Chapter 6 Summary

The narrator and Boris look for work for three weeks before their luck changes. They have walked all over Paris, wearing themselves out because they've had so little to eat, and Boris is still limping. Boris spends fifty centimes on postage for a letter asking a former mistress for money she owes him. But she replies that she herself has fallen on hard times and has no money to give him.

Boris falls into despair, most of all because he is at the mercy of the Jew with whom he's sharing a room. In the place where Boris comes from, Russia, it is considered terrible to be at the mercy of a Jew.

Chapter 6 Analysis

Two important points come out of chapter six. First, in hearing from Boris' former mistress, the reader sees that the condition of poverty is even more widespread than...