Keep the Aspidistra Flying

by George Orwell

  ‘See me home, will you?’ she said as they got out at Paddington.

  ‘If you don’t mind walking. I haven’t got the fare.’

  ‘But let me pay the fare. Oh, dear! I suppose you won’t. But how are you going to get home yourself?’

  ‘Oh, I’ll walk. I know the way. It’s not so very far.’

  ‘I hate to think of your walking all that way. You look so tired. Be a dear and let me pay your fare home. Do!’

  ‘No. You’ve paid quite enough for me already.’

  ‘Oh, dear! You are so silly!’

  They had halted at the entrance to the Underground. He took her hand. ‘I suppose we must say good-bye for the present,’ he said.

  ‘Good-bye, Gordon dear. Thanks ever so much for taking me out. It was such fun this morning.’

  ‘Ah, this morning! It was different then.’ His mind went back to the morning hours, when they had been alone on the road together and there was still money in his pocket. Compunction seized him. On the whole he had behaved badly. He pressed her hand a little tighter. ‘You’re not angry with me, are you?’

  ‘No, silly, of course not.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to be beastly to you. It was the money. It’s always the money.’

  ‘Never mind, it’ll be better next time. We’ll go to some better place. We’ll go down to Brighton for the week-end, or something.’

  ‘Perhaps, when I’ve got the money. You will write soon, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Your letters are the only things that keep me going. Tell me when you’ll write, so that I can have your letter to look forward to.’

  ‘I’ll write tomorrow night and post it on Tuesday. Then you’ll get it last post on Tuesday night.’

  ‘Then good-bye, Rosemary dear.’

  ‘Good-bye, Gordon darling.’

  He left her at the booking-office. When he had gone twenty yards he felt a hand laid on his arm. He turned sharply. It was Rosemary. She thrust a packet of twenty Gold Flake, which she had bought at the tobacco kiosk, into his coat pocket and ran back to the Underground before he could protest.

  He trailed homeward through the wastes of Maryle-bone and Regent’s Park. It was the fag-end of the day. The streets were dark and desolate, with that strange listless feeling of Sunday night when people are more tired after a day of idleness than after a day of work. It was vilely cold, too. The wind had risen when the night fell. Sharply the menacing wind sweeps over. Gordon was footsore, having walked a dozen or fifteen miles, and also hungry. He had had little food all day. In the morning he had hurried off without a proper breakfast, and the lunch at the Ravenscroft Hotel wasn’t the kind of meal that did you much good; since then he had had no solid food. However, there was no hope of getting anything when he got home. He had told Mother Wisbeach that he would be away all day.

  When he reached the Hampstead Road he had to wait on the kerb to let a stream of cars go past. Even here everything seemed dark and gloomy, in spite of the glaring lamps and the cold glitter of the jewellers’ windows. The raw wind pierced his thin clothes, making him shiver. Sharply the menacing wind sweeps over The bending poplars, newly bare. He had finished that poem, all except the last two lines. He thought again of those hours this morning—the empty misty roads, the feeling of freedom and adventure, of having the whole day and the whole country before you in which to wander at will. It was having money that did it, of course. Seven and elevenpence he had had in his pocket this morning. It had been a brief victory over the money-god; a morning’s apostasy, a holiday in the groves of Ashtaroth. But such things never last. Your money goes and your freedom with it. Circumcise ye your foreskins, saith the Lord. And back we creep, duly snivelling.

  Another shoal of cars swam past. One in particular caught his eye, a long slender thing, elegant as a swallow, all gleaming blue and silver; a thousand guineas it would have cost, he thought. A blue-clad chauffeur sat at the wheel, upright, immobile, like some scornful statue. At the back, in the pink-lit interior, four elegant young people, two youths and two girls, were smoking cigarettes and laughing. He had a glimpse of sleek bunny-faces; faces of ravishing pinkness and smoothness, lit by that peculiar inner glow that can never be counterfeited, the soft warm radiance of money.

  He crossed the road. No food tonight. However, there was still oil in the lamp, thank God; he would have a secret cup of tea when he got back. At this moment he saw himself and his life without saving disguises. Every night the same—back to the cold lonely bedroom and the grimy, littered sheets of the poem that never got any further. It was a blind alley. He would never finish London Pleasures, he would never marry Rosemary, he would never set his life in order. He would only drift and sink, drift and sink, like the others of his family; but worse than them—down, down into some dreadful sub-world that as yet he could only dimly imagine. It was what he had chosen when he declared war on money. Serve the money-god or go under; there is no other rule.

  Something deep below made the stone street shiver. The Tube-train, sliding through middle earth. He had a vision of London, of the western world; he saw a thousand million slaves toiling and grovelling about the throne of money. The earth is ploughed, ships sail, miners sweat in dripping tunnels underground, clerks hurry for the eight-fifteen with the fear of the boss eating at their vitals. And even in bed with their wives they tremble and obey. Obey whom? The money-priesthood, the pink-faced masters of the world. The Upper Crust. A welter of sleek young rabbits in thousand-guinea motor cars, of golfing stockbrokers and cosmopolitan financiers, of Chancery lawyers and fashionable Nancy boys, of bankers, newspaper peers, novelists of all four sexes, American pugilists, lady aviators, film stars, bishops, titled poets and Chicago gorillas.

  When he had gone another fifty yards the rhyme for the final stanza of his poem occurred to him. He walked homeward, repeating the poem to himself:

  ‘Sharply the menacing wind sweeps over

  The bending poplars, newly bare,

  And the dark ribbons of the chimneys

  Veer downward; flicked by whips of air,

  Tom posters flutter; coldly sound

  The boom of trams and the rattle of hooves,

  And the clerks who hurry to the station

  Look, shuddering, over the eastern rooves,

  Thinking, each one, “Here comes the winter!

  Please God I keep my job this year!”

  And bleakly, as the cold strikes through

  Their entrails like an icy spear,

  They think of rent, rates, season tickets,

  Insurance, coal, the skivvy’s wages,

  Boots, school-bills and the next instalment

  Upon the two twin beds from Drage’s.

  For if in careless summer days

  In groves of Ashtaroth we whored,

  Repentant now, when winds blow cold,

  We kneel before our rightful lord;

  The lord of all, the money-god,

  Who rules us blood and hand and brain,

  Who gives the roof that stops the wind,

  And, giving, takes away again;

  Who spies with jealous, watchful care,

  Our thoughts, our dreams, our secret ways,

  Who picks our words and cuts our clothes,

  And maps the pattern of our days;

  Who chills our anger, curbs our hope,

  And buys our lives and pays with toys,

  Who claims as tribute broken faith,

  Accepted insults, muted joys;

  Who binds with chains the poet’s wit,

  The navvy’s strength, the soldier’s pride,

  And lays the sleek, estranging shield

  Between the lover and his bride.’

  VIII

  AS THE CLOCK STRUCK ONE Gordon slammed the shop door to and hurried, almost ran, to the branch of the Westminster Bank down the street.

  With a half-conscious gesture of caution he was clutching the lapel of his coat, holding it tight against him. In there, stow
ed away in his right-hand inner pocket, was an object whose very existence he partly doubted. It was a stout blue envelope with an American stamp; in the envelope was a cheque for fifty dollars; and the cheque was made out to ‘Gordon Comstock’!

  He could feel the square shape of the envelope outlined against his body as clearly as though it had been red hot. All the morning he had felt it there, whether he touched it or whether he did not; he seemed to have developed a special patch of sensitiveness in the skin below his right breast. As often as once in ten minutes he had taken the cheque out of its envelope and anxiously examined it. After all, cheques are tricky things. It would be frightful if there turned out to be some hitch about the date or the signature. Besides, he might lose it—it might even vanish of its own accord like fairy gold.

  The cheque had come from the Californian Review, that American magazine to which, weeks or months ago, he had despairingly sent a poem. He had almost forgotten about the poem, it had been so long away, until this morning their letter had come sailing out of the blue. And what a letter! No English editor ever writes letters like that. They were ‘very favorably impressed’ by his poem. They would ‘endeavor’ to include it in their next number. Would he ‘favor’ them by showing them some more of his work? (Would he? Oh, boy!—as Flaxman would say.) And the cheque had come with it. It seemed the most monstrous folly, in this year of blight 1934, that anyone should pay fifty dollars for a poem. However, there it was; and there was the cheque, which looked perfectly genuine however often he inspected it.

  He would have no peace of mind till the cheque was cashed—for quite possibly the bank would refuse it—but already a stream of visions was flowing through his mind. Visions of girls’ faces, visions of cobwebby claret bottles and quart pots of beer, visions of a new suit and his overcoat out of pawn, visions of a week-end at Brighton with Rosemary, visions of the crisp, crackling five-pound note which he was going to give to Julia. Above all, of course, that fiver for Julia. It was almost the first thing he had thought of when the cheque came. Whatever else he did with the money, he must give Julia half of it. It was only the barest justice, considering how much he had ‘borrowed’ from her in all these years. All the morning the thought of Julia and the money he owed her had been cropping up in his mind at odd moments. It was a vaguely distasteful thought, however. He would forget about it for half an hour at a time, would plan a dozen ways of spending his ten pounds to the uttermost farthing, and then suddenly he would remember about Julia. Good old Julia! Julia should have her share. A fiver at the very least. Even that was not a tenth of what he owed her. For the twentieth time, with a faint malaise, he registered the thought: five quid for Julia.

  The bank made no trouble about the cheque. Gordon had no banking account, but they knew him well, for Mr McKechnie banked there. They had cashed editors’ cheques for Gordon before. There was only a minute’s consultation, and then the cashier came back.

  ‘Notes, Mr Comstock?’

  ‘One five pound and the rest pounds, please.’

  The flimsy luscious fiver and the five clean pound notes slid rustling under the brass rail. And after them the cashier pushed a little pile of half-crowns and pennies. In lordly style Gordon shot the coins into his pocket without even counting them. That was a bit of backsheesh. He had only expected ten pounds for fifty dollars. The dollar must be above par. The five-pound note, however, he carefully folded up and stowed away in the American envelope. That was Julia’s fiver. It was sacrosanct. He would post it to her presently.

  He did not go home for dinner. Why chew leathery beef in the aspidistral dining-room when he had ten quid in pocket—five quid, rather? (He kept forgetting that half the money was already mortgaged to Julia.) For the moment he did not bother to post Julia’s five pounds. This evening would be soon enough. Besides, he rather enjoyed the feeling of it in his pocket. It was queer how different you felt with all that money in your pocket. Not opulent, merely, but reassured, revivified, reborn. He felt a different person from what he had been yesterday. He was a different person. He was no longer the downtrodden wretch who made secret cups of tea over the oil stove at 31 Willowbed Road. He was Gordon Comstock, the poet, famous on both sides of the Atlantic. Publications: Mice (1932), London Pleasures (1935). He thought with perfect confidence of London Pleasures now. In three months it should see the light. Demy octavo, white buckram covers. There was nothing that he did not feel equal to now that his luck had turned.

  He strolled into the Prince of Wales for a bite of food. A cut off the joint and two veg., one and two pence, a pint of pale ale ninepence, twenty Gold Flakes a shilling. Even after that extravagance he still had well over ten pounds in hand—or rather, well over five pounds. Beer-warmed, he sat and meditated on the things you can do with five pounds. A new suit, a week-end in the country, a day-trip to Paris, five rousing drunks, ten dinners in Soho restaurants. At this point it occurred to him that he and Rosemary and Ravelston must certainly have dinner together tonight. Just to celebrate his stroke of luck; after all, it isn’t every day that ten pounds—five pounds—drops out of the sky into your lap. The thought of the three of them together, with good food and wine and money no object, took hold of him as something not to be resisted. He had just a tiny twinge of caution. Mustn’t spend all his money, of course. Still, he could afford a quid—two quid. In a couple of minutes he had got Ravelston on the pub phone.

  ‘Is that you, Ravelston? I say, Ravelston! Look here, you’ve got to have dinner with me tonight.’

  From the other end of the line Ravelston faintly demurred. ‘No, dash it! You have dinner with me.’ But Gordon overbore him. Nonsense! Ravelston had got to have dinner with him tonight. Unwillingly, Ravelston assented. All right, yes, thanks; he’d like it very much. There was a sort of apologetic misery in his voice. He guessed what had happened. Gordon had got hold of money from somewhere and was squandering it immediately; as usual, Ravelston felt he hadn’t the right to interfere. Where should they go? Gordon was demanding. Ravelston began to speak in praise of those jolly little Soho restaurants where you get such a wonderful dinner for half a crown. But the Soho restaurants sounded beastly as soon as Ravelston mentioned them. Gordon wouldn’t hear of it. Nonsense! They must go somewhere decent. Let’s do it all regardless, was his private thought; might as well spend two quid—three quid, even. Where did Ravelston generally go? Modigliani’s, admitted Ravelston. But Modigliani’s was very—but no! not even over the phone could Ravelston frame that hateful word ‘expensive’. How remind Gordon of his poverty? Gordon mightn’t care for Modigliani’s, he euphemistically said. But Gordon was satisfied. Modigliani’s? Right you are—half-past eight. Good! After all, if he spent even three quid on the dinner he’d still have two quid to buy himself a new pair of shoes and a vest and a pair of pants.

  He had fixed it up with Rosemary in another five minutes. The New Albion did not like their employees being rung up on the phone, but it did not matter once in a way. Since that disastrous Sunday journey, five days ago, he had heard from her once but had not seen her. She answered eagerly when she heard whose voice it was. Would she have dinner with him tonight? Of course! What fun! And so in ten minutes the whole thing was settled. He had always wanted Rosemary and Ravelston to meet, but somehow had never been able to contrive it. These things are so much easier when you’ve got a little money to spend.

  The taxi bore him westward through the darkling streets. A three-mile journey—still, he could afford it. Why spoil the ship for a ha’porth of tar? He had dropped that notion of spending only two pounds tonight. He would spend three pounds, three pounds ten—four pounds if he felt like it. Slap up and regardless—that was the idea. And, oh! by the way! Julia’s fiver. He hadn’t sent it yet. No matter. Send it first thing in the morning. Good old Julia! She should have her fiver.

  How voluptuous were the taxi cushions under his bum! He lolled this way and that. He had been drinking, of course—had had two quick ones, or possibly three, before coming away. The
taxi-driver was a stout philosophic man with a weatherbeaten face and a knowing eye. He and Gordon understood one another. They had palled up in the bar where Gordon was having his quick ones. As they neared the West End the taximan drew up, unbidden, at a discreet pub on a corner. He knew what was in Gordon’s mind. Gordon could do with a quick one. So could the taximan. But the drinks were on Gordon—that too was understood.

  ‘You anticipate my thoughts,’ said Gordon, climbing out.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I could just about do with a quick one.’

  ‘Thought you might, sir.’

  ‘And could you manage one yourself, do you think?’

  ‘Where there’s a will there’s a way,’ said the taximan.

  ‘Come inside,’ said Gordon.

  They leaned madly on the brass-edged bar, elbow to elbow, lighting two of the taximan’s cigarettes. Gordon felt witty and expansive. He would have liked to tell the taximan the history of his life. The white-aproned barman hastened towards them.

  ‘Yessir?’ said the barman.

  ‘Gin,’ said Gordon.

  ‘Make it two,’ said the taximan.

  More matily than ever, they clinked glasses.

  ‘Many happy returns,’ said Gordon.

  ‘Your birthday today, sir?’