ABSTRACT
Real life experiences are always more gripping than fiction, and it is not uncommon for real life to be as surprising as the most fantastic novel. Mr Orwell does not get his effects by emphasizing the fantastic, although many of the characters he met on his adventures are as odd as any in Dickens-which is probably responsible for their uncomfortable lives. Living in a Paris slum, starving much of the time, he found work as washer-up in a famous restaurant, gaining there experiences which, he alleges, have made him vow never to eat a meal in a Paris restaurant as long as he lives. Life below stairs in such a place, and in the even worse little ‘inn’ to which he went afterwards-a place that was all décor and possessed no capital, he says, to buy reasonably good food-is a strained and greasy business; in the cramped quarters of the kitchen, melting with heat, slipping on discarded food flung to the floor, the workers found their tempers frayed, their nerves irritated and life became merely a matter of work, bed and drink. One interesting thing the author learnt from his Paris experiences, and that is the pride in their work felt by the most overworked and ill-paid servants of the restaurant, a pride and honour that surely deserved better opportunity.
