A character in Down and Out in Paris and London

The girl in the bistro

A girl in a bistro near the narrator's hotel who worked from seven in the morning until midnight for a whole year, sitting down only for meals. Asked to a dance, she laughed and said she had not been farther than the street corner in months. She was consumptive, and died about the time Orwell left Paris. He puts her in the book as the answer to his own self-pity about a seventeen-hour day.

The book

Cover of Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell

Down and Out in Paris and LondonGeorge Orwell, 1933

Orwell's first book: seventeen-hour days in a Paris hotel kitchen, then a month on the road in England.

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At a glance

In the book: A girl working in a bistro near Orwell's hotel in Paris
Her hours: Seven in the morning to midnight, for a year, sitting down only to eat
Her illness: Tuberculosis, then called consumption
What became of her: She died at about the time Orwell left Paris
Where she appears: Chapter XXI

Who they are in the book

Spoiler-free

George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London, published in 1933, is his own account of the months he spent washing dishes in Paris hotel kitchens and then tramping the roads of England. This girl worked in a small bar near the hotel where he lodged. He never gives her a name.

Her hours were seven in the morning until midnight, and she kept them for a whole year. The only time she sat down was to eat. Seven to midnight is a seventeen-hour day, which is exactly the day Orwell had by then decided he could not survive: he was washing up at a restaurant called the Auberge de Jehan Cottard, and had just found a spare quarter of an hour to write to a friend in London begging for any job at all, so long as it allowed him more than five hours' sleep.

He asked her once to come to a dance. She laughed, and said she had not been farther than the street corner in several months.

She had tuberculosis, the disease the book calls consumption, and she died at about the time Orwell left Paris. He sets her down at the exact point where he is admitting he wants out, and says that thinking about people like her is a good cure for feeling sorry for yourself. Thousands of people in Paris were working those hours, he writes, and would go on working them not for a few weeks but for years.

How the book draws them

Appearance, manner, and tone — as the book sketches them, in our words.

Her hoursSeven in the morning until midnight, every day for a year. She sat down only for her meals.
The danceOrwell asked her to come to a dance. She laughed at the idea and told him she had not been farther than the street corner in several months. It is the only thing she says in the book.
Her illnessShe had tuberculosis, which the book calls consumption, and she died around the time Orwell left Paris. He gives no more than that — not her name, her age, or where she came from.
Why she is in the bookOrwell has just written to London asking to be rescued from a seventeen-hour day he had been doing for a fortnight. She had done the same hours for a year. He uses her against his own self-pity, and points out that thousands of people in Paris restaurants were working like that and would keep on for years.

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