales:
“There you go, my friend. You see, here I am at the head of my company. Fine husky chaps, eh? Not like these French whippets. Captain at twenty years old… not bad, eh? Yes, captain of the Second Siberian Rifles; and my father was a colonel.
“Ah, but, my friend, the ups and downs of life! Captain in the Russian army and then, piff!, the Revolution: he didn't have a penny left. In 1916 I had stayed a week at the Hôtel Édouard Sept; in 1920 I found work there as a night watchman. I worked as a night watchman, cellarman, floor polisher, dishwasher, doorman, toilet attendant. I tipped the waiters and was tipped by the waiters.
“Ah, but I knew what it meant to live like a gentleman, my friend. Not to brag, but the other day I was trying to calculate how many lovers I've had in my life and it must be over two hundred. Yes, at least two hundred… Ah, well, It will come back. Victory belongs to those who fight the longest. Courage! and so on and so forth.
Boris era bizzarro, mutevole di natura. Aveva sempre nostalgia dell’esercito, ma aveva fatto il cameriere a lungo, e del cameriere calzava bene i panni. Pur non avendo mai risparmiato più di qualche migliaio di franchi, era sicuro che alla fine sarebbe riuscito ad aprire il suo ristorante e a diventare ricco. Ho poi scoperto che tutti i camerieri parlano di questo e ci pensano; è il loro modo per fare Pace con l’idea di essere camerieri. Era interessante ascoltare Boris parlare della vita in hôtel:
“Being a waiter is a gamble,” he'd always say; “you can die poor or you can make a fortune in a year. They don't pay you a salary, you rely on tips: ten percent of the bill and a commission from the wine merchants on champagne corks. Sometimes the tips are enormous. The barman at Maxim's, for example, makes five hundred francs a day. And even more, in season… I myself used to take two hundred a day, at a hotel in Biarritz, in season. All the staff, from the manager down to the Divers[1], he worked twenty-one hours a day. Twenty-one hours of work and two and a half hours in bed, for a month straight. But it was worth it, for two hundred francs a day.
“Non sai mai quando può capitarti un colpo di fortuna. Una volta, all’Hôtel Royal, un cliente americano mi fa chiamare prima di cena e ordina ventiquattro cocktail a base di brandy. Glieli porto tutti insieme su un vassoio, in ventiquattro bicchieri. ‘Ora, boy,’the customer said (he was drunk), ‘I'll drink twelve and you'll drink the other twelve, and if you can walk to the door afterwards, you'll have a hundred francs.’ I reached the door, and he gave me a hundred francs. And he did that for six evenings in a row; twelve brandy cocktails and a hundred francs. A few months later, I heard that the American government had requested the extradition of that chap... embezzlement. They've got something remarkable about them, these Americans, don't you think?»
I liked Boris, and together we spent interesting hours playing chess and talking about the war and hotels. Boris often advised me to become a waiter. “It's a life suited to you,” he would say; “when you have a job, a hundred francs a day, and a beautiful mistress, it's not bad. You say you want to go into writing. Writing is nonsense. There's only one way to make money from writing: marry a publisher's daughter. But you would make a good waiter, if you cut off that moustache. You are tall and speak English: these are the first requirements for a waiter. Wait until I can bend this damned leg, my friend. And then, if you ever find yourself without work, come to me.”
Now, hungry and short of money for rent, I remembered Boris's promise and decided to look him up immediately. I didn't expect being a waiter to be as easy as he had promised, but I could wash dishes, of course, and he could certainly get me a job in the kitchen. He had told me that in the summer, you only need to show up to get a job as a dishwasher. It was a great relief to remember that, after all, I had at least one influential friend to turn to.
[1] DiverIn French it is "sguattero" and "lavapiatti". (Translator's note)