In a few days I had grasped the main principles on which the hotel was run. The thing that would astonish anyone coming for the first time into the service quarters of a hotel would be the fearful noise and disorder1 during the rush hours. It is something so different from the steady work in a shop or a factory that it looks at first sight like mere2 bad management. But it is really quite unavoidable, and for this reason. Hotel work is not particularly hard, but by its nature it comes in rushes and cannot be economized3. You cannot, for instance, grill4 a steak two hours before it is wanted; you have to wait till the last moment, by which time a mass of other work has accumulated, and then do it all together, in frantic5 haste. The result is that at mealtimes everyone is doing two men’s work, which is impossible without noise and quarrelling. Indeed the quarrels are a necessary part of the process, for the pace would never be kept up if everyone did not accuse everyone else of idling. It was for this reason that during the rush hours the whole staff raged and cursed like demons7. At those times there was scarcely a verb in the hotel except FOUTRE. A girl in the bakery, aged6 sixteen, used oaths that would have defeated a cabman. (Did not Hamlet say ‘cursing like a scullion’? No doubt Shakespeare had watched scullions at work.) But we are not losing our heads and wasting time; we were just stimulating8 one another for the effort of packing four hours’ work into two hours.
What keeps a hotel going is the fact that the employees take a genuine pride in their work, beastly and silly though it is. If a man idles, the others soon find him out, and conspire9 against him to get him sacked. Cooks, waiters and PLONGEURS differ greatly in outlook, but they are all alike in being proud of their efficiency.
Undoubtedly10 the most workmanlike class, and the least servile, are the cooks. They do not earn quite so much as waiters, but their prestige is higher and their employment steadier. The cook does not look upon himself as a servant, but as a skilled workman; he is generally called ‘UN OUVRIER’ which a waiter never is. He knows his power — knows that he alone makes or mars a restaurant, and that if he is five minutes late everything is out of gear. He despises the whole non-cooking staff, and makes it a point of honour to insult everyone below the head waiter. And he takes a genuine artistic11 pride in his work, which demands very great skill. It is not the cooking that is so difficult, but the doing everything to time. Between breakfast and luncheon12 the head cook at the Hotel X would receive orders for several hundred dishes, all to be served at different times; he cooked few of them himself, but he gave instructions about all of them and inspected them before they were sent up. His memory was wonderful. The vouchers13 were pinned on a board, but the head cook seldom looked at them; everything was stored in his mind, and exactly to the minute, as each dish fell due, he would call out, ‘FAITES MARCHER UNE COTELETTE DE VEAU’ (or whatever it was) unfailingly. He was an insufferable bully14, but he was also an artist. It is for their punctuality, and not for any superiority in technique, that men cooks arc preferred to women.
The waiter’s outlook is quite different. He too is proud in a way of his skill, but his skill is chiefly in being servile. His work gives him the mentality15, not of a workman, but of a snob16. He lives perpetually in sight of rich people, stands at their tables, listens to their conversation, sucks up to them with smiles and discreet17 little jokes. He has the pleasure of spending money by proxy18. Moreover, there is always the chance that he may become rich himself, for, though most waiters die poor, they have long runs of luck occasionally. At some cafes on the Grand Boulevard there is so much money to be made that the waiters actually pay the PATRON for their employment. The result is that between constantly seeing money, and hoping to get it, the waiter comes to identify himself to some extent with his employers. He will take pains to serve a meal in style, because he feels that he is participating in the meal himself.
I remember Valenti telling me of some banquet at Nice at which he had once served, and of how it cost two hundred thousand francs and was talked of for months afterwards. ‘It was splendid, MON P’TIT, MAIS MAGNIFIQUE! Jesus Christ! The champagne19, the silver, the orchids20 — I have never seen anything like them, and I have seen some things. Ah, it was glorious!’
‘But,’ I said, ‘you were only there to wait?’
‘Oh, of course. But still, it was splendid.’
The moral is, never be sorry for a waiter. Sometimes when you sit in a restaurant, still stuffing yourself half an hour after closing time, you feel that the tired waiter at your side must surely be despising you. But he is not. He is not thinking as he looks at you, ‘What an overfed lout’; he is thinking, ‘One day, when I have saved enough money, I shall be able to imitate that man.’ He is ministering to a kind of pleasure he thoroughly21 understands and admires. And that is why waiters are seldom Socialists22, have no effective trade union, and will work twelve hours a day — they work fifteen hours, seven days a week, in many cafes. They are snobs23, and they find the servile nature of their work rather congenial.
The PLONGEURS, again, have a different outlook. Theirs is a job which offers no prospects24, is intensely exhausting, and at the same time has not a trace of skill or interest; the sort of job that would always be done by women if women were strong enough. All that is required of them is to be constantly on the run, and to put up with long hours and a stuffy25 atmosphere. They have no way of escaping from this life, for they cannot save a penny from their wages, and working from sixty to a hundred hours a week leaves them no time to train for anything else. The best they can hope for is to find a slightly softer job as night-watchman or lavatory26 attendant.
And yet the PLONGEURS, low as they are, also have a kind of pride. It is the pride of the drudge27 — the man who is equal to no matter what quantity of work. At that level, the mere power to go on working like an ox is about the only virtue28 attainable29. DEBROUILLARD is what every PLONGEUR wants to be called. A DEBROUILLARD is a man who, even when he is told to do the impossible, will SE DEBROUILLER— get it done somehow. One of the kitchen PLONGEURS at the Hotel X, a German, was well known as a DEBROUILLARD. One night an English lord came to the hotel, and the waiters were in despair, for the lord had asked for peaches, and there were none in stock; it was late at night, and the shops would be shut. ‘Leave it to me,’ said the German. He went out, and in ten minutes he was back with four peaches. He had gone into a neighbouring restaurant and stolen them. That is what is meant by a DEBROUILLARD. The English lord paid for the peaches at twenty francs each.
Mario, who was in charge of the cafeterie, had the typical drudge mentality. All he thought of was getting through the ‘BOULOT’, and he defied you to give him too much of it. Fourteen years underground had left him with about as much natural laziness as a piston30 rod. ‘FAUT ETRE DUR,’ he used to say when anyone complained. You will often hear PLONGEURS boast, ‘JE SUIS DUR’ — as though they were soldiers, not male charwomen.
Thus everyone in the hotel had his sense of honour, and when the press of work came we were all ready for a grand concerted effort to get through it. The constant war between the different departments also made for efficiency, for everyone clung to his own privileges and tried to stop the others idling and pilfering31.
This is the good side of hotel work. In a hotel a huge and complicated machine is kept running by an inadequate32 staff, because every man has a well-defined job and does it scrupulously33. But there is a weak point, and it is this — that the job the staff are doing is not necessarily what the customer pays for. The customer pays, as he sees it, for good service; the employee is paid, as he sees it, for the BOULOT— meaning, as a rule, an imitation of good service. The result is that, though hotels are miracles of punctuality, they are worse than the worst private houses in the things that matter.
Take cleanliness, for example. The dirt in the Hotel X, as soon as one penetrated34 into the service quarters, was revolting. Our cafeterie had year-old filth35 in all the dark corners, and the bread-bin was infested36 with cockroaches37. Once I suggested killing38 these beasts to Mario. ‘Why kill the poor animals?’ he said reproachfully. The others laughed when I wanted to wash my hands before touching39 the butter. Yet we were clean where we recognized cleanliness as part of the BOULOT. We scrubbed the tables and polished the brasswork regularly, because we had orders to do that; but we had no orders to be genuinely clean, and in any case we had no time for it. We were simply carrying out our duties; and as our first duty was punctuality, we saved time by being dirty.
In the kitchen the dirt was worse. It is not a figure of speech, it is a mere statement of fact to say that a French cook will spit in the soup — that is, if he is not going to drink it himself. He is an artist, but his art is not cleanliness. To a certain extent he is even dirty because he is an artist, for food, to look smart, needs dirty treatment. When a steak, for instance, is brought up for the head cook’s inspection40, he does not handle it with a fork. He picks it up in his fingers and slaps it down, runs his thumb round the dish and licks it to taste the gravy41, runs it round and licks again, then steps back and contemplates42 the piece of meat like an artist judging a picture, then presses it lovingly into place with his fat, pink fingers, every one of which he has licked a hundred times that morning. When he is satisfied, he takes a cloth and wipes his fingerprints43 from the dish, and hands it to the waiter. And the waiter, of course, dips HIS fingers into the gravy — his nasty, greasy44 fingers which he is for ever running through his brilliantined hair. Whenever one pays more than, say, ten francs for a dish of meat in Paris, one may be certain that it has been fingered in this manner. In very cheap restaurants it is different; there, the same trouble is not taken over the food, and it is just forked out of the pan and flung on to a plate, without handling. Roughly speaking, the more one pays for food, the more sweat and spittle one is obliged to eat with it.
Dirtiness is inherent in hotels and restaurants, because sound food is sacrificed to punctuality and smartness. The hotel employee is too busy getting food ready to remember that it is meant to be eaten. A meal is simply ‘UNE COMMANDE’ to him, just as a man dying of cancer is simply ‘a case’ to the doctor. A customer orders, for example, a piece of toast. Somebody, pressed with work in a cellar deep underground, has to prepare it. How can he stop and say to himself, ‘This toast is to be eaten — I must make it eatable’? All he knows is that it must look right and must be ready in three minutes. Some large drops of sweat fall from his forehead on to the toast. Why should he worry? Presently the toast falls among the filthy45 sawdust on the floor. Why trouble to make a new piece? It is much quicker to wipe the sawdust off. On the way upstairs the toast falls again, butter side down. Another wipe is all it needs. And so with everything. The only food at the Hotel X which was ever prepared cleanly was the staff’s, and the PATRON’S. The maxim46, repeated by everyone, was: ‘Look out for the PATRON, and as for the clients, S’EN F— PAS MAL!’ Everywhere in the service quarters dirt festered — a secret vein47 of dirt, running through the great garish48 hotel like the intestines49 through a man’s body.
Apart from the dirt, the PATRON swindled the customers wholeheartedly. For the most part the materials of the food were very bad, though the cooks knew how to serve it up in style. The meat was at best ordinary, and as to the vegetables, no good housekeeper50 would have looked at them in the market. The cream, by a standing51 order, was diluted52 with milk. The tea and coffee were of inferior sorts, and the jam was synthetic53 stuff out of vast, unlabelled tins. All the cheaper wines, according to Boris, were corked54 VIN ORDINAIRE. There was a rule that employees must pay for anything they spoiled, and in consequence damaged things were seldom thrown away. Once the waiter on the third floor dropped a roast chicken down the shaft55 of our service lift, where it fell into a litter of broken bread, torn paper and so forth56 at the bottom. We simply wiped it with a cloth and sent it up again. Upstairs there were dirty tales of once-used sheets not being washed, but simply damped, ironed and put back on the beds. The PATRON was as mean to us as to the customers. Throughout the vast hotel there was not, for instance, such a thing as a brush and pan; one had to manage with a broom and a piece of cardboard. And the staff lavatory was worthy57 of Central Asia, and there was no place to wash one’s hands, except the sinks used for washing crockery.
In spite of all this the Hotel X was one of the dozen most expensive hotels in Paris, and the customers paid startling prices. The ordinary charge for a night’s lodging58, not including breakfast, was two hundred francs. All wine and tobacco were sold at exactly double shop prices, though of course the PATRON bought at the wholesale59 price. If a customer had a title, or was reputed to be a millionaire, all his charges went up automatically. One morning on the fourth floor an American who was on diet wanted only salt and hot water for his breakfast. Valenti was furious. ‘Jesus Christ!’ he said, ‘what about my ten per cent? Ten per cent of salt and water!’ And he charged twenty-five francs for the breakfast. The customer paid without a murmur60.
According to Boris, the same kind of thing went on in all Paris hotels, or at least in all the big, expensive ones. But I imagine that the customers at the Hotel X were especially easy to swindle, for they were mostly Americans, with a sprinkling of English — no French — and seemed to know nothing whatever about good food. They would stuff themselves with disgusting American ‘cereals’, and eat marmalade at tea, and drink vermouth after dinner, and order a POULET A LA REINE at a hundred francs and then souse it in Worcester sauce. One customer, from Pittsburg, dined every night in his bedroom on grape-nuts, scrambled61 eggs and cocoa. Perhaps it hardly matters whether such o people are swindled or not.
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disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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economized
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| v.节省，减少开支( economize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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grill
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| n.烤架，铁格子，烤肉；v.烧，烤，严加盘问 | |
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frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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demons
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| n.恶人( demon的名词复数 )；恶魔；精力过人的人；邪念 | |
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stimulating
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| adj.有启发性的，能激发人思考的 | |
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conspire
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| v.密谋，（事件等）巧合，共同导致 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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vouchers
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| n.凭证( voucher的名词复数 )；证人；证件；收据 | |
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bully
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| n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮 | |
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mentality
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| n.心理，思想，脑力 | |
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snob
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| n.势利小人，自以为高雅、有学问的人 | |
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17
discreet
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| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
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proxy
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| n.代理权，代表权；（对代理人的）委托书；代理人 | |
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champagne
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| n.香槟酒；微黄色 | |
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orchids
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| n.兰花( orchid的名词复数 ) | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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socialists
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| 社会主义者( socialist的名词复数 ) | |
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23
snobs
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| （谄上傲下的）势利小人( snob的名词复数 )； 自高自大者，自命不凡者 | |
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24
prospects
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| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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25
stuffy
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| adj.不透气的，闷热的 | |
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lavatory
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| n.盥洗室，厕所 | |
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drudge
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| n.劳碌的人；v.做苦工，操劳 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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attainable
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| a.可达到的，可获得的 | |
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piston
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| n.活塞 | |
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pilfering
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| v.偷窃（小东西），小偷( pilfer的现在分词 )；偷窃（一般指小偷小摸） | |
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32
inadequate
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| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
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33
scrupulously
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| adv.一丝不苟地；小心翼翼地，多顾虑地 | |
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34
penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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35
filth
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| n.肮脏，污物，污秽；淫猥 | |
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36
infested
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| adj.为患的，大批滋生的（常与with搭配）v.害虫、野兽大批出没于( infest的过去式和过去分词 )；遍布于 | |
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cockroaches
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| n.蟑螂( cockroach的名词复数 ) | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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40
inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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41
gravy
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| n.肉汁；轻易得来的钱，外快 | |
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42
contemplates
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| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的第三人称单数 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
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43
fingerprints
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| n.指纹( fingerprint的名词复数 )v.指纹( fingerprint的第三人称单数 ) | |
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greasy
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| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
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filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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maxim
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| n.格言，箴言 | |
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47
vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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48
garish
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| adj.华丽而俗气的，华而不实的 | |
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49
intestines
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| n.肠( intestine的名词复数 ) | |
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50
housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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51
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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52
diluted
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| 无力的，冲淡的 | |
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53
synthetic
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| adj.合成的，人工的；综合的；n.人工制品 | |
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54
corked
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| adj.带木塞气味的，塞着瓶塞的v.用瓶塞塞住( cork的过去式 ) | |
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55
shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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56
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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57
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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58
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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59
wholesale
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| n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售 | |
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60
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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61
scrambled
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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