Title: The Enormous Room
Author: Cummings, E. E. (Edward Estlin)
Language: English
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THE ENORMOUS ROOM


by

E. E. CUMMINGS

       *       *       *       *       *

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

      INTRODUCTION

   I. I BEGIN A PILGRIMAGE

  II. EN ROUTE

 III. A PILGRIM'S PROGRESS

  IV. LE NOUVEAU

   V. A GROUP OF PORTRAITS

  VI. APOLLYON

 VII. AN APPROACH TO THE DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS

VIII. THE WANDERER

  IX. ZOO-LOO

   X. SURPLICE

  XI. JEAN LE NÈGRE

 XII. THREE WISE MEN

XIII. I SAY GOOD-BYE TO LA MISÈRE

       *       *       *       *       *

INTRODUCTION


"FOR THIS MY SON WAS DEAD, AND IS ALIVE AGAIN; HE WAS LOST; AND IS
FOUND."

He was lost by the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps.

He was officially dead as a result of official misinformation.

He was entombed by the French Government.

It took the better part of three months to find him and bring him back to
life--with the help of powerful and willing friends on both sides of the
Atlantic. The following documents tell the story:

    104 Irving Street, Cambridge, December 8, 1917.

    President Woodrow Wilson, White House, Washington, D. C.

    Mr. President:

    It seems criminal to ask for a single moment of your time. But I
    am strongly advised that it would be more criminal to delay any
    longer calling to your attention a crime against American
    citizenship in which the French Government has persisted for many
    weeks--in spite of constant appeals made to the American Minister
    at Paris; and in spite of subsequent action taken by the State
    Department at Washington, on the initiative of my friend, Hon.
    ----.

    The victims are two American ambulance drivers, Edward Estlin
    Cummings of Cambridge, Mass., and W---- S---- B----....

    More than two months ago these young men were arrested, subjected
    to many indignities, dragged across France like criminals, and
    closely confined in a Concentration Camp at La Ferté Macé; where,
    according to latest advices they still remain--awaiting the final
    action of the Minister of the Interior upon the findings of a
    Commission which passed upon their cases as long ago as October
    17.

    Against Cummings both private and official advices from Paris
    state that there is no charge whatever. He has been subjected to
    this outrageous treatment solely because of his intimate
    friendship with young B----, whose sole crime is--so far as can
    be learned--that certain letters to friends in America were
    misinterpreted by an over-zealous French censor.

    It only adds to the indignity and irony of the situation to say
    that young Cummings is an enthusiastic lover of France and so
    loyal to the friends he has made among the French soldiers, that
    even while suffering in health from his unjust confinement, he
    excuses the ingratitude of the country he has risked his life to
    serve by calling attention to the atmosphere of intense suspicion
    and distrust that has naturally resulted from the painful
    experience which France has had with foreign emissaries.

    Be assured, Mr. President, that I have waited long--it seems like
    ages--and have exhausted all other available help before
    venturing to trouble you.

    1. After many weeks of vain effort to secure effective action by
    the American Ambassador at Paris, Richard Norton of the
    Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps to which the boys belonged, was
    completely discouraged, and advised me to seek help here.

    2. The efforts of the State Department at Washington resulted as
    follows:

    i. A cable from Paris saying that there was no charge against
    Cummings and intimating that he would speedily be released.

    ii. A little later a second cable advising that Edward Estlin
    Cummings had sailed on the Antilles and was reported lost.

    iii. A week later a third cable correcting this cruel error and
    saying the Embassy was renewing efforts to locate
    Cummings--apparently still ignorant even of the place of his
    confinement.

    After such painful and baffling experiences, I turn to
    you--burdened though I know you to be, in this world crisis, with
    the weightiest task ever laid upon any man.

    But I have another reason for asking this favor. I do not speak
    for my son alone; or for him and his friend alone. My son has a
    mother--as brave and patriotic as any mother who ever dedicated
    an only son to a great cause. The mothers of our boys in France
    have rights as well as the boys themselves. My boy's mother had a
    right to be protected from the weeks of horrible anxiety and
    suspense caused by the inexplicable arrest and imprisonment of
    her son. My boy's mother had a right to be spared the supreme
    agony caused by a blundering cable from Paris saying that he had
    been drowned by a submarine. (An error which Mr. Norton
    subsequently cabled that he had discovered six weeks before.) My
    boy's mother and all American mothers have a right to be
    protected against all needless anxiety and sorrow.

    Pardon me, Mr. President, but if I were President and your son
    were suffering such prolonged injustice at the hands of France;
    and your son's mother had been needlessly kept in Hell as many
    weeks as my boy's mother has--I would do something to make
    American citizenship as sacred in the eyes of Frenchmen as Roman
    citizenship was in the eyes of the ancient world. Then it was
    enough to ask the question, "Is it lawful to scourge a man that
    is a Roman, and uncondemned?" Now, in France, it seems lawful to
    treat like a condemned criminal a man that is an American,
    uncondemned and admittedly innocent!

    Very respectfully, EDWARD CUMMINGS

This letter was received at the White House. Whether it was received with
sympathy or with silent disapproval is still a mystery. A Washington
official, a friend in need and a friend indeed in these trying
experiences, took the precaution to have it delivered by messenger.
Otherwise, fear that it had been "lost in the mail" would have added
another twinge of uncertainty to the prolonged and exquisite tortures
inflicted upon parents by alternations of misinformation and official
silence. Doubtless the official stethoscope was on the heart of the world
just then; and perhaps it was too much to expect that even a post-card
would be wasted on private heart-aches.

In any event this letter told where to look for the missing
boys--something the French government either could not or would not
disclose, in spite of constant pressure by the American Embassy at Paris
and constant efforts by my friend Richard Norton, who was head of the
Norton-Harjes Ambulance organization from which they had been abducted.

Release soon followed, as narrated in the following letter to Major ----
of the staff of the Judge Advocate General in Paris.

    February 20, 1921.

    My dear ----

    Your letter of January 30th, which I have been waiting for with
    great interest ever since I received your cable, arrived this
    morning. My son arrived in New York on January 1st. He was in bad
    shape physically as a result of his imprisonment: very much under
    weight, suffering from a bad skin infection which he had acquired
    at the concentration camp. However, in view of the extraordinary
    facilities which the detention camp offered for acquiring
    dangerous diseases, he is certainly to be congratulated on having
    escaped with one of the least harmful. The medical treatment at
    the camp was quite in keeping with the general standards of
    sanitation there; with the result that it was not until he began
    to receive competent surgical treatment after his release and on
    board ship that there was much chance of improvement. A month of
    competent medical treatment here seems to have got rid of this
    painful reminder of official hospitality. He is, at present,
    visiting friends in New York. If he were here, I am sure he would
    join with me and with his mother in thanking you for the interest
    you have taken and the efforts you have made.

    W---- S---- B---- is, I am happy to say, expected in New York
    this week by the S. S. Niagara. News of his release and
    subsequently of his departure came by cable. What you say about
    the nervous strain under which he was living, as an explanation
    of the letters to which the authorities objected, is entirely
    borne out by first-hand information. The kind of badgering which
    the youth received was enough to upset a less sensitive
    temperament. It speaks volumes for the character of his
    environment that such treatment aroused the resentment of only
    one of his companions, and that even this manifestation of normal
    human sympathy was regarded as "suspicious." If you are right in
    characterizing B----'s condition as more or less hysterical, what
    shall we say of the conditions which made possible the treatment
    which he and his friend received? I am glad B---- wrote the very
    sensible and manly letter to the Embassy, which you mention.
    After I have had an opportunity to converse with him, I shall be
    in better position to reach a conclusion in regard to certain
    matters about which I will not now express an opinion.

    I would only add that I do not in the least share your
    complacency in regard to the treatment which my son received. The
    very fact that, as you say, no charges were made and that he was
    detained on suspicion for many weeks after the Commission passed
    on his case and reported to the Minister of the Interior that he
    ought to be released, leads me to a conclusion exactly opposite
    to that which you express. It seems to me impossible to believe
    that any well-ordered government would fail to acknowledge such
    action to have been unreasonable. Moreover, "detention on
    suspicion" was a small part of what actually took place. To take
    a single illustration, you will recall that after many weeks'
    persistent effort to secure information, the Embassy was still
    kept so much in the dark about the facts, that it cabled the
    report that my son had embarked on The Antilles and was reported
    lost. And when convinced of that error, the Embassy cabled that
    it was renewing efforts to locate my son. Up to that moment, it
    would appear that the authorities had not even condescended to
    tell the United States Embassy where this innocent American
    citizen was confined; so that a mistaken report of his death was
    regarded as an adequate explanation of his disappearance. If I
    had accepted this report and taken no further action, it is by no
    means certain that he would not be dead by this time.

    I am free to say, that in my opinion no self-respecting
    government could allow one of its own citizens, against whom
    there has been no accusation brought, to be subjected to such
    prolonged indignities and injuries by a friendly government
    without vigorous remonstrance. I regard it as a patriotic duty,
    as well as a matter of personal self-respect, to do what I can to
    see that such remonstrance is made. I still think too highly both
    of my own government and of the government of France to believe
    that such an untoward incident will fail to receive the serious
    attention it deserves. If I am wrong, and American citizens must
    expect to suffer such indignities and injuries at the hands of
    other governments without any effort at remonstrance and redress
    by their own government, I believe the public ought to know the
    humiliating truth. It will make interesting reading. It remains
    for my son to determine what action he will take.

    I am glad to know your son is returning. I am looking forward
    with great pleasure to conversing with him.

    I cannot adequately express my gratitude to you and to other
    friends for the sympathy and assistance I have received. If any
    expenses have been incurred on my behalf or on behalf of my son,
    I beg you to give me the pleasure of reimbursing you. At best, I
    must always remain your debtor.

    With best wishes,

    Sincerely yours,

    EDWARD CUMMINGS

I yield to no one in enthusiasm for the cause of France. Her cause was
our cause and the cause of civilization; and the tragedy is that it took
us so long to find it out. I would gladly have risked my life for her, as
my son risked his and would have risked it again had not the departure of
his regiment overseas been stopped by the armistice.

France was beset with enemies within as well as without. Some of the
"suspects" were members of her official household. Her Minister of
Interior was thrown into prison. She was distracted with fear. Her
existence was at stake. Under such circumstances excesses were sure to be
committed. But it is precisely at such times that American citizens most
need and are most entitled to the protection of their own government.

EDWARD CUMMINGS

       *       *       *       *       *

THE ENORMOUS ROOM



I

I BEGIN A PILGRIMAGE

In October, 1917, we had succeeded, my friend B. and I, in dispensing
with almost three of our six months' engagement as Voluntary Drivers,
Sanitary Section 21, Ambulance Norton Harjes, American Red Cross, and at
the moment which subsequent experience served to capitalize, had just
finished the unlovely job of cleaning and greasing (_nettoyer_ is the
proper word) the own private flivver of the chief of section, a gentleman
by the convenient name of Mr. A. To borrow a characteristic-cadence from
Our Great President: the lively satisfaction which we might be suspected
of having derived from the accomplishment of a task so important in the
saving of civilization from the clutches of Prussian tyranny was in some
degree inhibited, unhappily, by a complete absence of cordial relations
between the man whom fate had placed over us and ourselves. Or, to use
the vulgar American idiom, B. and I and Mr. A. didn't get on well. We
were in fundamental disagreement as to the attitude which we, Americans,
should uphold toward the poilus in whose behalf we had volunteered
assistance, Mr. A. maintaining "you boys want to keep away from those
dirty Frenchmen" and "we're here to show those bastards how they do
things in America," to which we answered by seizing every opportunity for
fraternization. Inasmuch as eight "dirty Frenchmen" were attached to the
section in various capacities (cook, provisioner, chauffeur, mechanician,
etc.) and the section itself was affiliated with a branch of the French
army, fraternization was easy. Now when he saw that we had not the
slightest intention of adopting his ideals, Mr. A. (together with the
_sous-lieutenant_ who acted as his translator--for the chief's knowledge
of the French language, obtained during several years' heroic service,
consisted for the most part in "_Sar var_," "_Sar marche_," and "_Deet
donk moan vieux_") confined his efforts to denying us the privilege of
acting as drivers, on the ground that our personal appearance was a
disgrace to the section. In this, I am bound to say, Mr. A. was but
sustaining the tradition conceived originally by his predecessor, a Mr.
P., a Harvard man, who until his departure from Vingt-et-Un succeeded in
making life absolutely miserable for B. and myself. Before leaving this
painful subject I beg to state that, at least as far as I was concerned,
the tradition had a firm foundation in my own predisposition for
uncouthness plus what _Le Matin_ (if we remember correctly) cleverly
nicknamed _La Boue Héroïque_.

Having accomplished the _nettoyage_ (at which we were by this time
adepts, thanks to Mr. A.'s habit of detailing us to wash any car which
its driver and _aide_ might consider too dirty a task for their own
hands) we proceeded in search of a little water for personal use. B.
speedily finished his ablutions. I was strolling carelessly and solo from
the cook-wagon toward one of the two tents--which protestingly housed
some forty huddling Americans by night--holding in my hand an historic
_morceau de chocolat_, when a spick, not to say span, gentleman in a
suspiciously quiet French uniform allowed himself to be driven up to the
_bureau_, by two neat soldiers with tin derbies, in a Renault whose
painful cleanliness shamed my recent efforts. This must be a general at
least, I thought, regretting the extremely undress character of my
uniform, which uniform consisted of overalls and a cigarette.

Having furtively watched the gentleman alight and receive a ceremonious
welcome from the chief and the aforesaid French lieutenant who
accompanied the section for translatory reasons, I hastily betook myself
to one of the tents, where I found B. engaged in dragging all his
belongings into a central pile of frightening proportions. He was
surrounded by a group of fellow-heroes who hailed my coming with
considerable enthusiasm. "Your bunky's leaving" said somebody. "Going to
Paris" volunteered a man who had been trying for three months to get
there. "Prison you mean" remarked a confirmed optimist whost disposition
had felt the effects of French climate.

Albeit confused by the eloquence of B.'s unalterable silence, I
immediately associated his present predicament with the advent of the
mysterious stranger, and forthwith dashed forth, bent on demanding from
one of the tin-derbies the high identity and sacred mission of this
personage. I knew that with the exception of ourselves everyone in the
section had been given his seven days' leave--even two men who had
arrived later than we and whose turn should, consequently, have come
after ours. I also knew that at the headquarters of the Ambulance, _7 rue
François Premier_, was Monsieur Norton, the supreme head of the Norton
Harjes fraternity, who had known my father in other days. Putting two and
two together I decided that this potentate had sent an emissary to Mr. A.
to demand an explanation of the various and sundry insults and
indignities to which I and my friend had been subjected, and more
particularly to secure our long-delayed permission. Accordingly I was in
high spirits as I rushed toward the _bureau_.

I didn't have to go far. The mysterious one, in conversation with
_monsieur le sous-lieutenant_, met me half-way. I caught the words: "And
Cummings" (the first and last time that my name was correctly pronounced
by a Frenchman), "where is he?"

"Present," I said, giving a salute to which neither of them paid the
slightest attention.

"Ah yes" impenetrably remarked the mysterious one in positively sanitary
English. "You shall put all your baggage in the car, at once"--then, to
tin-derby-the-first, who appeared in an occult manner at his master's
elbow--"Go with him, get his baggage, at once."

My things were mostly in the vicinity of the _cuisine_, where lodged the
_cuisinier, mechanician, menusier_, etc., who had made room for me (some
ten days since) on their own initiative, thus saving me the humiliation
of sleeping with nineteen Americans in a tent which was always two-thirds
full of mud. Thither I led the tin-derby, who scrutinised everything with
surprising interest. I threw _mes affaires_ hastily together (including
some minor accessories which I was going to leave behind, but which the
t-d bade me include) and emerged with a duffle-bag under one arm and a
bed-roll under the other, to encounter my excellent friends, the "dirty
Frenchmen," aforesaid. They all popped out together from one door,
looking rather astonished. Something by way of explanation as well as
farewell was most certainly required, so I made a speech in my best
French:

"Gentlemen, friends, comrades--I am going away immediately and shall be
guillotined tomorrow."

--"Oh hardly guillotined I should say," remarked t-d, in a voice which
froze my marrow despite my high spirits; while the cook and carpenter
gaped audibly and the mechanician clutched a hopelessly smashed
carburetor for support.

One of the section's _voitures_, a F.I.A.T., was standing ready. General
Nemo sternly forbade me to approach the Renault (in which B.'s baggage
was already deposited) and waved me into the F.I.A.T., bed, bed-roll and
all; whereupon t-d leaped in and seated himself opposite me in a position
of perfect unrelaxation, which, despite my aforesaid exultation at
quitting the section in general and Mr. A. in particular, impressed me as
being almost menacing. Through the front window I saw my friend drive
away with t-d Number 2 and Nemo; then, having waved hasty farewell to all
_les Américains_ that I knew--three in number--and having exchanged
affectionate greetings with Mr. A. (who admitted he was very sorry indeed
to lose us), I experienced the jolt of the clutch--and we were off in
pursuit.

Whatever may have been the forebodings inspired by t-d Number 1's
attitude, they were completely annihilated by the thrilling joy which I
experienced on losing sight of the accursed section and its asinine
inhabitants--by the indisputable and authentic thrill of going somewhere
and nowhere, under the miraculous auspices of someone and no one--of
being yanked from the putrescent banalities of an official non-existence
into a high and clear adventure, by a _deus ex machina_ in a grey-blue
uniform, and a couple of tin derbies. I whistled and sang and cried to my
_vis-à-vis_: "By the way, who is yonder distinguished gentleman who has
been so good as to take my friend and me on this little promenade?"--to
which, between lurches of the groaning F.I.A.T., t-d replied awesomely,
clutching at the window for the benefit of his equilibrium: "Monsieur le
Ministre de Sureté de Noyon."

Not in the least realizing what this might mean, I grinned. A responsive
grin, visiting informally the tired cheeks of my _confrère_, ended by
frankly connecting his worthy and enormous ears which were squeezed into
oblivion by the oversize _casque_. My eyes, jumping from those ears, lit
on that helmet and noticed for the first time an emblem, a sort of
flowering little explosion, or hair-switch rampant. It seemed to me very
jovial and a little absurd.

"We're on our way to Noyon, then?"

T-d shrugged his shoulders.

Here the driver's hat blew off. I heard him swear, and saw the hat
sailing in our wake. I jumped to my feet as the F.I.A.T. came to a sudden
stop, and started for the ground--then checked my flight in mid-air and
landed on the seat, completely astonished. T-d's revolver, which had
hopped from its holster at my first move, slid back into its nest. The
owner of the revolver was muttering something rather disagreeable. The
driver (being an American of Vingt-et-Un) was backing up instead of
retrieving his cap in person. My mind felt as if it had been thrown
suddenly from fourth into reverse. I pondered and said nothing.

On again--faster, to make up for lost time. On the correct assumption
that t-d does not understand English the driver passes the time of day
through the minute window:

"For Christ's sake, Cummings, what's up?"

"You got me," I said, laughing at the delicate naiveté of the question.

"Did y' do something to get pinched?"

"Probably," I answered importantly and vaguely, feeling a new dignity.

"Well, if you didn't, maybe B---- did."

"Maybe," I countered, trying not to appear enthusiastic. As a matter of
fact I was never so excited and proud. I was, to be sure, a criminal!
Well, well, thank God that settled one question for good and all--no more
_Section Sanitaire_ for me! No more Mr. A. and his daily lectures on
cleanliness, deportment, etc.! In spite of myself I started to sing. The
driver interrupted:

"I heard you asking the tin lid something in French. Whadhesay?"

"Said that gink in the Renault is the head cop of Noyon," I answered at
random.

"GOODNIGHT. Maybe we'd better ring off, or you'll get in wrong with"--he
indicated t-d with a wave of his head that communicated itself to the car
in a magnificent skid; and t-d's derby rang out as the skid pitched t-d
the length of the F.I.A.T.

"You rang the bell then," I commented--then to t-d: "Nice car for the
wounded to ride in," I politely observed. T-d answered nothing....

Noyon.

We drive straight up to something which looks unpleasantly like a feudal
dungeon. The driver is now told to be somewhere at a certain time, and
meanwhile to eat with the Head Cop, who may be found just around the
corner--(I am doing, the translating for t-d)--and, oh yes, it seems that
the Head Cop has particularly requested the pleasure of this
distinguished American's company at _déjeuner_.

"Does he mean me?" the driver asked innocently.

"Sure," I told him.

Nothing is said of B. or me.

Now, cautiously, t-d first and I a slow next, we descend. The F.I.A.T.
rumbles off, with the distinguished one's backward-glaring head poked out
a yard more or less and that distinguished face so completely surrendered
to mystification as to cause a large laugh on my part.

"You are hungry?"

It was the erstwhile-ferocious speaking. A criminal, I remembered, is
somebody against whom everything he says and does is very cleverly made
use of. After weighing the matter in my mind for some moments I decided
at all cost to tell the truth, and replied:

"I could eat an elephant."

Hereupon t-d lead me to the Kitchen Itself, set me to eat upon a stool,
and admonished the cook in a fierce voice:

"Give this great criminal something to eat in the name of the French
Republic!"

And for the first time in three months I tasted Food.

T-d seated himself beside me, opened a huge jack-knife, and fell to,
after first removing his tin derby and loosening his belt.

One of the pleasantest memories connected with that irrevocable meal is
of a large, gentle, strong woman who entered in a hurry, and seeing me
cried out:

"What is it?"

"It's an American, my mother," t-d answered through fried potatoes.

"Why is he here?" the woman touched me on the shoulder, and satisfied
herself that I was real.

"The good God is doubtless acquainted with the explanation," said t-d
pleasantly. "Not myself being the--"

"Ah, _mon pauvre_" said this very beautiful sort of woman. "You are going
to be a prisoner here. Everyone of the prisoners has a _marraine_, do you
understand? I am their _marraine_. I love them and look after them. Well,
listen: I will be your _marraine_, too."

I bowed and looked around for something to pledge her in. T-d was
watching. My eyes fell on a huge glass of red pinard. "Yes, drink," said
my captor, with a smile. I raised my huge glass.

"_A la santé de ma marraine charmante!_"

--This deed of gallantry quite won the cook (a smallish, agile Frenchman)
who shovelled several helps of potatoes on my already empty plate. The
tin derby approved also: "That's right, eat, drink, you'll need it later
perhaps." And his knife guillotined another delicious hunk of white
bread.

At last, sated with luxuries, I bade adieu to my _marraine_ and allowed
t-d to conduct me (I going first, as always) upstairs and into a little
den whose interior boasted two mattresses, a man sitting at the table,
and a newspaper in the hands of the man.

"_C'est un Américain_," t-d said by way of introduction. The newspaper
detached itself from the man who said: "He's welcome indeed: make
yourself at home, Mr. American"--and bowed himself out. My captor
immediately collapsed on one mattress.

I asked permission to do the same on the other, which favor was sleepily
granted. With half-shut eyes my Ego lay and pondered: the delicious meal
it had just enjoyed; what was to come; the joys of being a great criminal
... then, being not at all inclined to sleep, I read _Le Petit Parisien_
quite through, even to _Les Voies Urinaires._

Which reminded me--and I woke up t-d and asked: "May I visit the
_vespasienne_?"

"Downstairs," he replied fuzzily, and readjusted his slumbers.

There was no one moving about in the little court. I lingered somewhat on
the way upstairs. The stairs were abnormally dirty. When I reentered, t-d
was roaring to himself. I read the journal through again. It must have
been about three o'clock.

Suddenly t-d woke up, straightened and buckled his personality, and
murmured: "It's time, come on."

_Le bureau de_ Monsieur le Ministre was just around the corner, as it
proved. Before the door stood the patient F.I.A.T. I was ceremoniously
informed by t-d that we would wait on the steps.

Well! Did I know any more?--the American driver wanted to know.

Having proved to my own satisfaction that my fingers could still roll a
pretty good cigarette, I answered: "No," between puffs.

The American drew nearer and whispered spectacularly: "Your friend is
upstairs. I think they're examining him."

T-d got this; and though his rehabilitated dignity had accepted the
"makin's" from its prisoner, it became immediately incensed:

"That's enough," he said sternly.

And dragged me _tout-à-coup_ upstairs, where I met B. and his t-d coming
out of the _bureau_ door. B. looked peculiarly cheerful. "I think we're
going to prison all right," he assured me.

Braced by this news, poked from behind by my t-d, and waved on from
before by M. le Ministre himself, I floated vaguely into a very washed,
neat, business-like and altogether American room of modest proportions,
whose door was immediately shut and guarded on the inside by my escort.

Monsieur le Ministre said:

"Lift your arms."

Then he went through my pockets. He found cigarettes, pencils, a
jack-knife and several francs. He laid his treasures on a clean table and
said: "You are not allowed to keep these. I shall be responsible." Then
he looked me coldly in the eye and asked if I had anything else?

I told him that I believed I had a handkerchief.

He asked me: "Have you anything in your shoes?"

"My feet," I said, gently.

"Come this way," he said frigidly, opening a door which I had not
remarked. I bowed in acknowledgment of the courtesy, and entered room
number 2.

I looked into six eyes which sat at a desk.

Two belonged to a lawyerish person in civilian clothes, with a bored
expression, plus a moustache of dreamy proportions with which the owner
constantly imitated a gentleman ringing for a drink. Two appertained to a
splendid old dotard (a face all ski-jumps and toboggan slides), on whose
protruding chest the rosette of the Legion pompously squatted. Numbers
five and six had reference to Monsieur, who had seated himself before I
had time to focus my slightly bewildered eyes.

Monsieur spoke sanitary English, as I have said.

"What is your name?"--"Edward E. Cummings."

--"Your second name?"--"E-s-t-l-i-n," I spelled it for him.--"How do you
say that?"--I didn't understand.--"How do you say your name?"--"Oh," I
said; and pronounced it. He explained in French to the moustache that my
first name was Edouard, my second "A-s-tay-l-ee-n," and my third
"Kay-umm-ee-n-gay-s"--and the moustache wrote it all down. Monsieur then
turned to me once more:

"You are Irish?"--"No," I said, "American."--"You are Irish by
family?"--"No, Scotch."--"You are sure that there was never an Irishman
in your parents?"--"So far as I know," I said, "there never was an
Irishman there."--"Perhaps a hundred years back?" he insisted.--"Not a
chance," I said decisively. But Monsieur was not to be denied: "Your name
it is Irish?"--"Cummings is a very old Scotch name," I told him fluently,
"it used to be Comyn. A Scotchman named The Red Comyn was killed by
Robert Bruce in a church. He was my ancestor and a very well-known
man."--"But your second name, where have you got that?"--"From an
Englishman, a friend of my father." This statement seemed to produce a
very favorable impression in the case of the rosette, who murmured: "_Un
ami de son père, un Anglais, bon!_" several times. Monsieur, quite
evidently disappointed, told the moustache in French to write down that I
denied my Irish parentage; which the moustache did.

"What does your father in America?"--"He is a minister of the gospel," I
answered. "Which church?"--"Unitarian." This puzzled him. After a moment
he had an inspiration: "That is the same as a Free Thinker?"--I explained
in French that it wasn't and that _mon père_ was a holy man. At last
Monsieur told the moustache to write: Protestant; and the moustache
obediently did so.

From this point on our conversation was carried on in French, somewhat to
the chagrin of Monsieur, but to the joy of the rosette and with the
approval of the moustache. In answer to questions, I informed them that I
was a student for five years at Harvard (expressing great surprise that
they had never heard of Harvard), that I had come to New York and studied
painting, that I had enlisted in New York as _conducteur voluntaire_,
embarking for France shortly after, about the middle of April.

Monsieur asked: "You met B---- on the _paquebot_?" I said I did.

Monsieur glanced significantly around. The rosette nodded a number of
times. The moustache rang.

I understood that these kind people were planning to make me out the
innocent victim of a wily villain, and could not forbear a smile. _C'est
rigoler_, I said to myself; they'll have a great time doing it.

"You and your friend were together in Paris?" I said "yes." "How long?"
"A month, while we were waiting for our uniforms."

A significant look by Monsieur, which is echoed by his _confrères_.

Leaning forward Monsieur asked coldly and carefully: "What did you do in
Paris?" to which I responded briefly and warmly: "We had a good time."

This reply pleased the rosette hugely. He wagged his head till I thought
it would have tumbled off. Even the mustache seemed amused. Monsieur le
Ministre de la Sureté de Noyon bit his lip. "Never mind writing that
down," he directed the lawyer. Then, returning to the charge:

"You had a great deal of trouble with Lieutenant A.?"

I laughed outright at this complimentary nomenclature. "Yes, we certainly
did."

He asked: "Why?"--so I sketched "Lieutenant" A. in vivid terms, making
use of certain choice expressions with which one of the "dirty Frenchmen"
attached to the section, a Parisien, master of argot, had furnished me.
My phraseology surprised my examiners, one of whom (I think the
moustache) observed sarcastically that I had made good use of my time in
Paris.

Monsieur le Ministre asked: Was it true (a) that B. and I were always
together and (b) preferred the company of the attached Frenchmen to that
of our fellow-Americans?--to which I answered in the affirmative. Why? he
wanted to know. So I explained that we felt that the more French we knew
and the better we knew the French the better for us; expatiating a bit on
the necessity for a complete mutual understanding of the Latin and
Anglo-Saxon races if victory was to be won.

Again the rosette nodded with approbation.

Monsieur le Ministre may have felt that he was losing his case, for he
played his trump card immediately: "You are aware that your friend has
written to friends in America and to his family very bad letters." "I am
not," I said.

In a flash I understood the motivation of Monsieur's visit to
_Vingt-et-Un_: the French censor had intercepted some of B.'s letters,
and had notified Mr. A. and Mr. A.'s translator, both of whom had
thankfully testified to the bad character of B. and (wishing very
naturally to get rid of both of us at once) had further averred that we
were always together and that consequently I might properly be regarded
as a suspicious character. Whereupon they had received instructions to
hold us at the section until Noyon could arrive and take charge--hence
our failure to obtain our long-overdue permission.

"Your friend," said Monsieur in English, "is here a short while ago. I
ask him if he is up in the aeroplane flying over Germans will he drop the
bombs on Germans and he say no, he will not drop any bombs on Germans."

By this falsehood (such it happened to be) I confess that I was
nonplussed. In the first place, I was at the time innocent of
third-degree methods. Secondly, I remembered that, a week or so since,
B., myself and another American in the section had written a
letter--which, on the advice of the _sous-lieutenant_ who accompanied
_Vingt-et-Un_ as translator, we had addressed to the Under-Secretary of
State in French Aviation--asking that inasmuch as the American Government
was about to take over the Red Cross (which meant that all the Sanitary
Sections would be affiliated with the American, and no longer with the
French, Army) we three at any rate might be allowed to continue our
association with the French by enlisting in l'Esquadrille Lafayette. One
of the "dirty Frenchmen" had written the letter for us in the finest
language imaginable, from data supplied by ourselves.

"You write a letter, your friend and you, for French aviation?"

Here I corrected him: there were three of us; and why didn't he have the
third culprit arrested, might I ask? But he ignored this little
digression, and wanted to know: Why not American aviation?--to which I
answered: "Ah, but as my friend has so often said to me, the French are
after all the finest people in the world."

This double-blow stopped Noyon dead, but only for a second.

"Did your friend write this letter?"--"No," I answered truthfully.--"Who
did write it?"--"One of the Frenchmen attached to the section."--"What is
his name?"--"I'm sure I don't know," I answered; mentally swearing that,
whatever might happen to me the scribe should not suffer. "At my urgent
request," I added.

Relapsing into French, Monsieur asked me if I would have any hesitation
in dropping bombs on Germans? I said no, I wouldn't. And why did I
suppose I was fitted to become aviator? Because, I told him, I weighed
135 pounds and could drive any kind of auto or motorcycle. (I hoped he
would make me prove this assertion, in which case I promised myself that
I wouldn't stop till I got to Munich; but no.)

"Do you mean to say that my friend was not only trying to avoid serving
in the American Army but was contemplating treason as well?" I asked.

"Well, that would be it, would it not?" he answered coolly. Then, leaning
forward once more, he fired at me: "Why did you write to an official so
high?"

At this I laughed outright. "Because the excellent _sous-lieutenant_ who
translated when Mr. Lieutenant A. couldn't understand advised us to do
so."

Following up this _sortie_, I addressed the mustache: "Write this down in
the testimony--that I, here present, refuse utterly to believe that my
friend is not as sincere a lover of France and the French people as any
man living!--Tell him to write it," I commanded Noyon stonily. But Noyon
shook his head, saying: "We have the very best reason for supposing your
friend to be no friend of France." I answered: "That is not my affair. I
want my opinion of my friend written in; do you see?" "That's
reasonable," the rosette murmured; and the moustache wrote it down.

"Why do you think we volunteered?" I asked sarcastically, when the
testimony was complete.

Monsieur le Ministre was evidently rather uncomfortable. He writhed a
little in his chair, and tweaked his chin three or four times. The
rosette and the moustache were exchanging animated phrases. At last
Noyon, motioning for silence and speaking in an almost desperate tone,
demanded:

"_Est-ce-que vous détestez les boches?_"

I had won my own case. The question was purely perfunctory. To walk out
of the room a free man I had merely to say yes. My examiners were sure of
my answer. The rosette was leaning forward and smiling encouragingly. The
moustache was making little _ouis_ in the air with his pen. And Noyon had
given up all hope of making me out a criminal. I might be rash, but I was
innocent; the dupe of a superior and malign intelligence. I would
probably be admonished to choose my friends more carefully next time and
that would be all....

Deliberately, I framed the answer:

"_Non. J'aime beaucoup les français._"

Agile as a weasel, Monsieur le Ministre was on top of me: "It is
impossible to love Frenchmen and not to hate Germans."

I did not mind his triumph in the least. The discomfiture of the rosette
merely amused me. The surprise of the moustache I found very pleasant.

Poor rosette! He kept murmuring desperately: "Fond of his friend, quite
right. Mistaken of course, too bad, meant well."

With a supremely disagreeable expression on his immaculate face the
victorious minister of security pressed his victim with regained
assurance: "But you are doubtless aware of the atrocities committed by
the boches?"

"I have read about them," I replied very cheerfully.

"You do not believe?"

"_Ça ce peut._"

"And if they are so, which of course they are" (tone of profound
conviction) "you do not detest the Germans?"

"Oh, in that case, of course anyone must detest them," I averred with
perfect politeness.

And my case was lost, forever lost. I breathed freely once more. All my
nervousness was gone. The attempt of the three gentlemen sitting before
me to endow my friend and myself with different fates had irrevocably
failed.

At the conclusion of a short conference I was told by Monsieur:

"I am sorry for you, but due to your friend you will be detained a little
while."

I asked: "Several weeks?"

"Possibly," said Monsieur.

This concluded the trial.

Monsieur le Ministre conducted me into room number 1 again. "Since I have
taken your cigarettes and shall keep them for you, I will give you some
tobacco. Do you prefer English or French?"

Because the French (_paquet bleu_) are stronger and because he expected
me to say English, I said "French."

With a sorrowful expression Noyon went to a sort of bookcase and took
down a blue packet. I think I asked for matches, or else he had given
back the few which he found on my person.

Noyon, t-d and the grand criminal (alias I) now descended solemnly to the
F.I.A.T. The more and more mystified _conducteur_ conveyed us a short
distance to what was obviously a prison-yard. Monsieur le Ministre
watched me descend my voluminous baggage.

This was carefully examined by Monsieur at the _bureau_, of the prison.
Monsieur made me turn everything topsy-turvy and inside out. Monsieur
expressed great surprise at a huge shell: where did I get it?--I said a
French soldier gave it to me as a souvenir.--And several _têtes
d'obus_?--also souvenirs, I assured him merrily. Did Monsieur suppose I
was caught in the act of blowing up the French Government, or what
exactly?--But here are a dozen sketch-books, what is in them?--Oh,
Monsieur, you flatter me: drawings.--Of fortifications? Hardly; of
poilus, children, and other ruins.--Ummmm. (Monsieur examined the
drawings and found that I had spoken the truth.) Monsieur puts all these
trifles into a small bag, with which I had been furnished (in addition to
the huge duffle-bag) by the generous Red Cross. Labels them (in French):
"Articles found in the baggage of Cummings and deemed _inutile_ to the
case at hand." This leaves in the duffle-bag aforesaid: my fur coat,
which I brought from New York; my bed and blankets and bed-roll, my
civilian clothes, and about twenty-five pounds of soiled linen. "You may
take the bed-roll and the folding bed into your cell"--the rest of my
_affaires_ would remain in safe keeping at the _bureau_.

"Come with me," grimly croaked a lank turnkey creature.

Bed-roll and bed in hand, I came along.

We had but a short distance to go; several steps in fact. I remember we
turned a corner and somehow got sight of a sort of square near the
prison. A military band was executing itself to the stolid delight of
some handfuls of ragged _civiles_. My new captor paused a moment; perhaps
his patriotic soul was stirred. Then we traversed an alley with locked
doors on both sides, and stopped in front of the last door on the right.
A key opened it. The music could still be distinctly heard.

The opened door showed a room, about sixteen feet short and four feet
narrow, with a heap of straw in the further end. My spirits had been
steadily recovering from the banality of their examination; and it was
with a genuine and never-to-be-forgotten thrill that I remarked, as I
crossed what might have been the threshold: "_Mais, on est bien ici_."

A hideous crash nipped the last word. I had supposed the whole prison to
have been utterly destroyed by earthquake, but it was only my door
closing....



II

EN ROUTE

I put the bed-roll down. I stood up.

I was myself.

An uncontrollable joy gutted me after three months of humiliation, of
being bossed and herded and bullied and insulted. I was myself and my own
master.

In this delirium of relief (hardly noticing what I did) I inspected the
pile of straw, decided against it, set up my bed, disposed the roll on
it, and began to examine my cell.

I have mentioned the length and breadth. The cell was ridiculously high;
perhaps ten feet. The end with the door in it was peculiar. The door was
not placed in the middle of this end, but at one side, allowing for a
huge iron can waist-high which stood in the other corner. Over the door
and across the end, a grating extended. A slit of sky was always visible.

Whistling joyously to myself, I took three steps which brought me to the
door-end. The door was massively made, all of iron or steel I should
think. It delighted me. The can excited my curiosity. I looked over the
edge of it. At the bottom reposefully lay a new human turd.

I have a sneaking mania for wood-cuts, particularly when used to
illustrate the indispensable psychological crisis of some outworn
romance. There is in my possession at this minute a masterful depiction
of a tall, bearded, horrified man who, clad in an anonymous rig of goat
skins, with a fantastic umbrella clasped weakly in one huge paw, bends to
examine an indication of humanity in the somewhat cubist wilderness
whereof he had fancied himself the owner....

It was then that I noticed the walls. Arm-high they were covered with
designs, mottos, pictures. The drawing had all been done in pencil. I
resolved to ask for a pencil at the first opportunity.

There had been Germans and Frenchmen imprisoned in this cell. On the
right wall, near the door-end, was a long selection from Goethe,
laboriously copied. Near the other end of this wall a satiric landscape
took place. The technique of this landscape frightened me. There were
houses, men, children. And there were trees. I began to wonder what a
tree looks like, and laughed copiously.

The back wall had a large and exquisite portrait of a German officer.

The left wall was adorned with a yacht, flying a number 13. "My beloved
boat" was inscribed in German underneath. Then came a bust of a German
soldier, very idealized, full of unfear. After this, a masterful
crudity--a doughnut-bodied rider, sliding with fearful rapidity down the
acute backbone of a totally transparent sausage-shaped horse, who was
moving simultaneously in five directions. The rider had a bored
expression as he supported the stiff reins in one fist. His further leg
assisted in his flight. He wore a German soldier's cap and was smoking. I
made up my mind to copy the horse and rider at once, so soon, that is, as
I should have obtained a pencil.

Last, I found a drawing surrounded by a scrolled motto. The drawing was a
potted plant with four blossoms. The four blossoms were elaborately dead.
Their death was drawn with a fearful care. An obscure deliberation was
exposed in the depiction of their drooping petals. The pot tottered very
crookedly on a sort of table, as near as I could see. All around ran a
funereal scroll. I read: "My farewell to my beloved wife, Gaby." A fierce
hand, totally distinct from the former, wrote in proud letters above:
"Punished for desertion. Six years of prison--military degradation."

It must have been five o'clock. Steps. A vast cluttering of the exterior
of the door--by whom? Whang opens the door. Turnkey-creature extending a
piece of chocolate with extreme and surly caution. I say "_Merci_" and
seize chocolate. Klang shuts the door.

I am lying on my back, the twilight does mistily bluish miracles through
the slit over the whang-klang. I can just see leaves, meaning tree.

Then from the left and way off, faintly, broke a smooth whistle, cool
like a peeled willow-branch, and I found myself listening to an air from
Petroushka, Petroushka, which we saw in Paris at the _Châtelet, mon ami
et moi_....

The voice stopped in the middle--and I finished the air. This code
continued for a half-hour.

It was dark.

I had laid a piece of my piece of chocolate on the window-sill. As I lay
on my back a little silhouette came along the sill and ate that piece of
a piece, taking something like four minutes to do so. He then looked at
me, I then smiled at him, and we parted, each happier than before.

My _cellule_ was cool, and I fell asleep easily.

(Thinking of Paris.)

... Awakened by a conversation whose vibrations I clearly felt through
the left wall:

Turnkey-creature: "What?"

A moldly moldering molish voice, suggesting putrifying tracts and
orifices, answers with a cob-webbish patience so far beyond despair as to
be indescribable: "_La soupe_."

"Well, the soup, I just gave it to you, Monsieur Savy."

"Must have a little something else. My money is _chez le directeur_.
Please take my money which is _chez le directeur_ and give me anything
else."

"All right, the next time I come to see you to-day I'll bring you a
salad, a nice salad, Monsieur."

"Thank you, Monsieur," the voice moldered.

Klang!!--and says the turnkey-creature to somebody else; while turning
the lock of Monsieur Savy's door; taking pains to raise his voice so that
Monsieur Savy will not miss a single word through the slit over Monsieur
Savy's whang-klang:

"That old fool! Always asks for things. When supposest thou will he
realize that he's never going to get anything?"

Grubbing at my door. Whang!

The faces stood in the doorway, looking me down. The expression of the
faces identically turnkeyish, i.e., stupidly gloating, ponderously and
imperturbably tickled. Look who's here, who let that in?

The right body collapsed sufficiently to deposit a bowl just inside.

I smiled and said: "Good morning, sirs. The can stinks."

They did not smile and said: "Naturally." I smiled and said: "Please give
me a pencil. I want to pass the time." They did not smile and said:
"Directly."

I smiled and said: "I want some water, if you please."

They shut the door, saying "Later."

Klang and footsteps.

I contemplate the bowl which contemplates me. A glaze of greenish grease
seals the mystery of its content, I induce two fingers to penetrate the
seal. They bring me up a flat sliver of cabbage and a large, hard,
thoughtful, solemn, uncooked bean. To pour the water off (it is warmish
and sticky) without committing a nuisance is to lift the cover off _Ça
Pue_. I did.

Thus leaving beans and cabbage-slivers. Which I ate hurryingly, fearing a
ventral misgiving.

I pass a lot of time cursing myself about the pencil, looking at my
walls, my unique interior.

Suddenly I realize the indisputable grip of nature's humorous hand. One
evidently stands on _Ça Pue_ in such cases. Having finished, panting with
stink, I tumble on the bed and consider my next move.

The straw will do. Ouch, but it's Dirty.--Several hours elapse....

Steps and fumble. Klang. Repetition of promise to Monsieur Savy, etc.

Turnkeyish and turnkeyish. Identical expression. One body collapses
sufficiently to deposit a hunk of bread and a piece of water.

"Give your bowl."

I gave it, smiled and said: "Well, how about that pencil?"

"Pencil?" T-c looked at T-c.

They recited then the following word: "To-morrow." Klang and footsteps.

So I took matches, burnt, and with just 60 of them wrote the first stanza
of a ballade. To-morrow I will write the second. Day after to-morrow the
third. Next day the refrain. After--oh, well.

My whistling of Petroushka brought no response this evening.

So I climbed on _Ça Pue_, whom I now regarded with complete friendliness;
the new moon was unclosing sticky wings in dusk, a far noise from near
things.

I sang a song the "dirty Frenchmen" taught us, _mon ami et moi_. The song
says _Bon soir, Madame de la Lune_.... I did not sing out loud, simply
because the moon was like a mademoiselle, and I did not want to offend
the moon. My friends: the silhouette and _la lune_, not counting _Ça
Pue_, whom I regarded almost as a part of me.

Then I lay down, and heard (but could not see the silhouette eat
something or somebody) ... and saw, but could not hear, the incense of
_Ça Pue_ mount gingerly upon the taking air of twilight.

The next day.--Promise to M. Savy. Whang. "My pencil?"--"You don't need
any pencil, you're going away."--"When?"--"Directly."--"How
directly?"--"In an hour or two: your friend has already gone before. Get
ready."

Klang and steps.

Everyone very sore about me. I should worry, however.

One hour, I guess.

Steps. Sudden throwing of door open. Pause.

"Come out, American."

As I came out, toting bed and bed-roll, I remarked: "I'm sorry to leave
you," which made T-c furiously to masticate his insignificant moustache.

Escorted to _bureau_, where I am turned over to a very fat _gendarme_.

"This is the American." The v-f-g eyed me, and I read my sins in his
porklike orbs. "Hurry, we have to walk," he ventured sullenly and
commandingly.

Himself stooped puffingly to pick up the segregated sack. And I placed my
bed, bed-roll, blankets and ample _pélisse_ under one arm, my 150-odd
pound duffle-bag under the other; then I paused. Then I said, "Where's my
cane?"

The v-f-g hereat had a sort of fit, which perfectly became him.

I repeated gently: "When I came to the _bureau_ I had a cane."

"I don't give a damn about your cane," burbled my new captor frothily,
his pink evil eyes swelling with wrath.

"I'm staying," I replied calmly, and sat down on a curb, in the midst of
my ponderous trinkets.

A crowd of _gendarmes_ gathered. One didn't take a cane with one to
prison (I was glad to know where I was bound, and thanked this
communicative gentleman); or criminals weren't allowed canes; or where
exactly did I think I was, in the Tuileries? asks a rube movie-cop
personage.

"Very well, gentlemen," I said. "You will allow me to tell you
something." (I was beet-colored.) "In America that sort of thing isn't
done."

This haughty inaccuracy produced an astonishing effect, namely, the
prestidigitatorial vanishment of the v-f-g. The v-f-g's numerous
_confrères_ looked scared and twirled their whiskers.

I sat on the curb and began to fill a paper with something which I found
in my pockets, certainly not tobacco.

Splutter-splutter-fizz-Poop--the v-f-g is back, with my oak-branch in his
raised hand, slithering opprobria and mostly crying: "Is that huge piece
of wood what you call a cane? It is, is it? What? How? What the--," so
on.

I beamed upon him and thanked him, and explained that a "dirty Frenchman"
had given it to me as a souvenir, and that I would now proceed.

Twisting the handle in the loop of my sack, and hoisting the vast parcel
under my arm, I essayed twice to boost it on my back. This to the
accompaniment of HurryHurryHurryHurryHurryHurryHurry.... The third time I
sweated and staggered to my feet, completely accoutred.

Down the road. Into the _ville_. Curious looks from a few pedestrians. A
driver stops his wagon to watch the spider and his outlandish fly. I
chuckled to think how long since I had washed and shaved. Then I nearly
fell, staggered on a few steps, and set down the two loads.

Perhaps it was the fault of a strictly vegetarian diet. At any rate, I
couldn't move a step farther with my bundles. The sun sent the sweat
along my nose in tickling waves. My eyes were blind.

Hereupon I suggested that the v-f-g carry part of one of my bundles with
me, and received the answer: "I am doing too much for you as it is. No
_gendarme_ is supposed to carry a prisoner's baggage."

I said then: "I'm too tired."

He responded: "You can leave here anything you don't care to carry
further; I'll take care of it."

I looked at the _gendarme_. I looked several blocks through him. My lip
did something like a sneer. My hands did something like fists.

At this crisis along comes a little boy. May God bless all males between
seven and ten years of age in France!

The _gendarme_ offered a suggestion, in these words: "Have you any change
about you?" He knew, of course, that the sanitary official's first act
had been to deprive me of every last cent. The _gendarme's_ eyes were
fine. They reminded me of ... never mind. "If you have change," said he,
"you might hire this kid to carry some of your baggage." Then he lit a
pipe which was made in his own image, and smiled fattily.

But herein the v-f-g had bust his milk-jug. There is a slit of a pocket
made in the uniform of his criminal on the right side, and completely
covered by the belt which his criminal always wears. His criminal had
thus outwitted the gumshoe fraternity.

The _gosse_ could scarcely balance my smaller parcel, but managed after
three rests to get it to the station platform; here I tipped him
something like two cents (all I had) which, with dollar-big eyes, he took
and ran.

A strongly-built, groomed _apache_ smelling of cologne and onions greeted
my v-f-g with that affection which is peculiar to _gendarmes_. On me he
stared cynically, then sneered frankly.

With a little tooty shriek the funny train tottered in. My captors had
taken pains to place themselves at the wrong end of the platform. Now
they encouraged me to HurryHurryHurry.

I managed to get under the load and tottered the length of the train to a
car especially reserved. There was one other criminal, a
beautifully-smiling, shortish man, with a very fine blanket wrapped in a
water-proof oilskin cover. We grinned at each other (the most cordial
salutation, by the way, that I have ever exchanged with a human being)
and sat down opposite one another--he, plus my baggage which he helped me
lift in, occupying one seat; the _gendarme_-sandwich, of which I formed
the _pièce de résistance_, the other.

The engine got under way after several feints; which pleased the Germans
so that they sent several scout planes right over the station, train, us
_et tout_. All the French anticraft guns went off together for the sake
of sympathy; the guardians of the peace squinted cautiously from their
respective windows, and then began a debate on the number of the enemy
while their prisoners smiled at each other appreciatively.

"_Il fait chaud_," said this divine man, prisoner, criminal, or what not,
as he offered me a glass of wine in the form of a huge tin cup overflowed
from the canteen in his slightly unsteady and delicately made hand. He is
a Belgian. Volunteered at beginning of war. Permission at Paris,
overstayed by one day. When he reported to his officer, the latter
announced that he was a deserter--I said to him, "It is funny. It is
funny I should have come back, of my own free will, to my company. I
should have thought that being a deserter I would have preferred to
remain in Paris." The wine was terribly cold, and I thanked my divine
host.

Never have I tasted such wine.

They had given me a chunk of war-bread in place of blessing when I left
Noyon. I bit into it with renewed might. But the divine man across from
me immediately produced a sausage, half of which he laid simply upon my
knee. The halving was done with a large keen poilu's knife.

I have not tasted a sausage since.

The pigs on my either hand had by this time overcome their respective
inertias and were chomping cheek-murdering chunks. They had quite a
layout, a regular picnic-lunch elaborate enough for kings or even
presidents. The v-f-g in particular annoyed me by uttering alternate
chompings and belchings. All the time he ate he kept his eyes half-shut;
and a mist overspread the sensual meadows of his coarse face.

His two reddish eyes rolled devouringly toward the blanket in its
waterproof roll. After a huge gulp of wine he said thickly (for his huge
moustache was crusted with saliva-tinted half-moistened shreds of food),
"You will have no use for that _machine là-bas_. They are going to take
everything away from you when you get there, you know. I could use it
nicely. I have wanted such a piece of rubber for a great while, in order
to make me a raincoat. Do you see?" (Gulp. Swallow.)

Here I had an inspiration. I would save the blanket-cover by drawing
these brigands' attention to myself. At the same time I would satisfy my
inborn taste for the ridiculous. "Have you a pencil?" I said. "Because I
am an artist in my own country, and will do your picture."

He gave me a pencil. I don't remember where the paper came from. I posed
him in a pig-like position, and the picture made him chew his moustache.
The apache thought it very droll. I should do his picture, too, at once.
I did my best; though protesting that he was too beautiful for my pencil,
which remark he countered by murmuring (as he screwed his moustache
another notch), "Never mind, you will try." Oh, yes, I would try all
right, all right. He objected, I recall, to the nose.

By this time the divine "deserter" was writhing with joy. "If you please,
Monsieur," he whispered radiantly, "it would be too great an honor, but
if you could--I should be overcome...."

Tears (for some strange reason) came into my eyes.

He handled his picture sacredly, criticised it with precision and care,
finally bestowed it in his inner pocket. Then we drank. It happened that
the train stopped and the _apache_ was persuaded to go out and get his
prisoner's canteen filled. Then we drank again.

He smiled as he told me he was getting ten years. Three years at solitary
confinement was it, and seven working in a gang on the road? That would
not be so bad. He wished he was not married, had not a little child. "The
bachelors are lucky in this war"--he smiled.

Now the gendarmes began cleaning their beards, brushing their stomachs,
spreading their legs, collecting their baggage. The reddish eyes, little
and cruel, woke from the trance of digestion and settled with positive
ferocity on their prey. "You will have no use...."

Silently the sensitive, gentle hands of the divine prisoner undid the
blanket-cover. Silently the long, tired, well-shaped arms passed it
across to the brigand at my left side. With a grunt of satisfaction the
brigand stuffed it in a large pouch, taking pains that it should not
show. Silently the divine eyes said to mine: "What can we do, we
criminals?" And we smiled at each other for the last time, the eyes and
my eyes.

A station. The _apache_ descends. I follow with my numerous _affaires_.
The divine man follows me--the v-f-g him.

The blanket-roll containing my large fur-coat got more and more unrolled;
finally I could not possibly hold it.

It fell. To pick it up I must take the sack off my back.

Then comes a voice, "allow me if you please, monsieur"--and the sack has
disappeared. Blindly and dumbly I stumble on with the roll; and so at
length we come into the yard of a little prison; and the divine man bowed
under my great sack.... I never thanked him. When I turned, they'd taken
him away, and the sack stood accusingly at my feet.

Through the complete disorder of my numbed mind flicker jabbings of
strange tongues. Some high boy's voice is appealing to me in Belgian,
Italian, Polish, Spanish and--beautiful English. "Hey, Jack, give me a
cigarette, Jack...."

I lift my eyes. I am standing in a tiny oblong space. A sort of court.
All around, two-story wooden barracks. Little crude staircases lead up to
doors heavily chained and immensely padlocked. More like ladders than
stairs. Curious hewn windows, smaller in proportion than the slits in a
doll's house. Are these faces behind the slits? The doors bulge
incessantly under the shock of bodies hurled against them from within.
The whole dirty _nouveau_ business about to crumble.

Glance one.

Glance two: directly before me. A wall with many bars fixed across one
minute opening. At the opening a dozen, fifteen, grins. Upon the bars
hands, scraggy and bluishly white. Through the bars stretching of lean
arms, incessant stretchings. The grins leap at the window, hands
belonging to them catch hold, arms belonging to the hands stretch in my
direction ... an instant; the new grins leap from behind and knock off
the first grins which go down with a fragile crashing like glass smashed:
hands wither and break, arms streak out of sight, sucked inward.

In the huge potpourri of misery a central figure clung, shaken but
undislodged. Clung like a monkey to central bars. Clung like an angel to
a harp. Calling pleasantly in a high boyish voice: "O Jack, give me a
cigarette."

A handsome face, dark, Latin smile, musical fingers strong.

I waded suddenly through a group of gendarmes (they stood around me
watching with a disagreeable curiosity my reaction to this). Strode
fiercely to the window.

Trillions of hands.

Quadrillions of itching fingers.

The angel-monkey received the package of cigarettes politely,
disappearing with it into howling darkness. I heard his high boy's voice
distributing cigarettes. Then he leaped into sight, poised gracefully
against two central bars, saying "Thank you, Jack, good boy" ... "Thanks,
_merci_, _gracias_ ..." a deafening din of gratitude reeked from within.

"Put your baggage in here," quoth an angry voice. "No, you will not take
anything but one blanket in your cell, understand." In French. Evidently
the head of the house speaking. I obeyed. A corpulent soldier importantly
lead me to my cell. My cell is two doors away from the monkey-angel, on
the same side. The high boy-voice, centralized in a torrent-like halo of
stretchings, followed my back. The head himself unlocked a lock. I
marched coldly in. The fat soldier locked and chained my door. Four feet
went away. I felt in my pocket, finding four cigarettes. I am sorry I did
not give these also to the monkey--to the angel. Lifted my eyes and saw
my own harp.



III

A PILGRIM'S PROGRESS

Through the bars I looked into that little and dirty lane whereby I had
entered; in which a sentinel, gun on shoulder, and with a huge revolver
strapped at his hip, monotonously moved. On my right was an old wall
overwhelmed with moss. A few growths stemmed from its crevices. Their
leaves were of a refreshing colour. I felt singularly happy, and
carefully throwing myself on the bare planks sang one after another all
the French songs which I had picked up in my stay at the ambulance; sang
La Madelon, sang AVec avEC DU, and Les Galiots Sont Lourds Dans
Sac--concluding with an inspired rendering of La Marseillaise, at which
the guard (who had several times stopped his round in what I choose to
interpret as astonishment) grounded arms and swore appreciatively.
Various officials of the jail passed by me and my lusty songs; I cared no
whit. Two or three conferred, pointing in my direction, and I sang a
little louder for the benefit of their perplexity. Finally out of voice I
stopped.

It was twilight.

As I lay on my back luxuriously, I saw through the bars of my twice
padlocked door a boy and a girl about ten years old. I saw them climb on
the wall and play together, obliviously and exquisitely, in the darkening
air. I watched them for many minutes; till the last moment of light
failed; till they and the wall itself dissolved in a common mystery,
leaving only the bored silhouette of the soldier moving imperceptibly and
wearily against a still more gloomy piece of autumn sky.

At last I knew that I was very thirsty; and leaping up began to clamor at
my bars. "Something to drink, please." After a long debate with the
sergeant of guards who said very angrily: "Give it to him," a guard took
my request and disappeared from view, returning with a more heavily armed
guard and a tin cup full of water. One of these gentry watched the water
and me, while the other wrestled with the padlock. The door being
minutely opened, one guard and the water painfully entered. The other
guard remained at the door, gun in readiness. The water was set down, and
the enterer assumed a perpendicular position which I thought merited
recognition; accordingly I said "_Merci_" politely, without getting up
from the planks. Immediately he began to deliver a sharp lecture on the
probability of my using the tin cup to saw my way out; and commended
haste in no doubtful terms. I smiled, asked pardon for my inherent
stupidity (which speech seemed to anger him) and guzzled the so-called
water without looking at it, having learned something from Noyon. With a
long and dangerous look at their prisoner, the gentlemen of the guard
withdrew, using inconceivable caution in the relocking of the door.

I laughed and fell asleep.

After (as I judged) four minutes of slumber, I was awakened by at least
six men standing over me. The darkness was intense, it was
extraordinarily cold. I glared at them and tried to understand what new
crime I had committed. One of the six was repeating: "Get up, you are
going away. Four o'clock." After several attempts I got up. They formed a
circle around me; and together we marched a few steps to a sort of
storeroom, where my great sack, small sack, and overcoat were handed to
me. A rather agreeably voiced guard then handed me a half-cake of
chocolate, saying (but with a tolerable grimness): "You'll need it,
believe me." I found my stick, at which "piece of furniture" they amused
themselves a little until I showed its use, by catching the ring at the
mouth of my sack in the curved end of the stick and swinging the whole
business unaided on my back. Two new guards--or rather _gendarmes_--were
now officially put in charge of my person; and the three of us passed
down the lane, much to the interest of the sentinel, to whom I bade a
vivid and unreturned adieu. I can see him perfectly as he stares stupidly
at us, a queer shape in the gloom, before turning on his heel.

Toward the very station whereat some hours since I had disembarked with
the Belgian deserter and my former escorts, we moved. I was stiff with
cold and only half awake, but peculiarly thrilled. The gendarmes on
either side moved grimly, without speaking; or returning monosyllables to
my few questions. Yes, we were to take the train. I was going somewhere,
then? "_B'en sure._"--"Where?"--"You will know in time."

After a few minutes we reached the station, which I failed to recognize.
The yellow flares of lamps, huge and formless in the night mist, some
figures moving to and fro on a little platform, a rustle of conversation:
everything seemed ridiculously suppressed, beautifully abnormal,
deliciously insane. Every figure was wrapped with its individual
ghostliness; a number of ghosts each out on his own promenade, yet each
for some reason selecting this unearthly patch of the world, this
putrescent and uneasy gloom. Even my guards talked in whispers. "Watch
him, I'll see about the train." So one went off into the mist. I leaned
dizzily against the wall nearest me (having plumped down my baggage) and
stared into the darkness at my elbow, filled with talking shadows. I
recognized _officiers anglais_ wandering helplessly up and down,
supported with their sticks; French lieutenants talking to each other
here and there; the extraordinary sense-bereft station master at a
distance looking like a cross between a jumping-jack and a goblin; knots
of _permissionaires_ cursing wearily or joking hopelessly with one
another or stalking back and forth with imprecatory gesticulations. "It's
a joke, too, you know, there are no more trains?"--"The conductor is
dead. I know his sister."--"Old chap, I am all in."--"Say, we are all
lost."--"What time is it?"--"My dear fellow, there is no more time, the
French Government forbids it." Suddenly burst out of the loquacious
opacity a dozen handfuls of Algeriens, their feet swaggering with
fatigue, their eyes burning, apparently by themselves--faceless in the
equally black mist. By threes and fives they assaulted the goblin who
wailed and shook his withered fist in their faces. There was no train. It
had been taken away by the French Government. "How do I know how the
poilus can get back to their regiments on time? Of course you'll all of
you be deserters, but is it my fault?" (I thought of my friend, the
Belgian, at this moment lying in a pen at the prison which I had just
quitted by some miracle.) ... One of these fine people from uncivilized,
ignorant, unwarlike Algeria was drunk and knew it, as did two of his very
fine friends who announced that as there was no train he should have a
good sleep at a farmhouse hard by, which farmhouse one of them claimed to
espy through the impenetrable night. The drunk was accordingly escorted
into the dark, his friends' abrupt steps correcting his own large
slovenly procedure out of earshot.... Some of the Black People sat down
near me and smoked. Their enormous faces, wads of vital darkness, swooned
with fatigue. Their vast gentle hands lay noisily about their knees.

The departed _gendarme_ returned, with a bump, out of the mist. The train
for Paris would arrive _de suite_. We were just in time, our movement had
so far been very creditable. All was well. It was cold, eh?

Then with the ghastly miniature roar of an insane toy the train for Paris
came fumbling into the station....

We boarded it, due caution being taken that I should not escape. As a
matter of fact I held up the would-be passengers for nearly a minute by
my unaided attempts to boost my uncouth baggage aboard. Then my captors
and I blundered heavily into a compartment in which an Englishman and two
French women were seated. My _gendarmes_ established themselves on either
side of the door, a process which woke up the Anglo-Saxon and caused a
brief gap in the low talk of the women. Jolt--we were off.

I find myself with a _française_ on my left and an _anglais_ on my right.
The latter has already uncomprehendingly subsided into sleep. The former
(a woman of about thirty) is talking pleasantly to her friend, whom I
face. She must have been very pretty before she put on the black. Her
friend is also a _veuve_. How pleasantly they talk, of _la guerre_, of
Paris, of the bad service; talk in agreeably modulated voices, leaning a
little forward to each other, not wishing to disturb the dolt at my
right. The train tears slowly on. Both the _gendarmes_ are asleep, one
with his hand automatically grasping the handle of the door. Lest I
escape. I try all sorts of positions, for I find myself very tired. The
best is to put my cane between my legs and rest my chin on it; but even
that is uncomfortable, for the Englishman has writhed all over me by this
time and is snoring creditably. I look him over; an Etonian, as I guess.
Certain well-bred-well-fedness. Except for the position--well, _c'est la
guerre_. The women are speaking softly. "And do you know, my dear, that
they had raids again in Paris? My sister wrote me."--"One has excitement
always in a great city, my dear."--

Bump, slowing down. BUMP--BUMP.

It is light outside. One sees the world. There is a world still, the
_gouvernement français_ has not taken it away, and the air must be
beautifully cool. In the compartment it is hot. The _gendarmes_ smell
worst. I know how I smell. What polite women.

"_Enfin, nous voilà._" My guards awoke and yawned pretentiously. Lest I
should think they had dozed off. It is Paris.

Some _permissionaires_ cried "Paris." The woman across from me said
"Paris, Paris." A great shout came up from every insane drowsy brain that
had travelled with us--a fierce and beautiful cry, which went the length
of the train.... Paris, where one forgets, Paris, which is Pleasure,
Paris, in whom our souls live, Paris, the beautiful, Paris at last.

The Englishman woke up and said heavily to me: "I say, where are
we?"--"Paris," I answered, walking carefully on his feet as I made my
baggage-laden way out of the compartment. It was Paris.

My guards hurried me through the station. One of them (I saw for the
first time) was older than the other, and rather handsome with his Van
Dyck blackness of curly beard. He said that it was too early for the
_metro_, it was closed. We should take a car. It would bring us to the
other station from which our next train left. We should hurry. We emerged
from the station and its crowds of crazy men. We boarded a car marked
something. The conductress, a strong, pink-cheeked, rather beautiful girl
in black, pulled my baggage in for me with a gesture which filled all of
me with joy. I thanked her, and she smiled at me. The car moved along
through the morning.

We descended from it. We started off on foot. The car was not the right
car. We would have to walk to the station. I was faint and almost dead
from weariness and I stopped when my overcoat had fallen from my benumbed
arm for the second time: "How far is it?" The older _gendarme_ returned
briefly, "Twenty minutes." I said to him: "Will you help me carry these
things?" He thought, and told the younger to carry my small sack filled
with papers. The latter grunted, "_C'est défendu._" We went a little
farther, and I broke down again. I stopped dead, and said: "I can't go
any farther." It was obvious to my escorts that I couldn't, so I didn't
trouble to elucidate. Moreover, I was past elucidation.

The older stroked his beard. "Well," he said, "would you care to take a
cab?" I merely looked at him. "If you wish to call a cab, I will take out
of your money, which I have here and which I must not give to you, the
necessary sum, and make a note of it, subtracting from the original
amount a sufficiency for our fare to the Gare. In that case we will not
walk to the Gare, we will in fact ride." "Please," was all I found to
reply to this eloquence.

Several empty cabs had gone by during the peroration of the law, and no
more seemed to offer themselves. After some minutes, however, one
appeared and was duly hailed. Nervously (he was shy in the big city) the
older asked if the driver knew where the Gare was. "_Quelle?_" demanded
the _cocher_ angrily. And when he was told--"Of course, I know, why not?"
We got in; I being directed to sit in the middle, and my two bags and fur
coat piled on top of us all.

So we drove through the streets in the freshness of the full morning, the
streets full of a few divine people who stared at me and nudged one
another, the streets of Paris ... the drowsy ways wakening at the horses'
hoofs, the people lifting their faces to stare.

We arrived at the Gare, and I recognized it vaguely. Was it D'Orléans? We
dismounted, and the tremendous transaction of the fare was apparently
very creditably accomplished by the older. The _cocher_ gave me a look
and remarked whatever it is Paris drivers remark to Paris cab horses,
pulling dully at the reins. We entered the station and I collapsed
comfortably on a bench; the younger, seating himself with enormous
pomposity at my side, adjusted his tunic with a purely feminine gesture
expressive at once of pride and nervousness. Gradually my vision gained
in focus. The station has a good many people in it. The number increases
momently. A great many are girls. I am in a new world--a world of _chic_
femininity. My eyes devour the inimitable details of costume, the
inexpressible nuances of pose, the indescribable _démarche_ of the
_midinette_. They hold themselves differently. They have even a little
bold color here and there on skirt or blouse or hat. They are not talking
about La Guerre. Incredible. They appear very beautiful, these
Parisiennes.

And simultaneously with my appreciation of the crisp persons about me
comes the hitherto unacknowledged appreciation of my uncouthness. My chin
tells my hand of a good quarter inch of beard, every hair of it stiff
with dirt. I can feel the dirt-pools under my eyes. My hands are rough
with dirt. My uniform is smeared and creased in a hundred thousand
directions. My puttees and shoes are prehistoric in appearance....

My first request was permission to visit the _vespasienne_. The younger
didn't wish to assume any unnecessary responsibilities; I should wait
till the older returned. There he was now. I might ask him. The older
benignly granted my petition, nodding significantly to his fellow-guard,
by whom I was accordingly escorted to my destination and subsequently
back to my bench. When we got back the _gendarmes_ held a consultation of
terrific importance; in substance, the train which should be leaving at
that moment (six something) did not run to-day. We should therefore wait
for the next train, which leaves at twelve-something-else. Then the older
surveyed me and said almost kindly: "How would you like a cup of
coffee?"--"Much," I replied sincerely enough.--"Come with me," he
commanded, resuming instantly his official manner. "And you" (to the
younger) "watch his baggage."

Of all the very beautiful women whom I had seen the most very beautiful
was the large and circular lady who sold a cup of perfectly hot and
genuine coffee for two cents, just on the brink of the station, chatting
cheerfully with her many customers. Of all the drinks I ever drank, hers
was the most sacredly delicious. She wore, I remember, a tight black
dress in which enormous and benignant breasts bulged and sank
continuously. I lingered over my tiny cup, watching her swift big hands,
her round nodding face, her large sudden smile. I drank two coffees, and
insisted that my money should pay for our drinks. Of all the treating
which I shall ever do, the treating of my captor will stand unique in
pleasure. Even he half appreciated the sense of humor involved; though
his dignity did not permit a visible acknowledgment thereof.

_Madame la vendeuse de café_, I shall remember you for more than a little
while.

Having thus consummated breakfast, my guardian suggested a walk. Agreed.
I felt I had the strength of ten because the coffee was pure. Moreover it
would be a novelty to _me promener sans_ l50-odd pounds of baggage. We
set out.

As we walked easily and leisurely the by this time well peopled streets
of the vicinity, my guard indulged himself in pleasant conversation. Did
I know Paris much? He knew it all. But he had not been in Paris for
several (eight was it?) years. It was a fine place, a large city to be
sure. But always changing. I had spent a month in Paris while waiting for
my uniform and my assignment to a _section sanitaire_? And my friend was
with me? H-mmm-mm.

A perfectly typical runt of a Paris bull eyed us. The older saluted him
with infinite respect, the respect of a shabby rube deacon for a
well-dressed burglar. They exchanged a few well-chosen words, in French
of course. "What ya got there?"--"An American."--"What's wrong with
him?"--"H-mmm" mysterious shrug of the shoulders followed by a whisper in
the ear of the city thug. The latter contented himself with
"Ha-aaa"--plus a look at me which was meant to wipe me off the earth's
face (I pretended to be studying the morning meanwhile). Then we moved
on, followed by ferocious stares from the Paris bull. Evidently I was
getting to be more of a criminal every minute; I should probably be shot
to-morrow, not (as I had assumed erroneously) the day after. I drank the
morning with renewed vigor, thanking heaven for the coffee, Paris; and
feeling complete confidence in myself. I should make a great speech (in
Midi French). I should say to the firing squad: "Gentlemen, _c'est de la
blague, tu sais? Moi, je connais la soeur du conducteur._" ... They would
ask me when I preferred to die. I should reply, "Pardon me, you wish to
ask me when I prefer to become immortal?" I should answer: "What matter?
It's all the same to me, because there isn't any more time--the French
Government forbids it."

My laughter surprised the older considerably. He would have been more
astonished had I yielded to the well-nigh irrepressible inclination,
which at the moment suffused me, to clap him heartily upon the back.

Everything was _blague_. The driver, the café, the police, the morning,
and least and last the excellent French Government.

We had walked for a half hour or more. My guide and protector now
inquired of a workingman the location of the _boucheries_? "There is one
right in front of you," he was told. Sure enough, not a block away. I
laughed again. It was eight years all right.

The older bought a great many things in the next five minutes: sausage,
cheese, bread, chocolate, _pinard rouge_. A _bourgeoise_ with an
unagreeable face and suspicion of me written in headlines all over her
mouth served us with quick hard laconicisms of movement. I hated her and
consequently refused my captor's advice to buy a little of everything (on
the ground that it would be a long time till the next meal), contenting
myself with a cake of chocolate--rather bad chocolate, but nothing to
what I was due to eat during the next three months. Then we retraced our
steps, arriving at the station after several mistakes and inquiries, to
find the younger faithfully keeping guard over my two _sacs_ and
overcoat.

The older and I sat down, and the younger took his turn at promenading. I
got up to buy a Fantasio at the stand ten steps away, and the older
jumped up and escorted me to and from it. I think I asked him what he
would read? and he said "Nothing." Maybe I bought him a journal. So we
waited, eyed by everyone in the Gare, laughed at by the officers and
their _marraines_, pointed at by sinewy dames and decrepit
_bonhommes_--the centre of amusement for the whole station. In spite of
my reading I felt distinctly uncomfortable. Would it never be Twelve?
Here comes the younger, neat as a pin, looking fairly sterilized. He sits
down on my left. Watches are ostentatiously consulted. It is time. _En
avant._ I sling myself under my bags.

"Where are we going now?" I asked the older. Curling the tips of his
mustachios, he replied, "Mah-say."

Marseilles! I was happy once more. I had always wanted to go to that
great port of the Mediterranean, where one has new colors and strange
customs, and where the people sing when they talk. But how extraordinary
to have come to Paris--and what a trip lay before us. I was much muddled
about the whole thing. Probably I was to be deported. But why from
Marseilles? Where was Marseilles anyway? I was probably all wrong about
its location. Who cared, after all? At least we were leaving the
pointings and the sneers and the half-suppressed titters....

Two fat and respectable _bonhommes_, the two _gendarmes_, and I, made up
one compartment. The former talked an animated stream, the guards and I
were on the whole silent. I watched the liquidating landscape and dozed
happily. The _gendarmes_ dozed, one at each door. The train rushed lazily
across the earth, between farmhouses, into fields, along woods ... the
sunlight smacked my eye and cuffed my sleepy mind with colour.

I was awakened by a noise of eating. My protectors, knife in hand, were
consuming their meat and bread, occasionally tilting their _bidons_ on
high and absorbing the thin streams which spurted therefrom. I tried a
little chocolate. The _bonhommes_ were already busy with their repast.
The older gendarme watched me chewing away at the chocolate, then
commanded, "Take some bread." This astonished me, I confessed, beyond
anything which had heretofore occurred. I gazed mutely at him, wondering
whether the _gouvernement français_ had made away with his wits. He had
relaxed amazingly: his cap lay beside him, his tunic was unbuttoned, he
slouched in a completely undisciplined posture--his face seemed to have
been changed for a peasant's, it was almost open in expression and almost
completely at ease. I seized the offered hunk, and chewed vigorously on
it. Bread was bread. The older appeared pleased with my appetite; his
face softened still more, as he remarked: "Bread without wine doesn't
taste good," and proffered his _bidon_. I drank as much as I dared, and
thanked him: "_Ca va mieux._" The _pinard_ went straight to my brain, I
felt my mind cuddled by a pleasant warmth, my thoughts became invested
with a great contentment. The train stopped; and the younger sprang out,
carrying the empty canteens of himself and his comrade. When they and he
returned, I enjoyed another cup. From that moment till we reached our
destination at about eight o'clock the older and I got on extraordinarily
well. When the gentlemen descended at their station he waxed almost
familiar. I was in excellent spirits; rather drunk; extremely tired. Now
that the two guardians and myself were alone in the compartment, the
curiosity which had hitherto been stifled by etiquette and pride of
capture came rapidly to light. Why was I here, anyway? I seemed well
enough to them.--Because my friend had written some letters, I told
them.--But I had done nothing myself?--I explained that we used to be
together all the time, _mon ami et moi_; that was the only reason which I
knew of.--It was very funny to see how this explanation improved matters.
The older in particular was immensely relieved.--I would without doubt,
he said, be set free immediately upon my arrival. The French government
didn't keep people like me in prison.--They fired some questions about
America at me, to which I imaginatively replied. I think I told the
younger that the average height of buildings in America was nine hundred
metres. He stared and shook his head doubtfully, but I convinced him in
the end. Then in my turn I asked questions, the first being: Where was my
friend?--It seems that my friend had left Gré (or whatever it was) the
morning of the day I had entered it.--Did they know where my friend was
going?--They couldn't say. They had been told that he was very
dangerous.--So we talked on and on: How long had I studied French? I
spoke very well. Was it hard to learn English?--

Yet when I climbed out to relieve myself by the roadside one of them was
at my heels.

Finally watches were consulted, tunics buttoned, hats donned. I was told
in a gruff voice to prepare myself; that we were approaching the end of
our journey. Looking at the erstwhile participants in conversation, I
scarcely knew them. They had put on with their caps a positive ferocity
of bearing. I began to think that I had dreamed the incidents of the
preceding hours.

We descended at a minute, dirty station which possessed the air of having
been dropped by mistake from the bung of the _gouvernement français_. The
older sought out the station master, who having nothing to do was taking
a siesta in a miniature waiting-room. The general countenance of the
place was exceedingly depressing; but I attempted to keep up my spirits
with the reflection that after all all this was but a junction, and that
from here we were to take a train for Marseilles herself. The name of the
station, Briouse, I found somewhat dreary. And now the older returned
with the news that our train wasn't running today, and that the next
train didn't arrive till early morning and should we walk to Marseilles?
I could check my great _sac_ and overcoat. The small _sac_ I should carry
along--it was only a step, after all.

With a glance at the desolation of Briouse I agreed to the stroll. It was
a fine night for a little promenade; not too cool, and with a promise of
a moon stuck into the sky. The _sac_ and coat were accordingly checked by
the older; the station master glanced at me and haughtily grunted (having
learned that I was an American); and my protectors and I set out.

I insisted that we stop at the first café and have some wine on me. To
this my escorts agreed, making me go ten paces ahead of them, and waiting
until I was through before stepping up to the bar--not from politeness,
to be sure, but because (as I soon gathered) _gendarmes_ were not any too
popular in this part of the world, and the sight of two _gendarmes_ with
a prisoner might inspire the habitués to attempt a rescue. Furthermore,
on leaving the café (a desolate place if I ever saw one, with a fearful
_patronne_) I was instructed sharply to keep close to them but on no
account to place myself between them, there being sundry villagers to be
encountered before we struck the highroad for Marseilles. Thanks to their
forethought and my obedience the rescue did not take place, nor did our
party excite even the curiosity of the scarce and soggy inhabitants of
the unlovely town of Briouse.

The highroad won, all of us relaxed considerably. The _sac_ full of
suspicious letters which I bore on my shoulder was not so light as I had
thought, but the kick of the Briouse _pinard_ thrust me forward at a good
clip. The road was absolutely deserted; the night hung loosely around it,
here and there tattered by attempting moonbeams. I was somewhat sorry to
find the way hilly, and in places bad underfoot; yet the unknown
adventure lying before me, and the delicious silence of the night (in
which our words rattled queerly like tin soldiers in a plush-lined box)
boosted me into a condition of mysterious happiness. We talked, the older
and I, of strange subjects. As I suspected, he had been not always a
_gendarme_. He had seen service among the Arabs. He had always liked
languages and had picked up Arabian with great ease--of this he was very
proud. For instance--the Arabian way of saying "Give me to eat" was this;
when you wanted wine you said so and so; "Nice day" was something else.
He thought I could pick it up inasmuch as I had done so creditably with
French. He was absolutely certain that English was much easier to learn
than French, and would not be moved. Now what was the American language
like? I explained that it was a sort of Argot-English. When I gave him
some phrases he was astonished--"It sounds like English!" he cried, and
retailed his stock of English phrases for my approval. I tried hard to
get his intonation of the Arabian, and he helped me on the difficult
sounds. America must be a strange place, he thought....

After two hours walking he called a halt, bidding us rest. We all lay
flat on the grass by the roadside. The moon was still battling with
clouds. The darkness of the fields on either side was total. I crawled on
hands and knees to the sound of silver-trickling water and found a little
spring-fed stream. Prone, weight on elbows, I drank heavily of its
perfect blackness. It was icy, talkative, minutely alive.

The older presently gave a perfunctory "_alors_"; we got up; I hoisted my
suspicious utterances upon my shoulder, which recognized the renewal of
hostilities with a neuralgic throb. I banged forward with bigger and
bigger feet. A bird, scared, swooped almost into my face. Occasionally
some night-noise pricked a futile, minute hole in the enormous curtain of
soggy darkness. Uphill now. Every muscle thoroughly aching, head
spinning, I half-straightened my no longer obedient body; and jumped:
face to face with a little wooden man hanging all by itself in a grove of
low trees.

--The wooden body, clumsy with pain, burst into fragile legs with
absurdly large feet and funny writhing toes; its little stiff arms made
abrupt cruel equal angles with the road. About its stunted loins clung a
ponderous and jocular fragment of drapery. On one terribly brittle
shoulder the droll lump of its neckless head ridiculously lived. There
was in this complete silent doll a gruesome truth of instinct, a success
of uncanny poignancy, an unearthly ferocity of rectangular emotion.

For perhaps a minute the almost obliterated face and mine eyed one
another in the silence of intolerable autumn.

Who was this wooden man? Like a sharp black mechanical cry in the spongy
organism of gloom stood the coarse and sudden sculpture of his torment;
the big mouth of night carefully spurted the angular actual language of
his martyred body. I had seen him before in the dream of some mediaeval
saint, with a thief sagging at either side, surrounded with crisp angels.
Tonight he was alone; save for myself, and the moon's minute flower
pushing between slabs of fractured cloud.

I was wrong, the moon and I and he were not alone.... A glance up the
road gave me two silhouettes at pause. The _gendarmes_ were waiting. I
must hurry to catch up or incur suspicions by my sloth. I hastened
forward, with a last look over my shoulder ... the wooden man was
watching us.

When I came abreast of them, expecting abuse, I was surprised by the
older's saying quietly "We haven't far to go," and plunging forward
imperturbably into the night.

Nor had we gone a half hour before several dark squat forms confronted
us: houses. I decided that I did not like houses--particularly as now my
guardian's manner abruptly changed; once more tunics were buttoned,
holsters adjusted, and myself directed to walk between and keep always up
with the others. Now the road became thoroughly afflicted with houses,
houses not, however, so large and lively as I had expected from my dreams
of Marseilles. Indeed we seemed to be entering an extremely small and
rather disagreeable town. I ventured to ask what its name was. "Mah-say"
was the response. By this I was fairly puzzled. However the street led us
to a square, and I saw the towers of a church sitting in the sky; between
them the round, yellow, big moon looked immensely and peacefully
conscious ... no one was stirring in the little streets, all the houses
were keeping the moon's secret.

We walked on.

I was too tired to think. I merely felt the town as a unique unreality.
What was it? I knew--the moon's picture of a town. These streets with
their houses did not exist, they were but a ludicrous projection of the
moon's sumptuous personality. This was a city of Pretend, created by the
hypnotism of moonlight.--Yet when I examined the moon she too seemed but
a painting of a moon and the sky in which she lived a fragile echo of
colour. If I blew hard the whole shy mechanism would collapse gently with
a neat soundless crash. I must not, or lose all.

We turned a corner, then another. My guides conferred concerning the
location of something, I couldn't make out what. Then the older nodded in
the direction of a long dull dirty mass not a hundred yards away, which
(as near as I could see) served either as a church or a tomb. Toward this
we turned. All too soon I made out its entirely dismal exterior. Grey
long stone walls, surrounded on the street side by a fence of ample
proportions and uniformly dull colour. Now I perceived that we made
toward a gate, singularly narrow and forbidding, in the grey long wall.
No living soul appeared to inhabit this desolation.

The older rang at the gate. A _gendarme_ with a revolver answered his
ring; and presently he was admitted, leaving the younger and myself to
wait. And now I began to realize that this was the _gendarmerie_ of the
town, into which for safe-keeping I was presently to be inducted for the
night. My heart sank, I confess, at the thought of sleeping in the
company of that species of humanity which I had come to detest beyond
anything in hell or on earth. Meanwhile the doorman had returned with the
older, and I was bidden roughly enough to pick up my baggage and march. I
followed my guides down a corridor, up a staircase, and into a dark,
small room where a candle was burning. Dazzled by the light and dizzied
by the fatigue of my ten or twelve mile stroll, I let my baggage go; and
leaned against a convenient wall, trying to determine who was now my
tormentor.

Facing me at a table stood a man of about my own height, and, as I should
judge, about forty years old. His face was seedy sallow and long. He had
bushy semi-circular eyebrows which drooped so much as to reduce his eyes
to mere blinking slits. His cheeks were so furrowed that they leaned
inward. He had no nose, properly speaking, but a large beak of
preposterous widthlessness, which gave his whole face the expression of
falling gravely downstairs, and quite obliterated the unimportant chin.
His mouth was made of two long uncertain lips which twitched nervously.
His cropped black hair was rumpled; his blouse, from which hung a croix
de guerre, unbuttoned; and his unputteed shanks culminated in
bed-slippers. In physique he reminded me a little of Ichabod Crane. His
neck was exactly like a hen's: I felt sure that when he drank he must
tilt his head back as hens do in order that the liquid may run their
throats. But his method of keeping himself upright, together with certain
spasmodic contractions of his fingers and the nervous "uh-ah, uh-ah"
which punctuated his insecure phrases like uncertain commas, combined to
offer the suggestion of a rooster; a rather moth-eaten rooster, which
took itself tremendously seriously and was showing off to an imaginary
group of admiring hens situated somewhere in the background of his
consciousness.

"_Vous êtes, uh-ah, l'Am-é-ri-cain?_"

"_Je suis Américain_," I admitted.

"_Eh-bi-en uh-ah uh-ah_--We were expecting you." He surveyed me with
great interest.

Behind this seedy and restless personage I noted his absolute likeness,
adorning one of the walls. The rooster was faithfully depicted à la
Rembrandt at half-length in the stirring guise of a fencer, foil in hand,
and wearing enormous gloves. The execution of this masterpiece left
something to be desired; but the whole betokened a certain spirit and
verve, on the part of the sitter, which I found difficulty in attributing
to the being before me.

"_Vous êtes uh-ah KEW-MANGZ?_"

"What?" I said, completely baffled by this extraordinary dissyllable.

"_Comprenez vous fran-çais?_"

"_Un peu._"

"_Bon. Alors, vous vous ap-pel-lez KEW MANGZ, m'est-ce pas? Edouard
KEW-MANGZ?_"

"Oh," I said, relieved, "yes." It was really amazing, the way he writhed
around the G.

"_Comment ça se prononce en anglais?_"

I told him.

He replied benevolently, somewhat troubled "uh-ah uh-ah uh-ah--why are
you here, KEW-MANGZ?"

At this question I was for one moment angrier than I had ever before been
in all my life. Then I realized the absurdity of the situation, and
laughed.--"_Sais pas_."

The questionnaire continued:

"You were in the Red Cross?"--"Surely, in the Norton Harjes
Ambulance, Section Sanitaire Vingt-et-Un."--"You had a friend
there?"--"Naturally."--"_Il a écrit, votre ami, des bêtises, n'est ce
pas?_"--"So they told me. _N'en sais rien._"--"What sort of person was
your friend?"--"He was a magnificent person, always _très gentil_ with
me."--(With a queer pucker the fencer remarked) "Your friend got you into
a lot of trouble, though."--(To which I replied with a broad grin)
"_N'importe_, we are _camarades_."

A stream of puzzled uh-ahs followed this reply. The fencer, or rooster or
whatever he might be, finally, picking up the lamp and the lock, said:
"_Alors, viens avec moi, KEW-MANGZ._" I started to pick up the _sac_, but
he told me it would be kept in the office (we being in the office). I
said I had checked a large _sac_ and my fur overcoat at Briouse, and he
assured me they would be sent on by train. He now dismissed the
_gendarmes_, who had been listening curiously to the examination. As I
was conducted from the bureau I asked him point-blank: "How long am I to
stay here?"--to which he answered "_Oh, peutêtre un jour, deux jours, je
ne sais pas._"

Two days in a _gendarmerie_ would be enough, I thought. We marched out.

Behind me the bedslippered rooster uhahingly shuffled. In front of me
clumsily gamboled the huge imitation of myself. It descended the terribly
worn stairs. It turned to the right and disappeared....

We were standing in a chapel.

The shrinking light which my guide held had become suddenly minute; it
was beating, senseless and futile, with shrill fists upon a thick
enormous moisture of gloom. To the left and right through lean oblongs of
stained glass burst dirty burglars of moonlight. The clammy stupid
distance uttered dimly an uncanny conflict--the mutterless tumbling of
brutish shadows. A crowding ooze battled with my lungs. My nostrils
fought against the monstrous atmospheric slime which hugged a sweet
unpleasant odour. Staring ahead, I gradually disinterred the pale carrion
of the darkness--an altar, guarded with the ugliness of unlit candles, on
which stood inexorably the efficient implements for eating God.

I was to be confessed, then, of my guilty conscience, before retiring? It
boded well for the morrow.

... the measured accents of the fencer: "_Prenez votre paillasse._" I
turned. He was bending over a formless mass in one corner of the room.
The mass stretched halfway to the ceiling. It was made of
mattress-shapes. I pulled at one--burlap, stuffed with prickly straw. I
got it on my shoulder. "_Alors._" He lighted me to the door-way by which
we had entered. (I was somewhat pleased to leave the place.)

Back, down a corridor, up more stairs; and we were confronted by a small
scarred pair of doors from which hung two of the largest padlocks I had
ever seen. Being unable to go further, I stopped: he produced a huge ring
of keys. Fumbled with the locks. No sound of life: the keys rattled in
the locks with surprising loudness; the latter, with an evil grace,
yielded--the two little miserable doors swung open.

Into the square blackness I staggered with my _paillasse_. There was no
way of judging the size of the dark room which uttered no sound. In front
of me was a pillar. "Put it down by that post, and sleep there for
tonight, in the morning _nous allons voir_" directed the fencer. "You
won't need a blanket," he added; and the doors clanged, the light and
fencer disappeared.

I needed no second invitation to sleep. Fully dressed, I fell on my
_paillasse_ with a weariness which I have never felt before or since. But
I did not close my eyes: for all about me there rose a sea of most
extraordinary sound... the hitherto empty and minute room became suddenly
enormous: weird cries, oaths, laughter, pulling it sideways and backward,
extending it to inconceivable depth and width, telescoping it to
frightful nearness. From all directions, by at least thirty voices in
eleven languages (I counted as I lay Dutch, Belgian, Spanish, Turkish,
Arabian, Polish, Russian, Swedish, German, French--and English) at
distances varying from seventy feet to a few inches, for twenty minutes I
was ferociously bombarded. Nor was my perplexity purely aural. About five
minutes after lying down, I saw (by a hitherto unnoticed speck of light
which burned near the doors which I had entered) two extraordinary
looking figures--one a well-set man with a big, black beard, the other a
consumptive with a bald head and sickly moustache, both clad only in
their knee-length chemises, hairy legs naked, feet bare--wander down the
room and urinate profusely in the corner nearest me. This act
accomplished, the figures wandered back, greeted with a volley of
ejaculatory abuse from the invisible co-occupants of my new
sleeping-apartment; and disappeared in darkness.

I remarked to myself that the _gendarmes_ of this _gendarmerie_ were
peculiarly up in languages, and fell asleep.



IV

LE NOUVEAU

_"Vous ne voulez pas de café?"_

The threatening question recited in a hoarse voice woke me like a shot.
Sprawled half on and half off my _paillasse_, I looked suddenly up into a
juvenile pimply face with a red tassel bobbing in its eyes. A boy in a
Belgian uniform was stooping over me. In one hand a huge pail a third
full of liquid slime. I said fiercely: "_Au contraire, je veux bien._"
And collapsed on the mattress.

"_Pas de quart, vous?_" the face fired at me.

"_Comprends pas_," I replied, wondering what on earth the words meant.

"English?"

"American."

At this moment a tin cup appeared mysteriously out of the gloom and was
rapidly filled from the pail, after which operation the tassel remarked:
"Your friend here" and disappeared.


I decided I had gone completely crazy.

The cup had been deposited near me. Not daring to approach it, I boosted
my aching corpse on one of its futile elbows and gazed blankly around. My
eyes, wading laboriously through a dark atmosphere, a darkness gruesomely
tactile, perceived only here and there lively patches of vibrating
humanity. My ears recognised English, something which I took to be
low-German and which was Belgian, Dutch, Polish, and what I guessed to be
Russian.

Trembling with this chaos, my hand sought the cup. The cup was not warm;
the contents, which I hastily gulped, were not even tepid. The taste was
dull, almost bitter, clinging, thick, nauseating. I felt a renewed
interest in living as soon as the deathful swallow descended to my
abdomen, very much as a suicide who changes his mind after the fatal
dose. I decided that it would be useless to vomit. I sat up. I looked
around.

The darkness was rapidly going out of the sluggish stinking air. I was
sitting on my mattress at one end of a sort of room, filled with pillars;
ecclesiastical in feeling. I already perceived it to be of enormous
length. My mattress resembled an island: all around it on the floor at
distances varying from a quarter of an inch to ten feet (which
constituted the limit of distinct vision) reposed startling identities.
There was blood in some of them. Others consisted of a rind of blueish
matter sustaining a core of yellowish froth. From behind me a chunk of
hurtling spittle joined its fellows. I decided to stand up.

At this moment, at the far end of the room, I seemed to see an
extraordinary vulture-like silhouette leap up from nowhere. It rushed a
little way in my direction crying hoarsely "_Corvée d'eau!_"--stopped,
bent down at what I perceived to be a _paillasse_ like mine, jerked what
was presumably the occupant by the feet, shook him, turned to the next,
and so on up to six. As there seemed to be innumerable _paillasses_, laid
side by side at intervals of perhaps a foot with their heads to the wall
on three sides of me, I was wondering why the vulture had stopped at six.
On each mattress a crude imitation of humanity, wrapped ear-high in its
blanket, lay and drank from a cup like mine and spat long and high into
the room. The ponderous reek of sleepy bodies undulated toward me from
three directions. I had lost sight of the vulture in a kind of insane
confusion which arose from the further end of the room. It was as if he
had touched off six high explosives. Occasional pauses in the minutely
crazy din were accurately punctuated by exploding bowels; to the great
amusement of innumerable somebodies, whose precise whereabouts the gloom
carefully guarded.

I felt that I was the focus of a group of indistinct recumbents who were
talking about me to one another in many incomprehensible tongues. I
noticed beside every pillar (including the one beside which I had
innocently thrown down my mattress the night before) a good sized pail,
overflowing with urine, and surrounded by a large irregular puddle. My
mattress was within an inch of the nearest puddle. What I took to be a
man, an amazing distance off, got out of bed and succeeded in locating
the pail nearest to him after several attempts. Ten invisible recumbents
yelled at him in six languages.

All at once a handsome figure rose from the gloom at my elbow. I smiled
stupidly into his clear hardish eyes. And he remarked pleasantly:

"Your friend's here, Johnny, and wants to see you."

A bulge of pleasure swooped along my body, chasing aches and numbness, my
muscles danced, nerves tingled in perpetual holiday.

B. was lying on his camp-cot, wrapped like an Eskimo in a blanket which
hid all but his nose and eyes.

"Hello, Cummings," he said smiling. "There's a man here who is a friend
of Vanderbilt and knew Cézanne."

I gazed somewhat critically at B. There was nothing particularly insane
about him, unless it was his enthusiastic excitement, which might almost
be attributed to my jack-in-the-box manner of arriving. He said: "There
are people here who speak English, Russian, Arabian. There are the finest
people here! Did you go to Gré? I fought rats all night there. Huge ones.
They tried to eat me. And from Gré to Paris? I had three gendarmes all
the way to keep me from escaping, and they all fell asleep."

I began to be afraid that I was asleep myself. "Please be frank," I
begged. "Strictly _entre nous_: am I dreaming, or is this a bug-house?"

B. laughed, and said: "I thought so when I arrived two days ago. When I
came in sight of the place a lot of girls waved from the window and
yelled at me. I no sooner got inside than a queer looking duck whom I
took to be a nut came rushing up to me and cried: 'Too late for
soup!'--This is Campe de Triage de la Ferté Macé, Orne, France, and all
these fine people were arrested as spies. Only two or three of them can
speak a word of French, and that's _soupe!_"

I said, "My God, I thought Marseilles was somewhere on the Mediterranean
Ocean, and that this was a _gendarmerie_."

"But this is M-a-c-é. It's a little mean town, where everybody snickers
and sneers at you if they see you're a prisoner. They did at me."

"Do you mean to say we're _espions_ too?"

"Of course!" B. said enthusiastically. "Thank God! And in to stay. Every
time I think of the _section sanitaire_, and A. and his thugs, and the
whole rotten red-taped Croix Rouge, I have to laugh. Cummings, I tell you
this is the finest place on earth!"

A vision of the Chef de la section Sanitaire Ving-et-Un passed through my
mind. The doughy face. Imitation-English-officer swagger. Large calves,
squeaking puttees. The daily lecture: "I doughno what's th'matter with
you fellers. You look like nice boys. Well-edjucated. But you're so dirty
in your habits. You boys are always kickin' because I don't put you on a
car together. I'm ashamed to do it, that's why. I doughtwanta give this
section a black eye. We gotta show these lousy Frenchmen what Americans
are. We gotta show we're superior to 'em. Those bastards doughno what a
bath means. And you fellers are always hangin' 'round, talkin' with them
dirty frog-eaters that does the cookin' and the dirty work 'round here.
How d'you boys expect me to give you a chance? I'd like to put you
fellers on a car, I wanta see you boys happy. But I don't dare to, that's
why. If you want me to send you out, you gotta shave and look neat, and
_keep away from them dirty Frenchmen_. We Americans are over here to
learn them lousy bastards something."

I laughed for sheer joy.

A terrific tumult interrupted my mirth. "_Par ici!_"--"Get out of the way
you damn Polak!"--"M'sieu, M'sieu!"--"Over here!"--"_Mais
non!_"--"_Gott-ver-dummer!_" I turned in terror to see my _paillasse_ in
the clutches of four men who were apparently rending it in as many
directions.

One was a clean-shaven youngish man with lively eyes, alert and muscular,
whom I identified as the man who had called me "Johnny." He had hold of a
corner of the mattress and was pulling against the possessor of the
opposite corner: an incoherent personage enveloped in a buffoonery of
amazing rags and patches, with a shabby head on which excited wisps of
dirty hair stood upright in excitement, and the tall, ludicrous,
extraordinary, almost noble figure of a dancing bear. A third corner of
the _paillasse_ was rudely grasped by a six-foot combination of yellow
hair, red hooligan face, and sky-blue trousers; assisted by the
undersized tasseled mucker in Belgian uniform, with a pimply rogue's mug
and unlimited impertinence of diction, who had awakened me by demanding
if I wanted coffee. Albeit completely dazed by the uncouth vocal fracas,
I realised in some manner that these hostile forces were contending, not
for the possession of the mattress, but merely for the privilege of
presenting the mattress to myself.

Before I could offer any advice on this delicate topic, a childish voice
cried emphatically beside my ear: "Put the mattress here! What are you
trying to do? There's no use destroy-ing a mat-tress!"--at the same
moment the mattress rushed with cobalt strides in my direction, propelled
by the successful efforts of the Belgian uniform and the hooligan visage,
the clean-shaven man and the incoherent bear still desperately clutching
their respective corners; and upon its arrival was seized with surprising
strength by the owner of the child's voice--a fluffy little gnome-shaped
man with a sensitive face which had suffered much--and indignantly
deposited beside B.'s bed in a space mysteriously cleared for its
reception. The gnome immediately kneeled upon it and fell to carefully
smoothing certain creases caused by the recent conflict, exclaiming
slowly syllable by syllable: "Mon Dieu. Now, that's better, you mustn't
do things like that." The clean-shaven man regarded him loftily with
folded arms, while the tassel and the trousers victoriously inquired if I
had a cigarette?--and upon receiving one apiece (also the gnome, and the
clean-shaven man, who accepted his with some dignity) sat down without
much ado on B.'s bed--which groaned ominously in protest--and hungrily
fired questions at me. The bear meanwhile, looking as if nothing had
happened, adjusted his ruffled costume with a satisfied air and (calmly
gazing into the distance) began with singularly delicate fingers to stuff
a stunted and ancient pipe with what appeared to be a mixture of wood and
manure.

I was still answering questions, when a gnarled voice suddenly
threatened, over our head: "Broom? You. Everybody. Clean. _Surveillant_
says. Not me, no?"--I started, expecting to see a parrot.

It was the silhouette.

A vulture-like figure stood before me, a demoralised broom clenched in
one claw or fist: it had lean legs cased in shabby trousers, muscular
shoulders covered with a rough shirt open at the neck, knotted arms, and
a coarse insane face crammed beneath the visor of a cap. The face
consisted of a rapid nose, droopy moustache, ferocious watery small eyes,
a pugnacious chin, and sunken cheeks hideously smiling. There was
something in the ensemble at once brutal and ridiculous, vigorous and
pathetic.

Again I had not time to speak; for the hooligan in azure trousers hurled
his butt at the bear's feet, exclaiming: "There's another for you,
Polak!"--jumped from the bed, seized the broom, and poured upon the
vulture a torrent of _Gott-ver-dummers_, to which the latter replied
copiously and in kind. Then the red face bent within a few inches of my
own, and for the first time I saw that it had recently been young--"I say
I do your sweep for you" it translated pleasantly. I thanked it; and the
vulture, exclaiming: "Good. Good. Not me. _Surveillant._ Harree does it
for everybody. Hee, hee"--rushed off, followed by Harree and the tassel.
Out of the corner of my eye I watched the tall, ludicrous, extraordinary,
almost proud figure of the bear stoop with quiet dignity, the musical
fingers close with a singular delicacy upon the moist indescribable
eighth-of-an-inch of tobacco.

I did not know that this was a Delectable Mountain....

The clean-shaven man (who appeared to have been completely won over by
his smoke), and the fluffy gnome, who had completed the arrangement of my
_paillasse_, now entered into conversation with myself and B.; the
clean-shaven one seating himself in Harree's stead, the gnome declining
(on the grounds that the bed was already sufficiently loaded) to occupy
the place left vacant by the tassel's exit, and leaning against the drab,
sweating, poisonous wall. He managed, however, to call our attention to
the shelf at B.'s head which he himself had constructed, and promised me
a similar luxury _toute de suite_. He was a Russian, and had a wife and
_gosse_ in Paris. "My name is Monsieur Au-guste, at your service"--and
his gentle pale eyes sparkled. The clean-shaven talked distinct and
absolutely perfect English. His name was Fritz. He was a Norwegian, a
stoker on a ship. "You mustn't mind that feller that wanted you to sweep.
He's crazy. They call him John the Baigneur. He used to be the bathman.
Now he's _Maître de Chambre_. They wanted me to take it--I said, 'F----
it, I don't want it.' Let him have it. That's no kind of a job, everyone
complaining and on top of you morning till night. 'Let them that wants
the job take it' I said. That crazy Dutchman's been here for two years.
They told him to get out and he wouldn't, he was too fond of the booze"
(I jumped at the slang) "and the girls. They took it away from John and
give it to that little Ree-shar feller, that doctor. That was a swell job
he had, _baigneur_, too. All the bloody liquor you can drink and a girl
every time you want one. He ain't never had a girl in his life, that
Ree-shar feller." His laughter was hard, clear, cynical. "That Pompom,
the little Belgian feller was just here, he's a great one for the girls.
He and Harree. Always getting _cabinot_. I got it twice myself since I
been here."

All this time the enormous room was filling gradually with dirty light.
In the further end six figures were brooming furiously, yelling to each
other in the dust like demons. A seventh, Harree, was loping to and fro
splashing water from a pail and enveloping everything and everybody in a
ponderous and blasphemous fog of _Gott-ver-dummers_. Along three sides
(with the exception, that is, of the nearer end, which boasted the sole
door) were laid, with their lengths at right angles to the wall, at
intervals of three or four feet, something like forty _paillasses_. On
each, with half a dozen exceptions (where the occupants had not yet
finished their coffee or were on duty for the _corvée_) lay the headless
body of a man smothered in its blanket, only the boots showing.

The demons were working towards our end of the room. Harree had got his
broom and was assisting. Nearer and nearer they came; converging, they
united their separate heaps of filth in a loudly stinking single mound at
the door. Brooms were stacked against the wall in the corner. The men
strolled back to their mattresses.

Monsieur Auguste, whose French had not been able to keep pace with
Fritz's English, saw his chance, and proposed "now that the Room is all
clean, let us go take a little walk, the three of us." Fritz understood
perfectly, and rose, remarking as he fingered his immaculate chin "Well,
I guess I'll take a shave before the bloody _planton_ comes"--and
Monsieur Auguste, B., and I started down the room.

It was in shape oblong, about 80 feet by 40, unmistakably ecclesiastical
in feeling; two rows of wooden pillars, spaced at intervals of fifteen
feet, rose to a vaulted ceiling 25 or 30 feet above the floor. As you
stood with your back to the door, and faced down the room, you had in the
near right-hand corner (where the brooms stood) six pails of urine. On
the right-hand long wall, a little beyond the angle of this corner, a few
boards, tacked together in any fashion to make a two-sided screen four
feet in height, marked the position of a _cabinet d'aisance_, composed of
a small coverless tin pail identical with the other six, and a board of
the usual design which could be placed on the pail or not as desired. The
wooden floor in the neighborhood of the booth and pails was of a dark
colour, obviously owing to the continual overflow of their contents.

The right-hand long wall contained something like ten large windows, of
which the first was commanded by the somewhat primitive cabinet. There
were no other windows in the remaining walls; or they had been carefully
rendered useless. In spite of this fact, the inhabitants had contrived a
couple of peep-holes--one in the door-end and one in the left-hand long
wall; the former commanding the gate by which I had entered, the latter a
portion of the street by which I had reached the gate. The blocking of
all windows on three sides had an obvious significance: _les hommes_ were
not supposed to see anything which went on in the world without; _les
hommes_ might, however, look their fill on a little washing-shed, on a
corner of what seemed to be another wing of the building, and on a bleak
lifeless abject landscape of scrubby woods beyond--which constituted the
view from the ten windows on the right. The authorities had miscalculated
a little in one respect: a merest fraction of the barb-wire pen which
began at the corner of the above-mentioned building was visible from
these windows, which windows (I was told) were consequently thronged by
fighting men at the time of the girl's promenade. A _planton_, I was also
told, made it his business, by keeping _les femmes_ out of this corner of
their _cour_ at the point of the bayonet to deprive them of the sight of
their admirers. In addition, it was dry bread or _cabinot_ for any of
either sex who were caught communicating with each other. Moreover the
promenades of the men and the women occurred at roughly speaking the same
hour, so that a man or woman who remained upstairs on the chance of
getting a smile or a wave from his or her girl or lover lost the
promenade thereby....

We had in succession gazed from the windows, crossed the end of the room,
and started down the other side, Monsieur Auguste marching between
us--when suddenly B. exclaimed in English "Good morning! How are you
today?" And I looked across Monsieur Auguste, anticipating another Harree
or at least a Fritz. What was my surprise to see a spare majestic figure
of manifest refinement, immaculately apparelled in a crisp albeit
collarless shirt, carefully mended trousers in which the remains of a
crease still lingered, a threadbare but perfectly fitting swallow-tail
coat, and newly varnished (if somewhat ancient) shoes. Indeed for the
first time since my arrival at La Ferté I was confronted by a perfect
type: the apotheosis of injured nobility, the humiliated victim of
perfectly unfortunate circumstances, the utterly respectable gentleman
who had seen better days. There was about him, moreover, something
irretrievably English, nay even pathetically Victorian--it was as if a
page of Dickens was shaking my friend's hand. "Count Bragard, I want you
to meet my friend Cummings"--he saluted me in modulated and courteous
accents of indisputable culture, gracefully extending his pale hand. "I
have heard a great deal about you from B., and wanted very much to meet
you. It is a pleasure to find a friend of my friend B., someone congenial
and intelligent in contrast to these swine"--he indicated the room with a
gesture of complete contempt. "I see you were strolling. Let us take a
turn." Monsieur Auguste said tactfully, "I'll see you soon, friends," and
left us with an affectionate shake of the hand and a sidelong glance of
jealousy and mistrust at B.'s respectable friend.

"You're looking pretty well today, Count Bragard," B. said amiably.

"I do well enough," the Count answered. "It is a frightful strain--you of
course realise that--for anyone who has been accustomed to the decencies,
let alone the luxuries, of life. This filth"--he pronounced the word with
indescribable bitterness--"this herding of men like cattle--they treat us
no better than pigs here. The fellows drop their dung in the very room
where they sleep. What is one to expect of a place like this? _Ce n'est
pas une existence_"--his French was glib and faultless.

"I was telling my friend that you knew Cézanne," said B. "Being an artist
he was naturally much interested."

Count Bragard stopped in astonishment, and withdrew his hands slowly from
the tails of his coat. "Is it possible!" he exclaimed, in great
agitation. "What an astonishing coincidence! I am myself a painter. You
perhaps noticed this badge"--he indicated a button attached to his left
lapel, and I bent and read the words: On War Service. "I always wear it,"
he said with a smile of faultless sorrow, and resumed his walk. "They
don't know what it means here, but I wear it all the same. I was a
special representative for The London Sphere at the front in this war. I
did the trenches and all that sort of thing. They paid me well; I got
fifteen pounds a week. And why not? I am an R.A. My specialty was horses.
I painted the finest horses in England, among them the King's own entry
in the last Derby. Do you know London?" We said no. "If you are ever in
London, go to the" (I forget the name) "Hotel--one of the best in town.
It has a beautiful large bar, exquisitely furnished in the very best
taste. Anyone will tell you where to find the ----. It has one of my
paintings over the bar: "Straight-jacket" (or some such name) "the
Marquis of ----'s horse, who won last time the race was run. I was in
America in 1910. You know Cornelius Vanderbilt perhaps? I painted some of
his horses. We were the best of friends, Vanderbilt and I. I got handsome
prices, you understand, three, five, six thousand pounds. When I left, he
gave me this card--I have it here somewhere--" he again stopped, sought
in his breastpocket a moment, and produced a visiting card. On one side I
read the name "Cornelius Vanderbilt"--on the other, in bold
handwriting--"to my very dear friend Count F.A. de Bragard" and a date.
"He hated to have me go."

I was walking in a dream.

"Have you your sketch-books and paints with you? What a pity. I am always
intending to send to England for mine, but you know--one can't paint in a
place like this. It is impossible--all this dirt and these filthy
people--it stinks! Ugh!"

I forced myself to say: "How did you happen to come here?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "How indeed, you may well ask! I cannot tell
you. It must have been some hideous mistake. As soon as I got here I
spoke to the Directeur and to the Surveillant. The Directeur said he knew
nothing about it; the Surveillant told me confidentially that it was a
mistake on the part of the French government; that I would be out
directly. He's not such a bad sort. So I am waiting; every day I expect
orders from the English government for my release. The whole thing is
preposterous. I wrote to the Embassy and told them so. As soon as I set
foot outside this place, I shall sue the French government for ten
thousand pounds for the loss of time it has occasioned me. Imagine it--I
had contracts with countless members of The Lords--and the war came. Then
I was sent to the front by The Sphere--and here I am, every day costing
me dear, rotting away in this horrible place. The time I have wasted here
has already cost me a fortune."

He paused directly in front of the door and spoke with solemnity: "A man
might as well be dead."

Scarcely had the words passed his lips when I almost jumped out of my
skin, for directly before us on the other side of the wall arose the very
noise which announced to Scrooge the approach of Marley's ghost--a dismal
clanking and rattling of chains. Had Marley's transparent figure walked
straight through the wall and up to the Dickensian character at my side,
I would have been less surprised than I was by what actually happened.

The doors opened with an uncanny bang and in the bang stood a fragile
minute queer figure, remotely suggesting an old man. The chief
characteristic of the apparition was a certain disagreeable nudity which
resulted from its complete lack of all the accepted appurtenances and
prerogatives of old age. Its little stooping body, helpless and brittle,
bore with extraordinary difficulty a head of absurd largeness, yet which
moved on the fleshless neck with a horrible agility. Dull eyes sat in the
clean-shaven wrinkles of a face neatly hopeless. At the knees a pair of
hands hung, infantile in their smallness. In the loose mouth a tiny
cigarette had perched and was solemnly smoking itself.

Suddenly the figure darted at me with a spiderlike entirety.

I felt myself lost.

A voice said mechanically from the vicinity of my feet: "_II vous faut
prendre la douche_"--I stared stupidly. The spectre was poised before me;
its averted eyes contemplated the window. "Take your bath," it added as
an afterthought, in English--"Come with me." It turned suddenly. It
hurried to the doorway. I followed. Its rapid deadly doll-like hands shut
and skillfully locked the doors in a twinkling. "Come," its voice said.

It hurried before me down two dirty flights of narrow mutilated stairs.
It turned left, and passed through an open door.

I found myself in the wet sunless air of morning.

To the right it hurried, following the wall of the building. I pursued it
mechanically. At the corner, which I had seen from the window upstairs,
the barbed-wire fence eight feet in height began. The thing paused,
produced a key and unlocked a gate. The first three or four feet of wire
swung inward. He entered. I after him.

In a flash the gate was locked behind me, and I was following along a
wall at right angles to the first. I strode after the thing. A moment
before I had been walking in a free world: now I was again a prisoner.
The sky was still over me, the clammy morning caressed me; but walls of
wire and stone told me that my instant of freedom had departed. I was in
fact traversing a lane no wider than the gate; on my left, barbed-wire
separated me from the famous _cour_ in which _les femmes se promenent_--a
rectangle about 50 feet deep and 200 long, with a stone wall at the
further end of it and otherwise surrounded by wire;--on my right, grey
sameness of stone, the _ennui_ of the regular and the perpendicular, the
ponderous ferocity of silence....

I had taken automatically some six or eight steps in pursuit of the
fleeing spectre when, right over my head, the grey stone curdled with a
female darkness; the hard and the angular softening in a putrescent
explosion of thick wriggling laughter. I started, looked up, and
encountered a window stuffed with four savage fragments of crowding Face:
four livid, shaggy disks focussing hungrily; four pair of uncouth eyes
rapidly smouldering; eight lips shaking in a toothless and viscous
titter. Suddenly above and behind these terrors rose a single horror of
beauty--a crisp vital head, a young ivory, actual face, a night of firm,
alive, icy hair, a white, large, frightful smile.

... The thing was crying two or three paces in front of me: "Come!" The
heads had vanished as by magic.

I dived forward; followed through a little door in the wall into a room
about fifteen feet square, occupied by a small stove, a pile of wood, and
a ladder. He plunged through another even smaller door, into a bleak
rectangular place, where I was confronted on the left by a large tin bath
and on the right by ten wooden tubs, each about a yard in diameter, set
in a row against the wall. "Undress" commanded the spectre. I did so. "Go
into the first one." I climbed into the tub. "You shall pull the string,"
the spectre said, hurriedly throwing his cigarette into a corner. I
stared upward, and discovered a string dangling from a kind of reservoir
over my head: I pulled: and was saluted by a stabbing crash of icy water.
I leaped from the tub. "Here is your napkin. Make dry yourself"--he
handed me a piece of cloth a little bigger than a handkerchief. "Hurree."
I donned my clothes, wet and shivering and altogether miserable. "Good.
Come now!" I followed him, through the room with the stove, into the
barbed-wire lane. A hoarse shout rose from the yard--which was filled
with women, girls, children, and a baby or two. I thought I recognised
one of the four terrors who had saluted me from the window, in a girl of
18 with a soiled slobby body huddling beneath its dingy dress; her bony
shoulders stifled in a shawl upon which excremental hair limply spouted;
a huge empty mouth; and a red nose, sticking between the bluish cheeks
that shook with spasms of coughing. Just inside the wire a figure
reminiscent of Gré, gun on shoulder, revolver on hip, moved monotonously.

The apparition hurried me through the gate, and along the wall into the
building, where instead of mounting the stairs he pointed down a long,
gloomy corridor with a square of light at the end of it, saying rapidly,
"Go to the promenade"--and vanished.

With the laughter of the Five still ringing in my ears, and no very clear
conception of the meaning of existence, I stumbled down the corridor;
bumping squarely into a beefy figure with a bull's neck and the familiar
revolver who demanded furiously: "What are you doing there? _Nom de
Dieu!_"--"_Pardon. Les douches_," I answered, quelled by the
collision.--He demanded in wrathy French "Who took you to the
douches?"--For a moment I was at a complete loss--then Fritz's remark
about the new _baigneur_ flashed through my mind: "Ree-shar" I answered
calmly.--The bull snorted satisfactorily. "Get into the _cour_ and hurry
up about it" he ordered.--"_C'est par là?_" I inquired politely.--He
stared at me contemptuously without answering; so I took it upon myself
to use the nearest door, hoping that he would have the decency not to
shoot me. I had no sooner crossed the threshold when I found myself once
more in the welcome air; and not ten paces away I espied B. peacefully
lounging, with some thirty others, within a _cour_ about one quarter the
size of the women's. I marched up to a little dingy gate in the
barbed-wire fence, and was hunting for the latch (as no padlock was in
evidence) when a scared voice cried loudly "_Qu'est ce que vous faites
là!_" and I found myself stupidly looking into a rifle. B., Fritz,
Harree, Pompom, Monsieur Auguste, The Bear, and the last but not least
Count de Bragard immediately informed the trembling _planton_ that I was
a _Nouveau_ who had just returned from the _douches_ to which I had been
escorted by Monsieur Reeshar, and that I should be admitted to the _cour_
by all means. The cautious watcher of the skies was not, however, to be
fooled by any such fol-de-rol and stood his ground. Fortunately at this
point the beefy _planton_ yelled from the doorway "Let him in," and I was
accordingly let in, to the gratification of my friends, and against the
better judgment of the guardian of the _cour_, who muttered something
about having more than enough to do already.

I had not been mistaken as to the size of the men's yard: it was
certainly not more than twenty yards deep and fifteen wide. By the
distinctness with which the shouts of _les femmes_ reached my ears I
perceived that the two _cours_ adjoined. They were separated by a stone
wall ten feet in height, which I had already remarked (while _en route_
to _les douches_) as forming one end of the _cour des femmes_. The men's
_cour_ had another stone wall slightly higher than the first, and which
ran parallel to it; the two remaining sides, which were property ends,
were made by the familiar barbed-wire.

The furniture of the _cour_ was simple: in the middle of the further end,
a wooden sentry-box was placed just inside the wire; a curious
contrivance, which I discovered to be a sister to the booth upstairs,
graced the wall on the left which separated the two _cours_, while
further up on this wall a horizontal iron bar projected from the stone at
a height of seven feet and was supported at its other end by a wooden
post, the idea apparently being to give the prisoners a little taste of
gymnastics; a minute wooden shed filled the right upper corner and served
secondarily as a very partial shelter for the men and primarily as a
stable for an extraordinary water-wagon, composed of a wooden barrel on
two wheels with shafts which would not possibly accommodate anything
larger than a diminutive donkey (but in which I myself was to walk not
infrequently, as it proved); parallel to the second stone wall, but at a
safe distance from it, stretched a couple of iron girders serving as a
barbarously cold seat for any unfortunate who could not remain on his
feet the entire time; on the ground close by the shed lay amusement
devices numbers two and three--a huge iron cannon-ball and the six-foot
iron axle of a departed wagon--for testing the strength of the prisoners
and beguiling any time which might lie heavily on their hands after they
had regaled themselves with the horizontal bar; and finally, a dozen
mangy apple-trees, fighting for their very lives in the angry soil,
proclaimed to all the world that the _cour_ itself was in reality a
_verger_.

  "Les pommiers sont pleins de pommes;
    Allons au verger, Simone...."

A description of the _cour_ would be incomplete without an enumeration of
the manifold duties of the _planton_ in charge, which were as follows: to
prevent the men from using the horizontal bar, except for chinning, since
if you swung yourself upon it you could look over the wall into the
women's _cour_; to see that no one threw anything over the wall into said
_cour_; to dodge the cannon-ball which had a mysterious habit of taking
advantage of the slope of the ground and bounding along at a prodigious
rate of speed straight for the sentry-box; to watch closely anyone who
inhabited the _cabinet d'aisance_, lest he should make use of it to vault
over the wall; to see that no one stood on the girders, for a similar
reason; to keep watch over anyone who entered the shed; to see that
everyone urinated properly against the wall in the general vicinity of
the cabinet; to protect the apple-trees into which well-aimed pieces of
wood and stone were continually flying and dislodging the sacred fruit;
to mind that no one entered or exited by the gate in the upper fence
without authority; to report any signs, words, tokens, or other
immoralities exchanged by prisoners with girls sitting in the windows of
the women's wing (it was from one of these windows that I had recently
received my salutation), also names of said girls, it being forbidden to
exhibit any part of the female person at a window while the males were on
promenade; to quell all fights and especially to prevent people from
using the wagon axle as a weapon of defense or offense; and last, to keep
an eye on the sweeper when he and his wheelbarrow made use of a secondary
gate situated in the fence at the further end, not far from the
sentry-box, to dump themselves.

Having acquainted me with the various _défendus_ which limited the
activities of a man on promenade, my friends proceeded to enliven the
otherwise somewhat tedious morning by shattering one after another all
rules and regulations. Fritz, having chinned himself fifteen times,
suddenly appeared astride of the bar, evoking a reprimand; Pompom bowled
the _planton_ with the cannon-ball, apologising in profuse and vile
French; Harree the Hollander tossed the wagon-axle lightly half the
length of the _cour_, missing The Bear by an inch; The Bear bided his
time and cleverly hurled a large stick into one of the holy trees,
bringing to the ground a withered apple for which at least twenty people
fought for several minutes; and so on. The most open gestures were
indulged in for the benefit of several girls who had braved the official
wrath and were enjoying the morning at their windows. The girders were
used as a race-track. The beams supporting the shed-roof were shinned.
The water-wagon was dislocated from its proper position. The cabinet and
urinal were misused. The gate was continually admitting and emitting
persons who said they were thirsty, and must get a drink at a tub of
water which stood around the corner. A letter was surreptitiously thrown
over the wall into the _cour des femmes_.

The _planton_ who suffered all these indignities was a solemn youth with
wise eyes situated very far apart in a mealy expressionless elipse of
face, to the lower end of which clung a piece of down, exactly like a
feather sticking to an egg. The rest of him was fairly normal with the
exception of his hands, which were not mates; the left being considerably
larger, and made of wood.

I was at first somewhat startled by this eccentricity; but soon learned
that with the exception of two or three, who formed the _Surveillant's_
permanent staff and of whom the beefy one was a shining example, all the
_plantons_ were supposed to be unhealthy; they were indeed the disabled
whom _le gouvernement français_ sent from time to time to La Ferté and
similar institutions for a little outing, and as soon as they had
recovered their health under these salubrious influences they were
shipped back to do their bit for world-safety, democracy, freedom, etc.,
in the trenches. I also learned that, of all the ways of attaining
_cabinot_, by far the simplest was to apply to a _planton_, particularly
to a permanent _planton_, say the beefy one (who was reputed to be
peculiarly touchy on this point) the term _embusqué_. This method never
failed. To its efficacy many of the men and more of the girls (by whom
the _plantons_, owing to their habit of taking advantage of the weaker
sex at every opportunity, were even more despised) attested by not
infrequent spasms of consumptive coughing, which could be plainly heard
from the further end of one _cour_ to the other.

In a little over two hours I learned an astonishing lot about La Ferté
itself: it was a co-educational receiving station whither were sent from
various parts of France (a) males suspected of espionage and (b) females
of a well-known type found in the zone of the armies. It was pointed out
to me that the task of finding such members of the human race was _pas
difficile:_ in the case of the men, any foreigner would do provided his
country was neutral (e.g. Holland); as for the girls, inasmuch as the
armies of the Allies were continually retreating, the _zone des armées_
(particularly in the case of Belgium) was always including new cities,
whose _petites femmes_ became automatically subject to arrest. It was not
to be supposed that all the women of La Ferté were _putains_: there were
a large number of respectable women, the wives of prisoners, who met
their husbands at specified times on the floor below the men's quarters,
whither man and woman were duly and separately conducted by _plantons_.
In this case no charges had been preferred against the women; they were
voluntary prisoners, who had preferred to freedom this living in
proximity to their husbands. Many of them had children; some babies. In
addition there were certain _femmes honnettes_ whose nationality, as in
the case of the men, had cost them their liberty; Marguerite the
washerwoman, for example, was a German.

La Ferté Macé was not properly speaking a prison, but a Porte or
Detention Camp: that is to say, persons sent to it were held for a
Commission, composed of an official, a lawyer, and a captain of
_gendarmes_, which inspected the Camp and passed upon each case in turn
for the purpose of determining the guiltiness of the suspected party. If
the latter were found guilty by the Commission, he or she was sent off to
a regular prison camp for the duration of the war; if not guilty, he or
she was (in theory) set free. The Commission came to La Ferté once every
three months. It should be added that there were prisoners who had passed
the Commission, two, three, four, and even five times, without any
appreciable result; there were _prisonierès_ who had remained in La Ferté
a year, and even eighteen months.

The authorities at La Ferté consisted of the _Directeur_, or general
overlord, the _Surveillant_, who had the _plantons_ (orderlies) under him
and was responsible to the _Directeur_ for the administration of the
camp, and the _Gestionnaire_ (who kept the accounts). As assistant, the
_Surveillant_ had a mail clerk who acted as translator on occasion. Twice
a week the camp was visited by a regular French army doctor (_médecin
major_) who was supposed to prescribe in severe cases and to give the
women venereal inspection at regular intervals. The daily routine of
attending to minor ailments and injuries was in the hands of Monsieur
Ree-shar (Richard), who knew probably less about medicine than any man
living and was an ordinary prisoner like all of us, but whose impeccable
conduct merited cosy quarters. A sweeper was appointed from time to time
by the _Surveillant_, acting for the _Directeur_, from the inhabitants of
La Ferté; as was also a cook's assistant. The regular cook was a fixture,
and a Boche like the other fixtures, Marguerite and Richard. This fact
might seem curious were it not that the manner, appearance and actions of
the _Directeur_ himself proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was all
which the term Boche could possibly imply.

"He's a son-of-a-bitch," B. said heartily. "They took me up to him when I
came two days ago. As soon as he saw me he bellowed: '_Imbécile et
inchrétien!_'; then he called me a great lot of other things, including
Shame of my country, Traitor to the sacred cause of Liberty, Contemptible
coward and Vile sneaking spy. When he got all through I said 'I don't
understand French.' You should have seen him then."

Separation of the sexes was enforced, not, it is true, with success, but
with a commendable ferocity. The punishments for both men and girls were
dry bread and _cabinot_.

"What on earth is _cabinot?_" I demanded.

There were various _cabinots_: each sex had its regular _cabinot_, and
there were certain extra ones. B. knew all about them from Harree and
Pompom, who spent nearly all their time in the _cabinot_. They were rooms
about nine feet square and six feet high. There was no light and no
floor, and the ground (three were on the ground floor) was always wet and
often a good many inches under water. The occupant on entering was
searched for tobacco, deprived of his or her mattress and blanket, and
invited to sleep on the ground on some planks. One didn't need to write a
letter to a member of the opposite sex to get _cabinot_, or even to call
a _planton embusqué_--there was a woman, a foreigner, who, instead of
sending a letter to her embassy through the bureau (where all letters
were read by the mail clerk to make sure that they said nothing
disagreeable about the authorities or conditions of La Ferté) tried to
smuggle it outside, and got twenty-eight days of _cabinot_. She had
previously written three times, handing the letters to the _Surveillant_,
as per regulations, and had received no reply. Fritz, who had no idea why
he was arrested and was crazy to get in touch with his embassy, had
likewise written several letters, taking the utmost care to state the
facts only and always handing them in; but he had never received a word
in return. The obvious inference was that letters from a foreigner to his
embassy were duly accepted by the _Surveillant_ (Warden), but rarely, if
ever, left La Ferté.

B. and I were conversing merrily àpropos the God-sent miracle of our
escape from Vingt-et-Un, when a benign-faced personage of about fifty
with sparse greyish hair and a Benjamin Franklin expression appeared on
the other side of the fence, from the direction of the door through which
I had passed after bumping the beefy bull. "_Planton_" it cried heavily
to the wooden-handed one, "Two men to go get water." Harree and Pompom
were already at the gate with the archaic water-wagon, the former pushing
from behind and the latter in the shafts. The guardian of the _cour_
walked up and opened the gate for them, after ascertaining that another
_planton_ was waiting at the corner of the building to escort them on
their mission. A little way from the _cour_, the stone wall (which formed
one of its boundaries and which ran parallel to the other stone wall
dividing the two _cours_) met the prison building; and here was a huge
double door, twice padlocked, through which the waterseekers passed on to
the street. There was a sort of hydrant up the street a few hundred
yards, I was told. The cook (Benjamin F., that is) required from three to
six wagonfuls of water twice a day, and in reward for the labour involved
in its capture was in the habit of giving a cup of coffee to the captors.
I resolved that I would seek water at the earliest opportunity.

Harree and Pompom had completed their third and final trip and returned
from the kitchen, smacking their lips and wiping their mouths with the
backs of their hands. I was gazing airily into the muddy sky, when a roar
issued from the door-way:

"_Monter les hommes!_" or "Send the men up!"

It was the beefy-necked. We filed from the _cour_, through the door, past
a little window which I was told belonged to the kitchen, down the clammy
corridor, up the three flights of stairs, to the door of The Enormous
Room. Padlocks were unlocked, chains rattled, and the door thrown open.
We entered. The Enormous Room received us in silence. The door was
slammed and locked behind us by the _planton_, whom we could hear
descending the gnarled and filthy stairs.

In the course of a half-hour, which time, as I was informed, intervened
between the just-ended morning promenade and the noon meal which was the
next thing on the program, I gleaned considerable information concerning
the daily schedule of La Ferté. A typical day was divided by
planton-cries as follows:

"_Café_," "_Corvée d'eau_," "_Nettoyage de Chambre_," "_Monter les
Hommes_," "_A la soupe les hommes_."

The most terrible cry of all, and which was not included in the regular
program of planton-cries, consisted of the words:

"_Aux douches les hommes_"--when all, sick, dead and dying not excepted,
descended to the baths. Although _les douches_ came only once in 15 days,
such was the terror they inspired that it was necessary for the _planton_
to hunt under mattresses for people who would have preferred death
itself.

Upon remarking that _corvée d'eau_ must be excessively disagreeable, I
was informed that it had its bright side, viz., that in going to and from
the sewer one could easily exchange a furtive signal with the women who
always took pains to be at their windows at that moment. Influenced
perhaps by this, Harree and Pompom were in the habit of doing their
friends' _corvées_ for a consideration. The girls, I was further
instructed, had their _corvée_ (as well as their meals) just after the
men; and the miraculous stupidity of the _plantons_ had been known to
result in the coincidence of the two.

At this point somebody asked me how I had enjoyed my shower?

I was replying in terms of unmeasured opprobrium when I was interrupted
by that gruesome clanking and rattling which announced the opening of the
door. A moment later it was thrown wide, and the beefy-neck stood in the
doorway, a huge bunch of keys in his paw, and shouted:

"_A la soupe les hommes._"

The cry was lost in a tremendous confusion, a reckless
thither-and-hithering of humanity, everyone trying to be at the door,
spoon in hand, before his neighbour. B. said calmly, extracting his own
spoon from beneath his mattress on which we were seated: "They'll give
you yours downstairs and when you get it you want to hide it or it'll be
pinched"--and in company with Monsieur Bragard, who had refused the
morning promenade, and whose gentility would not permit him to hurry when
it was a question of such a low craving as hunger, we joined the dancing
roaring throng at the door. I was not too famished myself to be
unimpressed by the instantaneous change which had come over The Enormous
Room's occupants. Never did Circe herself cast upon men so bestial an
enchantment. Among these faces convulsed with utter animalism I scarcely
recognised my various acquaintances. The transformation produced by the
_planton's_ shout was not merely amazing; it was uncanny, and not a
little thrilling. These eyes bubbling with lust, obscene grins sprouting
from contorted lips, bodies unclenching and clenching in unctuous
gestures of complete savagery, convinced me by a certain insane beauty.
Before the arbiter of their destinies some thirty creatures, hideous and
authentic, poised, cohering in a sole chaos of desire; a fluent and
numerous cluster of vital inhumanity. As I contemplated this ferocious
and uncouth miracle, this beautiful manifestation of the sinister alchemy
of hunger, I felt that the last vestige of individualism was about
utterly to disappear, wholly abolished in a gambolling and wallowing
throb.

The beefy-neck bellowed:

"Are you all here?"

A shrill roar of language answered. He looked contemptuously around him,
upon the thirty clamouring faces each of which wanted to eat
him--puttees, revolver and all. Then he cried:

"_Allez, descendez._"

Squirming, jostling, fighting, roaring, we poured slowly through the
doorway. Ridiculously. Horribly. I felt like a glorious microbe in huge
absurd din irrevocably swathed. B. was beside me. A little ahead Monsieur
Auguste's voice protested. Count Bragard brought up the rear.

When we reached the corridor nearly all the breath was knocked out of me.
The corridor being wider than the stairs allowed me to inhale and look
around. B. was yelling in my ear:

"Look at the Hollanders and the Belgians! They're always ahead when it
comes to food!"

Sure enough: John the Bathman, Harree and Pompom were leading this
extraordinary procession. Fritz was right behind them, however, and
pressing the leaders hard. I heard Monsieur Auguste crying in his child's
voice:

"If every-body goes slow-er we will ar-rive soon-er. You mustn't act like
that!"

Then suddenly the roar ceased. The mêlée integrated. We were marching in
orderly ranks. B. said:

"The Surveillant!"

At the end of the corridor, opposite the kitchen window, there was a
flight of stairs. On the third stair from the bottom stood (teetering a
little slowly back and forth, his lean hands joined behind him and
twitching regularly, a kepi tilted forward on his cadaverous head so that
its visor almost hid the weak eyes sunkenly peering from under droopy
eyebrows, his pompous rooster-like body immaculately attired in a shiny
uniform, his puttees sleeked, his cross polished)--The Fencer. There was
a renovated look about him which made me laugh. Also his pose was
ludicrously suggestive of Napoleon reviewing the armies of France.

Our column's first rank moved by him. I expected it to continue ahead
through the door and into the open air, as I had myself done in going
from _les douches_ to _le cour;_ but it turned a sharp right and then
sharp left, and I perceived a short hall, almost hidden by the stairs. In
a moment I had passed The Fencer myself and entered the hall. In another
moment I was in a room, pretty nearly square, filled with rows of
pillars. On turning into the hall the column had come almost to a
standstill. I saw that the reason for this slowing-down lay in the fact
that on entering the room every man in turn passed a table and received a
piece of bread from the chef. When B. and I came opposite the table the
dispenser of bread smiled pleasantly and nodded to B., then selected a
large hunk and pushed it rapidly into B.'s hands with an air of doing
something which he shouldn't. B. introduced me, whereupon the smile and
selection was repeated.

"He thinks I'm a German," B. explained in a whisper, "and that you are a
German too." Then aloud, to the cook: "My friend here needs a spoon. He
just got here this morning and they haven't given him one."

The excellent person at the bread table hereupon said to me: "You shall
go to the window and say I tell you to ask for spoon and you will catch
one spoon"--and I broke through the waiting line, approached the
kitchen-window, and demanded of a roguish face within:

"A spoon, please."

The roguish face, which had been singing in a high faint voice to itself,
replied critically but not unkindly:

"You're a new one?"

I said that I was, that I had arrived late last night.

It disappeared, reappeared, and handed me a tin spoon and cup, saying:

"You haven't a cup?"--"No" I said.

"Here. Take this. Quick." Nodding in the direction of the Surveillant,
who was standing all this time on the stairs behind me.

I had expected from the cook's phrase that something would be thrown at
me which I should have to catch, and was accordingly somewhat relieved at
the true state of affairs. On re-entering the _salle à manger_ I was
greeted by many cries and wavings, and looking in their direction
perceived everybody uproariously seated at wooden benches which were
placed on either side of an enormous wooden table. There was a tiny gap
on one bench where a place had been saved for me by B., with the
assistance of Monsieur Auguste, Count Bragard, Harree and several other
fellow-convicts. In a moment I had straddled the bench and was occupying
the gap, spoon and cup in hand, and ready for anything.

The din was perfectly terrific. It had a minutely large quality. Here and
there, in a kind of sonal darkness, solid sincere unintelligible absurd
wisps of profanity heavily flickered. Optically the phenomenon was
equally remarkable: seated waggingly swaying corpselike figures,
swaggering, pounding with their little spoons, roaring, hoarse, unkempt.
Evidently Monsieur le Surveillant had been forgotten. All at once the
roar bulged unbearably. The roguish man, followed by the _chef_ himself,
entered with a suffering waddle, each of them bearing a huge bowl of
steaming something. At least six people immediately rose, gesturing and
imploring: "_Ici_"--"_Mais non, ici_"--"_Mettez par ici_"--

The bearers plumped their burdens carefully down, one at the head of the
table and one in the middle. The men opposite the bowls stood up. Every
man seized the empty plate in front of him and shoved it into his
neighbour's hand; the plates moved toward the bowls, were filled amid
uncouth protestations and accusations--"_Mettez plus que ça_"--"_C'est
pas juste, alors_"--"_Donnez-moi encore de pommes_"--"_Nom de Dieu,
il n'y a pas assez_"--"_Cochon, qu'est-ce qu'il veut?_"--"_Shut
up_"--"_Gott-ver-dummer_"--and returned one by one. As each man received
his own, he fell upon it with a sudden guzzle.

Eventually, in front of me, solemnly sat a faintly-smoking urine-coloured
circular broth, in which soggily hung half-suspended slabs of raw potato.
Following the example of my neighbours, I too addressed myself to _La
Soupe_. I found her luke-warm, completely flavourless. I examined the
hunk of bread. It was almost bluish in colour; in taste mouldy, slightly
sour. "If you crumb some into the soup," remarked B., who had been
studying my reactions from the corner of his eye, "they both taste
better." I tried the experiment. It was a complete success. At least one
felt as if one were getting nourishment. Between gulps I smelled the
bread furtively. It smelled rather much like an old attic in which kites
and other toys gradually are forgotten in a gentle darkness.

B. and I were finishing our soup together when behind and somewhat to the
left there came the noise of a lock being manipulated. I turned and saw
in one corner of the _salle à manger_ a little door, shaking
mysteriously. Finally it was thrown open, revealing a sort of minute bar
and a little closet filled with what appeared to be groceries and
tobacco; and behind the bar, standing in the closet, a husky,
competent-looking lady. "It's the canteen," B. said. We rose, spoon in
hand and breadhunk stuck on spoon, and made our way to the lady. I had,
naturally, no money; but B. reassured me that before the day was over I
should see the Gestionnaire and make arrangements for drawing on the
supply of ready cash which the _gendarmes_ who took me from Gré had
confided to The Surveillant's care; eventually I could also draw on my
account with Norton-Harjes in Paris; meantime he had _quelques sous_
which might well go into chocolate and cigarettes. The large lady had a
pleasant quietness about her, a sort of simplicity, which made me
extremely desirous of complying with B.'s suggestion. Incidentally I was
feeling somewhat uncertain in the region of the stomach, due to the
unique quality of the lunch which I had just enjoyed, and I brightened at
the thought of anything as solid as chocolate. Accordingly we purchased
(or rather B. did) a _paquet jaune_ and a cake of something which was not
Meunier. And the remaining _sous_ we squandered on a glass apiece of red
acrid _pinard_, gravely and with great happiness pledging the hostess of
the occasion and then each other.

With the exception of ourselves hardly anyone patronized the canteen,
noting which I felt somewhat conspicuous. When, however, Harree Pompom
and John the Bathman came rushing up and demanded cigarettes my fears
were dispelled. Moreover the _pinard_ was excellent.

"Come on! Arrange yourselves!" the bull-neck cried hoarsely as the five
of us were lighting up; and we joined the line of fellow-prisoners with
their breads and spoons, gaping, belching, trumpeting fraternally, by the
doorway.

"_Tout le monde en haut!_" this _planton_ roared.

Slowly we filed through the tiny hall, past the stairs (empty now of
their Napoleonic burden), down the corridor, up the creaking gnarled damp
flights, and (after the inevitable pause in which the escort rattled
chains and locks) into The Enormous Room.

This would be about ten thirty.

Just what I tasted, did, smelled, saw, and heard, not to mention touched,
between ten thirty and the completion of the evening meal (otherwise the
four o'clock soup) I am quite at a loss to say. Whether it was that glass
of _pinard_ (plus, or rather times, the astonishing exhaustion bequeathed
me by my journey of the day before) which caused me to enter temporarily
the gates of forgetfulness, or whether the sheer excitement attendant
upon my ultra-novel surroundings proved too much for an indispensable
part of my so-called mind--I do not in the least know. I am fairly
certain that I went on afternoon promenade. After which I must surely
have mounted to await my supper in The Enormous Room. Whence (after the
due and proper interval) I doubtless descended to the clutches of _La
Soupe Extraordinaire_ ... yes, for I perfectly recall the cry which made
me suddenly to re-enter the dimension of distinctness ... and by Jove I
had just finished a glass of _pinard_ ... somebody must have treated me
... we were standing together, spoon in hand ... when we heard--

"_A la promenade_," ... we issued _en queue_, firmly grasping our spoons
and bread, through the dining-room door. Turning right we were emitted,
by the door opposite the kitchen, from the building itself into the open
air. A few steps and we passed through the little gate in the barbed wire
fence of the _cour_.

Greatly refreshed by my second introduction to the canteen, and with the
digestion of the somewhat extraordinary evening meal apparently assured,
I gazed almost intelligently around me. Count Bragard had declined the
evening promenade in favour of The Enormous Room, but I perceived in the
crowd the now familiar faces of the three Hollanders--John, Harree and
Pompom--likewise of The Bear, Monsieur Auguste, and Fritz. In the course
of the next hour I had become, if not personally, at least optically
acquainted with nearly a dozen others.

Somewhat overawed by the animals Harree and Pompom (but nevertheless
managing to overawe a goodly portion of his fellow-captives) an
extraordinary human being paced the _cour_. On gazing for the first time
directly at him I experienced a feeling of nausea. A figure inclined to
corpulence, dressed with care, remarkable only above the neck--and then
what a head! It was large, and had a copious mop of limp hair combed back
from the high forehead--hair of a disagreeable blond tint, dutch-cut
behind, falling over the pinkish soft neck almost to the shoulders. In
this pianist's or artist's hair, which shook en masse when the owner
walked, two large and outstanding and altogether brutal white ears tried
to hide themselves. The face, a cross between classic Greek and Jew, had
a Reynard expression, something distinctly wily and perfectly
disagreeable. An equally with the hair blond moustache--or rather
mustachios projectingly important--waved beneath the prominent nostrils,
and served to partially conceal the pallid mouth, weak and large, whose
lips assumed from time to time a smile which had something almost foetal
about it. Over the even weaker chin was disposed a blond goatee. The
cheeks were fatty. The continually perspiring forehead exhibited
innumerable pinkish pock-marks. In conversing with a companion this being
emitted a disgusting smoothness, his very gestures were oily like his
skin. He wore a pair of bloated wristless hands, the knuckles lost in
fat, with which he smoothed the air from time to time. He was speaking
low and effortless French, completely absorbed in the developing ideas
which issued fluently from his mustachios. About him there clung an aura
of cringing. His hair whiskers and neck looked as if they were trick neck
whiskers and hair, as if they might at any moment suddenly disintegrate,
as if the smoothness of his eloquence alone kept them in place.

We called him Judas.

Beside him, clumsily keeping the pace but not the step, was a tallish
effeminate person whose immaculate funereal suit hung loosely upon an
aged and hurrying anatomy. He wore a big black cap on top of his haggard
and remarkably clean-shaven face, the most prominent feature of which was
a red nose, which sniffed a little now and then as if its owner was
suffering from a severe cold. This person emanated age, neatness and
despair. Aside from the nose which compelled immediate attention, his
face consisted of a few large planes loosely juxtaposed and registering
pathos. His motions were without grace. He had a certain refinement. He
could not have been more than forty-five. There was worry on every inch
of him. Possibly he thought that he might die. B. said "He's a Belgian, a
friend of Count Bragard, his name is Monsieur Pet-airs." From time to
time Monsieur Pet-airs remarked something delicately and pettishly in a
gentle and weak voice. His adam's-apple, at such moments, jumped about in
a longish slack wrinkled skinny neck which was like the neck of a turkey.
To this turkey the approach of Thanksgiving inspired dread. From time to
time M. Pet-airs looked about him sidewise as if he expected to see a
hatchet. His hands were claws, kind, awkward and nervous. They twitched.
The bony and wrinkled things looked as if they would like to close
quickly upon a throat.

B. called my attention to a figure squatting in the middle of the _cour_
with his broad back against one of the more miserable trees. This figure
was clothed in a remarkably picturesque manner: it wore a dark
sombrero-like hat with a large drooping brim, a bright red gipsy shirt of
some remarkably fine material with huge sleeves loosely falling, and
baggy corduroy trousers whence escaped two brown, shapely, naked feet. On
moving a little I discovered a face--perhaps the handsomest face that I
have ever seen, of a gold brown color, framed in an amazingly large and
beautiful black beard. The features were finely formed and almost fluent,
the eyes soft and extraordinarily sensitive, the mouth delicate and firm
beneath a black moustache which fused with the silky and wonderful
darkness falling upon the breast. The face contained a beauty and dignity
which, as I first saw it, annihilated the surrounding tumult without an
effort. Around the carefully formed nostrils there was something almost
of contempt. The cheeks had known suns of which I might not think. The
feet had travelled nakedly in countries not easily imagined. Seated
gravely in the mud and noise of the _cour_, under the pitiful and
scraggly _pommier_ ... behind the eyes lived a world of complete
strangeness and silence. The composure of the body was graceful and
Jovelike. This being might have been a prophet come out of a country
nearer to the sun. Perhaps a god who had lost his road and allowed
himself to be taken prisoner by _le gouvernement français_. At least a
prince of a dark and desirable country, a king over a gold-skinned people
who would return when he wished to his fountains and his houris. I
learned upon inquiry that he travelled in various countries with a horse
and cart and his wife and children, selling bright colours to the women
and men of these countries. As it turned out, he was one of the
Delectable Mountains; to discover which I had come a long and difficult
way. Wherefore I shall tell you no more about him for the present, except
that his name was Joseph Demestre.

We called him The Wanderer.

I was still wondering at my good luck in occupying the same miserable
yard with this exquisite personage when a hoarse, rather thick voice
shouted from the gate: "_L'américain!_"

It was a _planton_, in fact the chief _planton_ for whom all ordinary
_plantons_ had unutterable respect and whom all mere men unutterably
hated. It was the _planton_ into whom I had had the distinguished honour
of bumping shortly after my visit to _le bain_.

The Hollanders and Fritz were at the gate in a mob, all shouting "Which"
in four languages.

This _planton_ did not deign to notice them. He repeated roughly
"_L'américain._" Then, yielding a point to their frenzied entreaties: "Le
nouveau."

B. said to me "Probably he's going to take you to the Gestionnaire.
You're supposed to see him when you arrive. He's got your money and will
keep it for you, and give you an allowance twice a week. You can't draw
more than 20 francs. I'll hold your bread and spoon."

"Where the devil is the American?" cried the _planton_.

"Here I am."

"Follow me."

I followed his back and rump and holster through the little gate in the
barbed wire fence and into the building, at which point he commanded
"Proceed."

I asked "Where?"

"Straight ahead" he said angrily.

I proceeded. "Left!" he cried. I turned. A door confronted me.
"_Entrez_," he commanded. I did. An unremarkable looking gentleman in a
French uniform, sitting at a sort of table. "_Monsieur le médecin, le
nouveau._" The doctor got up. "Open your shirt." I did. "Take down your
pants." I did. "All right." Then, as the _planton_ was about to escort me
from the room: "English?" he asked with curiosity. "No" I said,
"American." "_Vraiment_"--he contemplated me with attention. "South
American are you?" "United States" I explained. "_Vraiment_"--he looked
curiously at me, not disagreeably in the least. "_Pourquoi vous êtes
ici?_" "I don't know" I said smiling pleasantly, "except that my friend
wrote some letters which were intercepted by the French censor." "Ah," he
remarked. "_C'est tout._"

And I departed. "Proceed!" cried the Black Holster. I retraced my steps,
and was about to exit through the door leading to the _cour_, when "Stop!
_Nom de Dieu!_ Proceed!"

I asked "Where?" completely bewildered.

"Up," he said angrily.

I turned to the stairs on the left, and climbed.

"Not so fast there," he roared behind me.

I slowed up. We reached the landing. I was sure that the Gestionnaire was
a very fierce man--probably a lean slight person who would rush at me
from the nearest door saying "Hands up" in French, whatever that may be.
The door opposite me stood open. I looked in. There was the Surveillant
standing, hands behind back, approvingly regarding my progress. I was
asking myself, Should I bow? when a scurrying and a tittering made me
look left, along a dark and particularly dirty hall. Women's voices ... I
almost fell with surprise. Were not those shadows' faces peering a little
boldly at me from doors? How many girls were there--it sounded as if
there were a hundred--

"_Qu'est-ce que vous faites_," etc., and the _planton_ gave me a good
shove in the direction of another flight of stairs. I obligingly
ascended; thinking of the Surveillant as a spider, elegantly poised in
the centre of his nefarious web, waiting for a fly to make too many
struggles....

At the top of this flight I was confronted by a second hall. A shut door
indicated the existence of a being directly over the Surveillant's holy
head. Upon this door, lest I should lose time in speculating, was in
ample letters inscribed:

GESTIONNAIRE

I felt unutterably lost. I approached the door. I even started to push
it.

"_Attends, Nom de Dieu._" The _planton_ gave me another shove, faced the
door, knocked twice, and cried in accents of profound respect: "Monsieur
le Gestionnaire"--after which he gazed at me with really supreme
contempt, his neat pig-like face becoming almost circular.

I said to myself: This Gestionnaire, whoever he is, must be a very
terrible person, a frightful person, a person utterly without mercy.

From within a heavy, stupid, pleasant voice lazily remarked:

"_Entrez._"

The _planton_ threw the door open, stood stiffly on the threshold, and
gave me the look which _plantons_ give to eggs when _plantons_ are a
little hungry.

I crossed the threshold, trembling with (let us hope) anger.

Before me, seated at a table, was a very fat personage with a black skull
cap perched upon its head. Its face was possessed of an enormous nose, on
which pince-nez precariously roosted; otherwise the face was large,
whiskered, very German and had three chins. Extraordinary creature. Its
belly, as it sat, was slightly dented by the table-top, on which
table-top rested several enormous tomes similar to those employed by the
recording angel on the Day of Judgment, an inkstand or two, innumerable
pens and pencils, and some positively fatal looking papers. The person
was dressed in worthy and semi-dismal clothes amply cut to afford a
promenade for the big stomach. The coat was of that extremely thin black
material which occasionally is affected by clerks and dentists and more
often by librarians. If ever I looked upon an honest German jowl, or even
upon a caricature thereof, I looked upon one now. Such a round fat red
pleasant beer-drinking face as reminded me only and immediately of huge
meerschaum pipes, Deutsche Verein mottos, sudsy seidels of Wurtzburger,
and Jacob Wirth's (once upon a time) brachwurst. Such pinlike pink merry
eyes as made me think of Kris Kringle himself. Such extraordinarily huge
reddish hands as might have grasped six seidels together in the Deutsche
Küchen on 13th street. I gasped with pleasurable relief.

Monsieur le Gestionnaire looked as if he was trying very hard, with the
aid of his beribboned glasses and librarian's jacket (not to mention a
very ponderous gold watch-chain and locket that were supported by his
copious equator) to appear possessed of the solemnity necessarily
emanating from his lofty and responsible office. This solemnity, however,
met its Waterloo in his frank and stupid eyes, not to say his trilogy of
cheerful chins--so much so that I felt like crying "Wie gehts!" and
cracking him on his huge back. Such an animal! A contented animal, a
bulbous animal; the only living hippopotamus in captivity, fresh from the
Nile.

He contemplated me with a natural, under the circumstances, curiosity. He
even naively contemplated me. As if I were hay. My hay-coloured head
perhaps pleased him, as a hippopotamus. He would perhaps eat me. He
grunted, exposing tobacco-yellow tusks, and his tiny eyes twittered.
Finally he gradually uttered, with a thick accent, the following
extremely impressive dictum:

"_C'est l'américain._"

I felt much pleased, and said "_Oui, j'suis américain, Monsieur._"

He rolled half over backwards in his creaking chair with wonderment at
such an unexpected retort. He studied my face with a puzzled air,
appearing slightly embarrassed that before him should stand _l'américain_
and that _l'américain_ should admit it, and that it should all be so
wonderfully clear. I saw a second dictum, even more profound than the
first, ascending from his black vest. The chain and fob trembled with
anticipation. I was wholly fascinated. What vast blob of wisdom would
find its difficult way out of him? The bulbous lips wiggled in a pleasant
smile.

"_Voo parlez français._"

This was delightful. The _planton_ behind me was obviously angered by the
congenial demeanour of Monsieur le Gestionnaire, and rasped with his boot
upon the threshold. The maps to my right and left, maps of France, maps
of the Mediterranean, of Europe, even, were abashed. A little anaemic and
humble biped whom I had not previously noted, as he stood in one corner
with a painfully deferential expression, looked all at once relieved. I
guessed, and correctly guessed, that this little thing was the translator
of La Ferté. His weak face wore glasses of the same type as the
hippopotamus', but without a huge black ribbon. I decided to give him a
tremor; and said to the hippo "_Un peu, Monsieur_," at which the little
thing looked sickly.

The hippopotamus benevolently remarked "_Voo parlez bien_," and his
glasses fell off. He turned to the watchful _planton_:

"_Voo poovez aller. Je vooz appelerai._"

The watchful _planton_ did a sort of salute and closed the door after
him. The skullcapped dignitary turned to his papers and began mouthing
them with his huge hands, grunting pleasantly. Finally he found one, and
said lazily:

"_De quelle endroit que vooz êtes?_"

"_De Massachusetts_," said I.

He wheeled round and stared dumbly at the weak faced one, who looked at a
complete loss, but managed to stammer simperingly that it was a part of
the United States.

"UH." The hippopotamus said.

Then he remarked that I had been arrested, and I agreed that I had been
arrested.

Then he said "Have you got any money?" and before I could answer
clambered heavily to his feet and, leaning over the table before which I
stood, punched me gently.

"Uh," said the hippopotamus, sat down, and put on his glasses.

"I have your money here," he said. "You are allowed to draw a little from
time to time. You may draw 20 francs, if you like. You may draw it twice
a week."

"I should like to draw 20 francs now" I said, "in order to buy something
at the canteen."

"You will give me a receipt," said the hippopotamus. "You want to draw 20
francs now, quite so." He began, puffing and grunting, to make
handwriting of a peculiarly large and somewhat loose variety.

The weak face now stepped forward, and asked me gently: "Hugh er a merry
can?"--so I carried on a brilliant conversation in pidgeon English about
my relatives and America until interrupted by

"Uh."

The hip had finished.

"Sign your name, here," he said, and I did. He looked about in one of the
tomes and checked something opposite my name, which I enjoyed seeing in
the list of inmates. It had been spelled, erased, and re-spelled several
times.

Monsieur le Gestionnaire contemplated my signature. Then he looked up,
smiled and nodded recognition to someone behind me. I turned. There stood
(having long since noiselessly entered) The Fencer Himself, nervously
clasping and unclasping his hands behind his back and regarding me with
approval, or as a keeper regards some rare monkey newly forwarded from
its habitat by Hagenbeck.

The hippo pulled out a drawer. He found, after hunting, some notes. He
counted two off, licking his big thumb with a pompous gesture, and having
recounted them passed them heavily to me. I took them as a monkey takes a
cocoanut.

"Do you wish?"--the Gestionnaire nodded toward me, addressing the Fencer.

"No, no" the Fencer said bowingly. "I have talked to him already."

"Call that _planton!_" cried Monsieur le Gestionnaire, to the little
thing. The little thing ran out dutifully and called in a weak voice
"_Planton!_"

A gruff but respectful "_Oui_" boomed from below-stairs. In a moment the
_planton_ of _plantons_ had respectfully entered.

"The promenade being over, you can take him to the men's room," said the
Surveillant, as the Hippo (immensely relieved and rather proud of
himself) collapsed in his creaking chair.

Feeling like a suit-case in the clutches of a porter, I obediently
preceded my escort down two flights, first having bowed to the
hippopotamus and said "_Merci_"--to which courtesy the Hippo paid no
attention. As we went along the dank hall on the ground floor, I
regretted that no whispers and titters had greeted my descent. Probably
the furious _planton_ had seen to it that _les femmes_ kept their rooms
in silence. We ascended the three flights at the farther end of the
corridor, the _planton_ of all _plantons_ unlocked and unbolted the door
at the top landing, and I was swallowed by The Enormous Room.

I made for B., in my excitement allowing myself to wave the bank-notes.
Instantly a host had gathered at my side. On my way to my bed--a distance
of perhaps thirty feet--I was patted on the back by Harree, Pompom and
Bathhouse John, congratulated by Monsieur Auguste, and saluted by Fritz.
Arriving, I found myself the centre of a stupendous crowd. People who had
previously had nothing to say to me, who had even sneered at my unwashed
and unshaven exterior, now addressed me in terms of more than polite
interest. Judas himself stopped in a promenade of the room, eyed me a
moment, hastened smoothly to my vicinity, and made a few oily remarks of
a pleasant nature. Simultaneously by Monsieur Auguste Harree and Fritz I
was advised to hide my money and hide it well. There were people, you
know ... who didn't hesitate, you understand.... I understood, and to the
vast disappointment of the clamorous majority reduced my wealth to its
lowest terms and crammed it in my trousers, stuffing several trifles of a
bulky nature on top of it. Then I gazed quietly around with a William S.
Hart expression calculated to allay any undue excitement. One by one the
curious and enthusiastic faded from me, and I was left with the few whom
I already considered my friends; with which few B. and myself proceeded
to wile away the time remaining before _Lumières Éteintes_.

Incidentally, I exchanged (in the course of the next two hours) a
considerable mass of two legged beings for a number of extremely
interesting individuals. Also, in that somewhat limited period of time, I
gained all sorts of highly enlightening information concerning the lives,
habits and likes of half a dozen of as fine companions as it has ever
been my luck to meet or, so far as I can now imagine, ever will be. In
prison one learns several million things--if one is _l'américain_ from
_Mass-a-chu-setts_. When the ominous and awe-inspiring rattle on the
further side of the locked door announced that the captors were come to
bid the captives good night, I was still in the midst of conversation and
had been around the world a number of times. At the clanking sound our
little circle centripetally disintegrated, as if by sheer magic; and I
was left somewhat dizzily to face a renewal of reality.

The door shot wide. The _planton's_ almost indistinguishable figure in
the doorway told me that the entire room was dark. I had not noticed the
darkness. Somebody had placed a candle (which I recalled having seen on a
table in the middle of the room when I looked up once or twice during the
conversation) on a little shelf hard by the cabinet. There had been men
playing at cards by this candle--now everybody was quietly reposing upon
the floor along three sides of The Enormous Room. The _planton_ entered.
Walked over to the light. Said something about everybody being present,
and was answered by a number of voices in a more or less profane
affirmative. Strutted to and fro, kicked the cabinet, flashed an electric
torch, and walked up the room examining each _paillasse_ to make sure it
had an occupant. Crossed the room at the upper end. Started down on my
side. The white circle was in my eyes. The _planton_ stopped. I stared
stupidly and wearily into the glare. The light moved all over me and my
bed. The rough voice behind the glare said:

"_Vous êtes le nouveau?_"

Monsieur Auguste, from my left, said quietly:

"_Oui, c'est le nouveau._"

The holder of the torch grunted, and (after pausing a second at B.'s bed
to inspect a picture of perfect innocence) banged out through the door
which whanged to behind him and another _planton_, of whose presence I
had been hitherto unaware. A perfect symphony of "_Bonne nuits_" "_Dormez
biens_" and other affectionate admonitions greeted the exeunt of the
authorities. They were advised by various parts of the room in divers
tongues to dream of their wives, to be careful of themselves in bed, to
avoid catching cold, and to attend to a number of personal wants before
retiring. The symphony gradually collapsed, leaving me sitting in a state
of complete wonderment, dead tired and very happy, upon my _paillasse_.

"I think I'll turn in" I said to the neighbouring darkness.

"That's what I'm doing" B.'s voice said.

"By God" I said, "this is the finest place I've ever been in my life."

"It's the finest place in the world" said B.'s voice.

"Thank Heaven, we're out of A.'s way and the ---- _Section Sanitaire_," I
grunted as I placed my boots where a pillow might have been imagined.

"Amen" B.'s voice said.

"If you put your shoes un-der your mat-tress" Monsieur Auguste's voice
said, "you'll sleep well."

I thanked him for the suggestion, and did so. I reclined in an ecstasy of
happiness and weariness. There could be nothing better than this. To
sleep.

"Got a _gottverdummer_ cigarette?" Harree's voice asked of Fritz.

"No bloody fear," Fritz's voice replied coolly.

Snores had already begun in various keys at various distances in various
directions. The candle flickered a little; as if darkness and itself were
struggling to the death, and darkness were winning.

"I'll get a chew from John" Harree's voice said.

Three or four _paillasses_ away, a subdued conversation was proceeding. I
found myself listening sleepily.

"_Et puis_," a voice said, "_je suis reformé...._"



V.

A GROUP OF PORTRAITS

With the reader's permission I beg, at this point of my narrative, to
indulge in one or two extrinsic observations.

In the preceding pages I have described my Pilgrim's Progress from the
Slough of Despond, commonly known as Section Sanitaire Vingt-et-Un (then
located at Germaine) through the mysteries of Noyon, Gré and Paris to the
Porte de Triage de La Ferté Macé, Orne. With the end of my first day as a
certified inhabitant of the latter institution a definite progression is
brought to a close. Beginning with my second day at La Ferté a new period
opens. This period extends to the moment of my departure and includes the
discovery of The Delectable Mountains, two of which--The Wanderer and I
shall not say the other--have already been sighted. It is like a vast
grey box in which are laid helter-skelter a great many toys, each of
which is itself completely significant apart from the always unchanging
temporal dimension which merely contains it along with the rest. I make
this point clear for the benefit of any of my readers who have not had
the distinguished privilege of being in jail. To those who have been in
jail my meaning is at once apparent; particularly if they have had the
highly enlightening experience of being in jail with a perfectly
indefinite sentence. How, in such a case, could events occur and be
remembered otherwise than as individualities distinct from Time Itself?
Or, since one day and the next are the same to such a prisoner, where
does Time come in at all? Obviously, once the prisoner is habituated to
his environment, once he accepts the fact that speculation as to when he
will regain his liberty cannot possibly shorten the hours of his
incarceration and may very well drive him into a state of unhappiness
(not to say morbidity), events can no longer succeed each other: whatever
happens, while it may happen in connection with some other perfectly
distinct happenings, does not happen in a scale of temporal
priorities--each happening is self-sufficient, irrespective of minutes,
months and the other treasures of freedom.

It is for this reason that I do not purpose to inflict upon the reader a
diary of my alternative aliveness and non-existence at La Ferté--not
because such a diary would unutterably bore him, but because the diary or
time method is a technique which cannot possibly do justice to
timelessness. I shall (on the contrary) lift from their grey box at
random certain (to me) more or less astonishing toys; which may or may
not please the reader, but whose colours and shapes and textures are a
part of that actual Present--without future and past--whereof they alone
are cognizant who--so to speak--have submitted to an amputation of the
world.

I have already stated that La Ferté was a Porte de Triage--that is to
say, a place where suspects of all varieties were herded by _le
gouvernement français_ preparatory to their being judged as to their
guilt by a Commission. If the Commission found that they were wicked
persons or dangerous persons, or undesirable persons, or puzzling
persons, or persons in some way insusceptible of analysis, they were sent
from La Ferté to a "regular" prison, called Précigne, in the province of
Sarthe. About Précigne the most awful rumors were spread. It was
whispered that it had a huge moat about it, with an infinity of barbed
wire fences thirty-feet high, and lights trained on the walls all night
to discourage the escape of prisoners. Once in Précigne you were "in" for
good and all, _pour la durée de la guerre_, which _durée_ was a subject
of occasional and dismal speculation--occasional for reasons, as I have
mentioned, of mental health; dismal for unreasons of diet, privation,
filth, and other trifles. La Ferté was, then, a stepping stone either to
freedom or to Précigne. But the excellent and inimitable and altogether
benignant French Government was not satisfied with its own generosity in
presenting one merely with Précigne--beyond that lurked a _cauchemar_
called by the singularly poetic name: Isle de Groix. A man who went to
Isle de Groix was done.

As the Surveillant said to us all, leaning out of a littlish window, and
to me personally upon occasion--

"You are not prisoners. Oh, no. No indeed, I should say not. Prisoners
are not treated like this. You are lucky."

I had _de la chance_ all right, but that was something which the _pauvre_
M. Surveillant wot altogether not of. As for my fellow-prisoners, I am
sorry to say that he was--it seems to my humble personality--quite wrong.
For who was eligible to La Ferté? Anyone whom the police could find in
the lovely country of France (a) who was not guilty--of treason (b) who
could not prove that he was not guilty of treason. By treason I refer to
any little annoying habits of independent thought or action which _en
temps de guerre_ are put in a hole and covered over, with the somewhat
naïve idea that from their cadavers violets will grow, whereof the
perfume will delight all good men and true and make such worthy citizens
forget their sorrows. Fort Leavenworth, for instance, emanates even now a
perfume which is utterly delightful to certain Americans. Just how many
La Fertés France boasted (and for all I know may still boast) God Himself
knows. At least, in that Republic, amnesty has been proclaimed, or so I
hear.--But to return to the Surveillants remark.

_J'avais de la chance._ Because I am by profession a painter and a
writer. Whereas my very good friends, all of them deeply suspicious
characters, most of them traitors, without exception lucky to have the
use of their cervical vertebrae, etc., etc., could (with a few
exceptions) write not a word and read not a word; neither could they
_faire la photographie_ as Monsieur Auguste chucklingly called it (at
which I blushed with pleasure): worst of all, the majority of these dark
criminals who had been caught in nefarious plots against the honour of
France were totally unable to speak French. Curious thing. Often I
pondered the unutterable and inextinguishable wisdom of the police,
who--undeterred by facts which would have deceived less astute
intelligences into thinking that these men were either too stupid or too
simple to be connoisseurs of the art of betrayal--swooped upon their
helpless prey with that indescribable courage which is the prerogative of
policemen the world over, and bundled it into the La Fertés of that
mighty nation upon some, at least, of whose public buildings it seems to
me that I remember reading:

Liberté.

Egalité.

Fraternité.

And I wondered that France should have a use for Monsieur Auguste, who
had been arrested (because he was a Russian) when his fellow munition
workers struck and whose wife wanted him in Paris because she was hungry
and because their child was getting to look queer and white. Monsieur
Auguste, that desperate ruffian exactly five feet tall who--when he could
not keep from crying (one must think about one's wife or even one's child
once or twice, I merely presume, if one loves them--"_et ma femme est
très gen-tille, elle est fran-çaise et très belle, très, très belle,
vraiment; elle n'est fas comme moi, un pet-it homme laide, ma femme est
grande et belle, elle sait bien lire et é-crire, vraiment; et notre fils
... vous dev-ez voir notre pet-it fils...._")--used to start up and cry
out, taking B. by one arm and me by the other,

"_Allons, mes amis! Chan-tons 'Quackquackquack_.'"

Whereupon we would join in the following song, which Monsieur Auguste had
taught us with great care, and whose renditions gave him unspeakable
delight:

  "_Un canard, déployant chez elle
                             (Quackquackquack)
  Il disait à sa canard fidèle
                             (Quackquackquack)
  Il disait (Quackquackquack)
  Il faisait (Quackquackquack)
       Quand_" (spelling mine)
  "_finirons nos desseins,
                          Quack.
                             Quack.
                                Quack.
                                  Quack."

I suppose I will always puzzle over the ecstasies of That Wonderful Duck.
And how Monsieur Auguste, the merest gnome of a man, would bend backwards
in absolute laughter at this song's spirited conclusion upon a note so
low as to wither us all.

Then, too, the Schoolmaster.

A little fragile old man. His trousers were terrifically too big for him.
When he walked (in an insecure and frightened way) his trousers did the
most preposterous wrinkles. If he leaned against a tree in the _cour_,
with a very old and also fragile pipe in his pocket--the stem (which
looked enormous in contrast to the owner) protruding therefrom--his
three-sizes too big collar would leap out so as to make his wizened neck
appear no thicker than the white necktie which flowed upon his two-sizes
too big shirt. He always wore a coat which reached below his knees, which
coat, with which knees, perhaps someone had once given him. It had huge
shoulders which sprouted, like wings, on either side of his elbows when
he sat in The Enormous Room quietly writing at a tiny three-legged table,
a very big pen walking away with his weak bony hand. His too big cap had
a little button on top which looked like the head of a nail; and
suggested that this old doll had once lost its poor grey head and had
been repaired by means of tacking its head upon its neck, where it should
be and properly belonged. Of what hideous crime was this being suspected?
By some mistake he had three moustaches, two of them being eyebrows. He
used to teach school in Alsace-Lorraine, and his sister is there. In
speaking to you his kind face is peacefully reduced to triangles. And his
tie buttons on every morning with a Bang! And off he goes; led about by
his celluloid collar, gently worried about himself, delicately worried
about the world. At eating time he looks sidelong as he stuffs soup into
stiff lips. There are two holes where cheeks might have been. Lessons
hide in his wrinkles. Bells ding in the oldness of eyes. Did he, by any
chance, tell the children that there are such monstrous things as peace
and good will ... a corrupter of youth, no doubt ... he is altogether
incapable of anger, wholly timid and tintinabulous. And he had always
wanted so much to know--if there were wild horses in America?

Yes, probably the Schoolmaster was a notorious seditionist. The all-wise
French Government has its ways, which like the ways of God are wonderful.

I had almost forgot The Bear--number two, not to be confused with the
seeker of cigarette-ends. A big, shaggy person, a farmer, talked about
"_mon petit jardin_," an anarchist, wrote practically all the time (to
the gentle annoyance of The Schoolmaster) at the queer-legged table;
wrote letters (which he read aloud with evident satisfaction to himself)
addressing "my confrères", stimulating them to even greater efforts,
telling them that the time was ripe, that the world consisted of
brothers, etc. I liked The Bear. He had a sincerity which, if somewhat
startlingly uncouth, was always definitely compelling. His French itself
was both uncouth and startling. I hardly think he was a dangerous bear.
Had I been the French Government I should have let him go berrying, as a
bear must and should, to his heart's content. Perhaps I liked him best
for his great awkward way of presenting an idea--he scooped it out of its
environment with a hearty paw in a way which would have delighted anyone
save _le gouvernement français_. He had, I think,

VIVE LA LIBERTÉ

tattooed in blue and green on his big hairy chest. A fine bear. A bear
whom no twitchings at his muzzle nor any starvation nor yet any beating
could ever teach to dance ... but then, I am partial to bears. Of course
none of this bear's letters ever got posted--Le Directeur was not that
sort of person; nor did this bear ever expect that they would go
elsewhere than into the official waste-basket of La Ferté, which means
that he wrote because he liked to; which again means that he was
essentially an artist--for which reason I liked him more than a little.
He lumbered off one day--I hope to his brier-patch, and to his children,
and to his _confrères_, and to all things excellent and livable and
highly desirable to a bruin.

The Young Russian and The Barber escaped while I was enjoying my little
visit at Orne. The former was an immensely tall and very strong boy of
nineteen or under; who had come to our society by way of solitary
confinement, bread and water for months, and other reminders that to err
is human, etc. Unlike Harree, whom, if anything, he exceeded in strength,
he was very quiet. Everyone let him alone. I "caught water" in the town
with him several times and found him an excellent companion. He taught me
the Russian numerals up to ten, and was very kind to my struggles over 10
and 9. He picked up the cannon-ball one day and threw it so hard that the
wall separating the men's _cour_ from the _cour des femmes_ shook, and a
piece of stone fell off. At which the cannon-ball was taken away from us
(to the grief of its daily wielders, Harree and Fritz) by four perspiring
_plantons_, who almost died in the performance of their highly patriotic
duty. His friend, The Barber, had a little shelf in The Enormous Room,
all tricked out with an astonishing array of bottles, atomizers, tonics,
powders, scissors, razors and other deadly implements. It has always been
a _mystère_ to me that our captors permitted this array of obviously
dangerous weapons when we were searched almost weekly for knives. Had I
not been in the habit of using B.'s safety razor I should probably have
become better acquainted with The Barber. It was not his price, nor yet
his technique, but the fear of contamination which made me avoid these
instruments of hygiene. Not that I shaved to excess. On the contrary, the
Surveillant often, nay bi-weekly (so soon as I began drawing certain
francs from Norton Harjes) reasoned with me upon the subject of
appearance; saying that I was come of a good family, and I had enjoyed
(unlike my companions) an education, and that I should keep myself neat
and clean and be a shining example to the filthy and ignorant--adding
slyly that the "hospital" would be an awfully nice place for me and my
friend to live, and that there we could be by ourselves like gentlemen
and have our meals served in the room, avoiding the _salle a manger_;
moreover, the food would be what we liked, delicious food, especially
cooked ... all (quoth the Surveillant with the itching palm of a Grand
Central Porter awaiting his tip) for a mere trifle or so, which if I
liked I could pay him on the spot--whereat I scornfully smiled, being
inhibited by a somewhat selfish regard for my own welfare from kicking
him through the window. To The Barber's credit be it said: he never once
solicited my trade, although the Surveillant's "_Soi-même_" (oneself)
lectures (as B. and I referred to them) were the delight of our numerous
friends and must, through them, have reached his alert ears. He was a
good-looking quiet man of perhaps thirty, with razor-keen eyes--and
that's about all I know of him except that one day The Young Russian and
The Barber, instead of passing from the _cour_ directly to the building,
made use of a little door in an angle between the stone wall and the
kitchen; and that to such good effect that we never saw them again. Nor
were the ever-watchful guardians of our safety, the lion-hearted
_plantons_, aware of what had occurred until several hours after; despite
the fact that a ten-foot wall had been scaled, some lesser obstructions
vanquished, and a run in the open made almost (one unpatriotically minded
might be tempted to say) before their very eyes. But then--who knows? May
not the French Government deliberately have allowed them to escape,
after--through its incomparable spy system--learning that The Barber and
his young friend were about to attempt the life of the Surveillant with
an atomizer brim-full of T.N.T.? Nothing could after all be more highly
probable. As a matter of fact a couple of extra-fine razors (presented by
the _Soi-même_-minded Surveillant to the wily coiffeur in the interests
of public health) as well as a knife which belonged to the kitchen and
had been lent to The Barber for the purpose of peeling potatoes--he
having complained that the extraordinary safety-device with which, on
alternate days, we were ordinarily furnished for that purpose, was an
insult to himself and his profession--vanished into the rather thick air
of Orne along with The Barber _lui-même_. I remember him perfectly in The
Enormous Room, cutting apples deliberately with his knife and sharing
them with the Young Russian. The night of the escape--in order to keep up
our morale--we were helpfully told that both refugees had been snitched
e'er they had got well without the limits of the town, and been remanded
to a punishment consisting among other things, in _travaux forcés à
perpetuité--verbum sapientibus_, he that hath ears, etc. Also a nightly
inspection was instituted; consisting of our being counted thrice by a
_planton_, who then divided the total by three and vanished.

_Soi-même_ reminds me of a pleasant spirit who graced our little company
with a good deal of wit and elegance. He was called by B. and myself,
after a somewhat exciting incident which I must not describe, but rather
outline, by the agreeable title of Même le Balayeur. Only a few days
after my arrival the incident in question happened. It seems (I was in
_la cour_ promenading for the afternoon) that certain more virile
inhabitants of The Enormous Room, among them Harree and Pom Pom _bien
entendu_, declined to _se promener_ and kept their habitat. Now this was
in fulfilment of a little understanding with three or more girls--such as
Celina, Lily and Renée--who, having also declined the promenade, managed
in the course of the afternoon to escape from their quarters on the
second floor, rush down the hall and upstairs, and gain that landing on
which was the only and well-locked door to The Enormous Room. The next
act of this little comedy (or tragedy, as it proved for the participants,
who got _cabinot_ and _pain sec_--male and female alike--for numerous
days thereafter) might well be entitled "Love will find a way." Just how
the door was opened, the lock picked, etc., from the inside is (of
course) a considerable mystery to anyone possessing a limited
acquaintance with the art of burglary. Anyway it was accomplished, and
that in several fifths of a second. Now let the curtain fall, and the
reader be satisfied with the significant word "Asbestos," which is part
of all first-rate performances.

The Surveillant, I fear, distrusted his _balayeur_. _Balayeurs_ were
always being changed because _balayeurs_ were (in shameful contrast to
the _plantons_) invariably human beings. For this deplorable reason they
inevitably carried notes to and fro between _les hommes_ and _les
femmes_. Upon which ground the _balayeur_ in this case--a well-knit
keen-eyed agile man, with a sense of humour and sharp perception of men,
women and things in particular and in general--was called before the bar
of an impromptu court, held by M. le Surveillant in The Enormous Room
after the promenade. I shall not enter in detail into the nature of the
charges pressed in certain cases, but confine myself to quoting the close
of a peroration which would have done Demosthenes credit:

"_Même le balayeur a tiré un coup!_"

The individual in question mildly deprecated M. le Surveillant's opinion,
while the audience roared and rocked with laughter of a somewhat
ferocious sort. I have rarely seen the Surveillant so pleased with
himself as after producing this _bon mot_. Only fear of his superior, the
ogre-like Directeur, kept him from letting off entirely all concerned in
what after all (from the European point of view) was an essentially human
proceeding. As nobody could prove anything about Même, he was not locked
up in a dungeon; but he lost his job of sweeper--which was quite as bad,
I am sure, from his point of view--and from that day became a common
inhabitant of The Enormous Room like any of the rest of us.

His successor, Garibaldi, was a corker.

How the Almighty French Government in its Almighty Wisdom ever found
Garibaldi a place among us is more than I understand or ever will. He was
a little tot in a faded blue-grey French uniform; and when he perspired
he pushed a _kepi_ up and back from his worried forehead which a lock of
heavy hair threateningly overhung. As I recollect Garibaldi's terribly
difficult, not to say complicated, lineage, his English mother had
presented him to his Italian father in the country of France. However
this trilogy may be, he had served at various times in the Italian,
French and English armies. As there was (unless we call Garibaldi
Italian, which he obviously was not) nary a subject of King Ponzi or
Carruso or whatever be his name residing at La Ferté Macé, Garibaldi was
in the habit of expressing himself--chiefly at the card table, be it
said--in a curious language which might have been mistaken for French. To
B. and me he spoke an equally curious language, but a perfectly
recognizable one, i.e., Cockney Whitechapel English. He showed us a
perfectly authentic mission-card which certified that his family had
received a pittance from some charitable organisation situated in the
Whitechapel neighbourhood, and that, moreover, they were in the habit of
receiving this pittance; and that, finally, their claim to such pittance
was amply justified by the poverty of their circumstances. Beyond this
valuable certificate, Garibaldi (which everyone called him) attained
great incoherence. He had been wronged. He was always being
misunderstood. His life had been a series of mysterious tribulations. I
for one have the merest idea that Garibaldi was arrested for the theft of
some peculiarly worthless trifle, and sent to the Limbo of La Ferté as a
penance. This merest idea is suggested by something which happened when
The Clever Man instituted a search for his missing knife--but I must
introduce The Clever Man to my reader before describing that rather
beguiling incident.

Conceive a tall, well-dressed, rather athletic, carefully kept, clean and
neat, intelligent, not for a moment despondent, altogether superior man,
fairly young (perhaps twenty-nine) and quite bald. He wins enough every
night at _banque_ to enable him to pay the less fortunate to perform his
_corvée d'eau_ for him. As a consequence he takes his vile coffee in bed
every morning, then smokes a cigarette or two lazily, then drops off for
a nap, and gets up about the middle of the morning promenade. Upon
arising he strops a razor of his own (nobody knows how he gets away with
a regular razor), carefully lathers his face and neck--while gazing into
a rather classy mirror which hangs night and day over his head, above a
little shelf on which he displays at such times a complete toilet
outfit--and proceeds to annihilate the inconsiderable growth of beard
which his mirror reveals to him. Having completed the annihilation, he
performs the most extensive ablutions per one of the three or four pails
which The Enormous Room boasts, which pail is by common consent dedicated
to his personal and exclusive use. All this time he has been singing
loudly and musically the following sumptuously imaginative ditty:

  "mEEt me tonIght in DREAmland,
  UNder the SIL-v'ry mOOn,
  meet me in DREAmland,
  sweet dreamy DREAmland--
  there all my DRE-ams come trUE."

His English accent is excellent. He pronounces his native language, which
is the language of the Hollanders, crisply and firmly. He is not given to
Gottverdummering. In addition to Dutch and English he speaks French
clearly and Belgian distinctly. I daresay he knows half a dozen languages
in all. He gives me the impression of a man who would never be at a loss,
in whatever circumstances he might find himself. A man capable of
extricating himself from the most difficult situation; and that with the
greatest ease. A man who bides his time; and improves the present by
separating, one after one, his monied fellow-prisoners from their
banknotes. He is, by all odds, the coolest player that I ever watched.
Nothing worries him. If he loses two hundred francs tonight, I am sure he
will win it and fifty in addition tomorrow. He accepts opponents without
distinction--the stupid, the wily, the vain, the cautious, the desperate,
the hopeless. He has not the slightest pity, not the least fear. In one
of my numerous notebooks I have this perfectly direct paragraph:

    Card table: 4 stares play banque with 2 cigarettes (1 dead) & A
    pipe the clashing faces yanked by a leanness of one candle
    bottle-stuck (Birth of X) (where sits The Clever Man who
    pyramids,) sings (mornings) "Meet Me..."

which specimen of telegraphic technique, being interpreted, means: Judas,
Garibaldi, and The Holland Skipper (whom the reader will meet _de
suite_)--Garibaldi's cigarette having gone out, so greatly is he
absorbed--play _banque_ with four intent and highly focussed individuals
who may or may not be The Schoolmaster, Monsieur Auguste, The Barber, and
Même; with The Clever Man (as nearly always) acting as banker. The candle
by whose somewhat uncorpulent illumination the various physiognomies are
yanked into a ferocious unity is stuck into the mouth of a bottle. The
lighting of the whole, the rhythmic disposition of the figures, construct
a sensuous integration suggestive of The Birth of Christ by one of the
Old Masters. The Clever Man, having had his usual morning warble, is
extremely quiet. He will win, he pyramids--and he pyramids because he has
the cash and can afford to make every play a big one. All he needs is the
rake of a _croupier_ to complete his disinterested and wholly nerveless
poise. He is a born gambler, is The Clever Man--and I dare say that to
play cards in time of war constituted a heinous crime and I am certain
that he played cards before he arrived at La Ferté; moreover, I suppose
that to win at cards in time of war is an unutterable crime, and I know
that he has won at cards before in his life--so now we have a perfectly
good and valid explanation of the presence of The Clever Man in our
midst. The Clever Man's chief opponent was Judas. It was a real pleasure
to us whenever of an evening Judas sweated and mopped and sweated and
lost more and more and was finally cleaned out.

But The Skipper, I learned from certain prisoners who escorted the
baggage of The Clever Man from The Enormous Room when he left us one day
(as he did for some reason, to enjoy the benefits of freedom), paid the
mastermind of the card table 150 francs at the gate--poor Skipper! upon
whose vacant bed lay down luxuriously the Lobster, immediately to be
wheeled fiercely all around The Enormous Room by the Guard Champêtre and
Judas, to the boisterous plaudits of _tout le monde_--but I started to
tell about the afternoon when the master-mind lost his knife; and tell it
I will forthwith. B. and I were lying prone upon our respective beds
when--presto, a storm arose at the further end of The Enormous Room. We
looked, and beheld The Clever Man, thoroughly and efficiently angry,
addressing, threatening and frightening generally a constantly increasing
group of fellow-prisoners. After dismissing with a few sharp linguistic
cracks of the whip certain theories which seemed to be advanced by the
bolder auditors with a view to palliating, persuading and tranquilizing
his just wrath, he made for the nearest _paillasse_, turned it
topsy-turvy, slit it neatly and suddenly from stem to stem with a
jack-knife, banged the hay about, and then went with careful haste
through the pitifully minute baggage of the _paillasse's_ owner. Silence
fell. No one, least of all the owner, said anything. From this bed The
Clever Man turned to the next, treated it in the same fashion, searched
it thoroughly, and made for the third. His motions were those of a
perfectly oiled machine. He proceeded up the length of the room, varying
his procedure only by sparing an occasional mattress, throwing
_paillasses_ about, tumbling _sacs_ and boxes inside out; his face
somewhat paler than usual but otherwise immaculate and expressionless. B.
and I waited with some interest to see what would happen to our
belongings. Arriving at our beds he paused, seemed to consider a moment,
then, not touching our _paillasses_ proper, proceeded to open our duffle
bags and hunt half-heartedly, remarking that "somebody might have put it
in;" and so passed on. "What in hell is the matter with that guy?" I
asked of Fritz, who stood near us with a careless air, some scorn and
considerable amusement in his eyes. "The bloody fool's lost his knife,"
was Fritz's answer. After completing his rounds The Clever Man searched
almost everyone except ourselves and Fritz, and absolutely subsided on
his own _paillasse_ muttering occasionally "if he found it" what he'd do.
I think he never did find it. It was a "beautiful" knife, John the
Baigneur said. "What did it look like?" I demanded with some curiosity.
"It had a naked woman on the handle" Fritz said, his eyes sharp with
amusement.

And everyone agreed that it was a great pity that The Clever Man had lost
it, and everyone began timidly to restore order and put his personal
belongings back in place and say nothing at all.

But what amused me was to see the little tot in a bluish-grey French
uniform, Garibaldi, who--about when the search approached his
_paillasse_--suddenly hurried over to B. (his perspiring forehead more
perspiring than usual, his _kepi_ set at an angle of insanity) and
hurriedly presented B. with a long-lost German silver folding camp-knife,
purchased by B. from a fellow-member of Vingt-et-Un who was known to us
as "Lord Algie"--a lanky, effeminate, brittle, spotless creature who was
en route to becoming an officer and to whose finicky tastes the
fat-jowled A. tirelessly pandered, for, doubtless, financial
considerations--which knife according to the trembling and altogether
miserable Garibaldi had "been found" by him that day in the _cour_; which
was eminently and above all things curious, as the treasure had been lost
weeks before.

Which again brings us to the Skipper, whose elaborate couch has already
been mentioned--he was a Hollander and one of the strongest, most gentle
and altogether most pleasant of men, who used to sit on the water-wagon
under the shed in the _cour_ and smoke his pipe quietly of an afternoon.
His stocky even tightly-knit person, in its heavy-trousers and jersey
sweater, culminated in a bronzed face which was at once as kind and firm
a piece of supernatural work as I think I ever knew. His voice was
agreeably modulated. He was utterly without affectation. He had three
sons. One evening a number of _gendarmes_ came to his house and told him
that he was arrested, "so my three sons and I threw them all out of the
window into the canal."

I can still see the opening smile, squared kindness of cheeks, eyes like
cool keys--his heart always with the Sea.

The little Machine-Fixer (_le petit bonhomme avec le bras cassé_ as he
styled himself, referring to his little paralysed left arm) was so
perfectly different that I must let you see him next. He was slightly
taller than Garibaldi, about of a size with Monsieur Auguste. He and
Monsieur Auguste together were a fine sight, a sight which made me feel
that I came of a race of giants. I am afraid it was more or less as
giants that B. and I pitied the Machine-Fixer--still this was not really
our fault, since the Machine-Fixer came to us with his troubles much as a
very minute and helpless child comes to a very large and omnipotent one.
And God knows we did not only pity him, we liked him--and if we could in
some often ridiculous manner assist the Machine-Fixer I think we nearly
always did. The assistance to which I refer was wholly spiritual; since
the minute Machine-Fixer's colossal self-pride eliminated any possibility
of material assistance. What we did, about every other night, was to
entertain him (as we entertained our other friends) _chez nous_; that is
to say, he would come up late every evening or every other evening, after
his day's toil--for he worked as co-sweeper with Garibaldi and he was a
tremendous worker; never have I seen a man who took his work so seriously
and made so much of it--to sit, with great care and very respectfully,
upon one or the other of our beds at the upper end of The Enormous Room,
and smoke a black small pipe, talking excitedly and strenuously and
fiercely about _La Misère_ and himself and ourselves, often crying a
little but very bitterly, and from time to time striking matches with a
short angry gesture on the sole of his big, almost square boot. His
little, abrupt, conscientious, relentless, difficult self lived always in
a single dimension--the somewhat beautiful dimension of Sorrow. He was a
Belgian, and one of two Belgians in whom I have ever felt the least or
slightest interest; for the Machine-Fixer might have been a Polak or an
Idol or an Esquimo so far as his nationality affected his soul. By and
large, that was the trouble--the Machine-Fixer had a soul. Put the
bracelets on an ordinary man, tell him he's a bad egg, treat him rough,
shove him into the jug or its equivalent (you see I have regard always
for M. le Surveillant's delicate but no doubt necessary distinction
between La Ferté and Prison), and he will become one of three animals--a
rabbit, that is to say timid; a mole, that is to say stupid; or a hyena,
that is to say Harree the Hollander. But if, by some fatal, some
incomparably fatal accident, this man has a soul--ah, then we have and
truly have most horribly what is called in La Ferté Macé by those who
have known it: _La Misère_. Monsieur Auguste's valiant attempts at
cheerfulness and the natural buoyancy of his gentle disposition in a
slight degree protected him from _La Misère_. The Machine-Fixer was lost.
By nature he was tremendously sensible, he was the very apotheosis of
_l'ame sensible_ in fact. His sensibilité made him shoulder not only the
inexcusable injustice which he had suffered but the incomparable and
overwhelming total injustice which everyone had suffered and was
suffering en masse day and night in The Enormous Room. His woes, had they
not sprung from perfectly real causes, might have suggested a persecution
complex. As it happened there was no possible method of relieving
them--they could be relieved in only one way: by Liberty. Not simply by
his personal liberty, but by the liberation of every single
fellow-captive as well. His extraordinarily personal anguish could not be
selfishly appeased by a merely partial righting, in his own case, of the
Wrong--the ineffable and terrific and to be perfectly avenged Wrong--done
to those who ate and slept and wept and played cards within that
abominable and unyielding Symbol which enclosed the immutable vileness of
our common life. It was necessary, for its appeasement, that a shaft of
bright lightning suddenly and entirely should wither the human and
material structures which stood always between our filthy and pitiful
selves and the unspeakable cleanness of Liberty.

B. recalls that the little Machine-Fixer said or hinted that he had been
either a socialist or an anarchist when he was young. So that is
doubtless why we had the privilege of his society. After all, it is
highly improbable that this poor socialist suffered more at the hands of
the great and good French government than did many a Conscientious
Objector at the hands of the great and good American government;
or--since all great governments are _per se_ good and vice versa--than
did many a man in general who was cursed with a talent for thinking
during the warlike moments recently passed; during, that is to say, an
epoch when the g. and g. nations demanded of their respective peoples the
exact antithesis to thinking; said antitheses being vulgarly called
Belief. Lest which statement prejudice some members of the American
Legion in disfavour of the Machine-Fixer or rather of myself--awful
thought--I hasten to assure everyone that the Machine-Fixer was a highly
moral person. His morality was at times almost gruesome; as when he got
started on the inhabitants of the women's quarters. Be it understood that
the Machine-Fixer was human, that he would take a letter--provided he
liked the sender--and deliver it to the sender's _adorée_ without a
murmur. That was simply a good deed done for a friend; it did not imply
that he approved of the friend's choice, which for strictly moral reasons
he invariably and to the friend's very face violently deprecated. To this
little man of perhaps forty-five, with a devoted wife waiting for him in
Belgium (a wife whom he worshipped and loved more than he worshipped and
loved anything in the world, a wife whose fidelity to her husband and
whose trust and confidence in him echoed in the letters which--when we
three were alone--the little Machine-Fixer tried always to read to us,
never getting beyond the first sentence or two before he broke down and
sobbed from his feet to his eyes), to such a little person his reaction
to _les femmes_ was more than natural. It was in fact inevitable.

Women, to him at least, were of two kinds and two kinds only. There were
_les femmes honnêtes_ and there were _les putains_. In La Ferté, he
informed us--and as _balayeur_ he ought to have known whereof he
spoke--there were as many as three ladies of the former variety. One of
them he talked with often. She told him her story. She was a Russian, of
a very fine education, living peacefully in Paris up to the time that she
wrote to her relatives a letter containing the following treasonable
sentiment:

"_Je mennuie pour les neiges de Russie._"

The letter had been read by the French censor, as had B.'s letter; and
her arrest and transference from her home in Paris to La Ferté Macé
promptly followed. She was as intelligent as she was virtuous and had
nothing to do with her frailer sisters, so the Machine-Fixer informed us
with a quickly passing flash of joy. Which sisters (his little forehead
knotted itself and his big bushy eyebrows plunged together wrathfully)
were wicked and indecent and utterly despicable disgraces to their
sex--and this relentless Joseph fiercely and jerkily related how only the
day before he had repulsed the painfully obvious solicitations of a
Madame Potiphar by turning his back, like a good Christian, upon
temptation and marching out of the room, broom tightly clutched in
virtuous hand.

"_M'sieu Jean_" (meaning myself) "_savez-vous_"--with a terrific gesture
which consisted in snapping his thumbnail between his teeth--"_CA PUE!_"

Then he added: "And what would my wife say to me if I came home to her
and presented her with that which this creature had presented to me? They
are animals," cried the little Machine-Fixer; "all they want is a man.
They don't care who he is; they want a man. But they won't get me!" And
he warned us to beware.

Especially interesting, not to say valuable, was the Machine-Fixer's
testimony concerning the more or less regular "inspections" (which were
held by the very same doctor who had "examined" me in the course of my
first day at La Ferté) for _les femmes_; presumably in the interest of
public safety. _Les femmes_, quoth the Machine-Fixer, who had been many
times an eye-witness of this proceeding, lined up talking and laughing
and--crime of crimes--smoking cigarettes, outside the bureau of M. le
Médecin Major. "_Une femme entre. Elle se lève les jupes jusqu'au menton
et se met sur le banc. Le médecin major la regarde. Il dit de suite 'Bon.
C'est tout.' Elle sort. Une autre entre. La même chose. 'Bon. C'est
fini'.... M'sieu' Jean: prenez garde!_"

And he struck a match fiercely on the black, almost square boot which
lived on the end of his little worn trouser-leg, bending his small body
forward as he did so, and bringing the flame upward in a violent curve.
The flame settled on his little black pipe, his cheeks sucked until they
must have met, and a slow unwilling noise arose, and with the return of
his cheeks a small colorless wisp of possibly smoke came upon the
air.--"That's not tobacco. Do you know what it is? It's wood! And I sit
here smoking wood in my pipe when my wife is sick with worrying....
_M'sieu! Jean_"--leaning forward with jaw protruding and a oneness of
bristly eyebrows, "_Ces grande messieurs qui ne foutent 'pas mal si l'on
CREVE de faim, savez-vous ils croient chacun qu'il est Le Bon Dieu
LUI-Même. Et M'sieu' Jean, savez-vous, ils sont tous_"--leaning right in
my face, the withered hand making a pitiful fist of itself--"_ils. Sont.
Des. CRAPULES!_"

And his ghastly and toylike wizened and minute arm would try to make a
pass at their lofty lives. O _gouvernement français_, I think it was not
very clever of you to put this terrible doll in La Ferté; I should have
left him in Belgium with his little doll-wife if I had been You; for when
governments are found dead there is always a little doll on top of them,
pulling and tweaking with his little hands to get back the microscopic
knife which sticks firmly in the quiet meat of their hearts.

One day only did I see him happy or nearly happy--when a Belgian baroness
for some reason arrived, and was bowed and fed and wined by the
delightfully respectful and perfectly behaved Official Captors--"and I
know of her in Belgium, she is a great lady, she is very powerful and she
is generous; I fell on my knees before her, and implored her in the name
of my wife and _Le Bon Dieu_ to intercede in my behalf; and she has made
a note of it, and she told me she would write the Belgian King and I will
be free in a few weeks, FREE!"

The little Machine-Fixer, I happen to know, did finally leave La
Ferté--for Précigne.

... In the kitchen worked a very remarkable person. Who wore _sabots_.
And sang continuously in a very subdued way to himself as he stirred the
huge black kettles. We, that is to say, B. and I, became acquainted with
Afrique very gradually. You did not know Afrique suddenly. You became
cognisant of Afrique gradually. You were in the _cour_, staring at ooze
and dead trees, when a figure came striding from the kitchen lifting its
big wooden feet after it rhythmically, unwinding a particoloured scarf
from its waist as it came, and singing to itself in a subdued manner a
jocular, and I fear, unprintable ditty concerning Paradise. The figure
entered the little gate to the _cour_ in a business-like way, unwinding
continuously, and made stridingly for the cabinet situated up against the
stone wall which separated the promenading sexes--dragging behind it on
the ground a tail of ever-increasing dimensions. The cabinet reached,
tail and figure parted company; the former fell inert to the limitless
mud, the latter disappeared into the contrivance with a Jack-in-the-box
rapidity. From which contrivance the continuing ditty

"_le 'paradis est une maison...._"

--Or again, it's a lithe pausing poise, intensely intelligent, certainly
sensitive, delivering dryingly a series of sure and rapid hints that
penetrate the fabric of stupidity accurately and whisperingly; dealing
one after another brief and poignant instupidities, distinct and
uncompromising, crisp and altogether arrowlike. The poise has a cigarette
in its hand, which cigarette it has just pausingly rolled from material
furnished by a number of carefully saved butts (whereof Afrique's pockets
are invariably full). Its neither old nor young, but rather keen face
hoards a pair of greyish-blue witty eyes, which face and eyes are
directed upon us through the open door of a little room. Which little
room is in the rear of the _cuisine_; a little room filled with the
inexpressibly clean and soft odour of newly cut wood. Which wood we are
pretending to split and pile for kindling. As a matter of fact we are
enjoying Afrique's conversation, escaping from the bleak and profoundly
muddy _cour_, and (under the watchful auspices of the Cook, who plays
sentinel) drinking something approximating coffee with something
approximating sugar therein. All this because the Cook thinks we're
boches and being the Cook and a boche _lui-même_ is consequently
peculiarly concerned for our welfare.

Afrique is talking about _les journaux_, and to what prodigious pains
they go to not tell the truth; or he is telling how a native stole up on
him in the night armed with a spear two metres long, once on a time in a
certain part of the world; or he is predicting that the Germans will
march upon the French by way of Switzerland; or he is teaching us to
count and swear in Arabic; or he is having a very good time in the Midi
as a tinker, sleeping under a tree outside of a little town....

Afrique's is an alert kind of mind, which has been and seen and observed
and penetrated and known--a bit there, somewhat here, chiefly everywhere.
Its specialty being politics, in which case Afrique has had the
inestimable advantage of observing without being observed--until La
Ferté; whereupon Afrique goes on uninterruptedly observing, recognising
that a significant angle of observation has been presented to him gratis.
_Les journaux_ and politics in general are topics upon which Afrique can
say more, without the slightest fatigue, than a book as big as my two
thumbs.

"Why yes, they got water, and then I gave them coffee," Monsieur, or more
properly Mynheer _le chef_, is expostulating; the _planton_ is stupidly
protesting that we are supposed to be upstairs; Afrique is busily
stirring a huge black pot, winking gravely at us and singing softly

  "_Le bon Dieu, Soûl comme un cochon...._"



VI

APOLLYON

The inhabitants of The Enormous Room whose portraits I have attempted in
the preceding chapter, were, with one or two exceptions, inhabiting at
the time of my arrival. Now the thing which above all things made death
worth living and life worth dying at La Ferté Macé was the kinetic aspect
of that institution; the arrivals, singly or in groups, of _nouveaux_ of
sundry nationalities whereby our otherwise more or less simple existence
was happily complicated, our putrescent placidity shaken by a fortunate
violence. Before, however, undertaking this aspect I shall attempt to
represent for my own benefit as well as the reader's certain more obvious
elements of that stasis which greeted the candidates for disintegration
upon their admittance to our select, not to say distinguished, circle.
Or: I shall describe, briefly, Apollyon and the instruments of his power,
which instruments are three in number: Fear, Women and Sunday.

By Apollyon I mean a very definite fiend. A fiend who, secluded in the
sumptuous and luxurious privacy of his own personal _bureau_ (which as a
rule no one of lesser rank than the Surveillant was allowed, so far as I
might observe--and I observed--to enter) compelled to the unimaginable
meanness of his will by means of the three potent instruments in question
all within the sweating walls of La Ferté--that was once upon a time
human. I mean a very complete Apollyon, a Satan whose word is dreadful
not because it is painstakingly unjust, but because it is
incomprehensibly omnipotent. I mean, in short, Monsieur le Directeur.

I shall discuss first of all Monsieur le Directeur's most obvious weapon.

Fear was instilled by three means into the erstwhile human entities whose
presence at La Ferté gave Apollyon his job. The three means were: through
his subordinates, who being one and all fearful of his power directed
their energies to but one end--the production in ourselves of a similar
emotion; through two forms of punishment, which supplied said
subordinates with a weapon over any of us who refused to find room for
this desolating emotion in his heart of hearts; and, finally, through
direct contact with his unutterable personality.

Beneath the Demon was the Surveillant. I have already described the
Surveillant. I wish to say, however, that in my opinion the Surveillant
was the most decent official at La Ferté. I pay him this tribute gladly
and honestly. To me, at least, he was kind: to the majority he was
inclined to be lenient. I honestly and gladly believe that the
Surveillant was incapable of that quality whose innateness, in the case
of his superior, rendered that gentleman a (to my mind) perfect
representative of the Almighty French Government: I believe that the
Surveillant did not enjoy being cruel, that he was not absolutely without
pity or understanding. As a personality I therefore pay him my respects.
I am myself incapable of caring whether, as a tool of the Devil, he will
find the bright firelight of Hell too warm for him or no.

Beneath the Surveillant were the Secretaire, Monsieur Richard, the Cook,
and the _plantons_. The first I have described sufficiently, since he was
an obedient and negative--albeit peculiarly responsible--cog in the
machine of decomposition. Of Monsieur Richard, whose portrait is included
in the account of my first day at La Ferté, I wish to say that he had a
very comfortable room of his own filled with primitive and otherwise
imposing medicines; the walls of this comfortable room being beauteously
adorned by some fifty magazine covers representing the female form in
every imaginable state of undress, said magazine-covers being taken
chiefly from such amorous periodicals as _Le Sourire_ and that old
stand-by of indecency, _La Vie Parisienne_. Also Monsieur Richard kept a
pot of geraniums upon his window-ledge, which haggard and aged-looking
symbol of joy he doubtless (in his spare moments) peculiarly enjoyed
watering. The Cook is by this time familiar to my reader. I beg to say
that I highly approve of The Cook; exclusive of the fact that the coffee,
which went up to The Enormous Room _tous les matins_, was made every day
with the same grounds plus a goodly injection of checkerberry--for the
simple reason that the Cook had to supply our captors and especially
Apollyon with real coffee, whereas what he supplied to _les hommes_ made
no difference. The same is true of sugar: our morning coffee, in addition
to being a water-thin, black, muddy, stinking liquid, contained not the
smallest suggestion of sweetness, whereas the coffee which went to the
officials--and the coffee which B. and I drank in recompense for
"catching water"--had all the sugar you could possibly wish for. The poor
Cook was fined one day as a result of his economies, subsequent to a
united action on the part of the fellow-sufferers. It was a day when a
gent immaculately dressed appeared--after duly warning the Fiend that he
was about to inspect the Fiend's ménage--an, I think, public official of
Orne. Judas (at the time _chef de chambre_) supported by the sole and
unique indignation of all his fellow-prisoners save two or three out of
whom Fear had made rabbits or moles, early carried the pail (which by
common agreement not one of us had touched that day) downstairs, along
the hall, and up one flight--where he encountered the Directeur,
Surveillant and Handsome Stranger all amicably and pleasantly conversing.
Judas set the pail down; bowed; and begged, as spokesman for the united
male gender of La Ferté Macé, that the quality of the coffee be examined.
"We won't any of us drink it, begging your pardon, Messieurs," he claims
that he said. What happened then is highly amusing. The _petit balayeur_,
an eye-witness of the proceeding, described it to me as follows:

"The Directeur roared '_COMMENT?_' He was horribly angry. '_Oui,
Monsieur_,' said the _maitre de chambre_ humbly--'_Pourquoi?_' thundered
the Directeur.--'Because it's undrinkable,' the _maitre de chambre_ said
quietly.--'Undrinkable? Nonsense!' cried the Directeur furiously.--'Be so
good as to taste it, Monsieur le Directeur.'--'_I_ taste it? Why should I
taste it? The coffee is perfectly good, plenty good for you men. This is
ridiculous--'--'Why don't we all taste it?' suggested the Surveillant
ingratiatingly.--'Why, yes,' said the Visitor mildly.--'Taste it? Of
course not. This is ridiculous and I shall punish--'--'I should like, if
you don't mind, to try a little,' the Visitor said.--'Oh, well, of
course, if you like,' the Directeur mildly agreed. 'Give me a cup of that
coffee, you!'--'With pleasure, sir,' said the _maitre de chambre._ The
Directeur--M'sieu' Jean, you would have burst laughing--seized the cup,
lifted it to his lips, swallowed with a frightful expression (his eyes
almost popping out of his head) and cried fiercely, 'DELICIOUS!' The
Surveillant took a cupful; sipped; tossed the coffee away, looking as if
he had been hit in the eyes, and remarked, 'Ah.' The _maitre de
chambre_--M'sieu' Jean he is clever--scooped the third cupful from the
bottom of the pail, and very politely, with a big bow, handed it to the
Visitor; who took it, touched it to his lips, turned perfectly green, and
cried out 'Impossible!' M'sieu' Jean, we all thought--the Directeur and
the Surveillant and the _maitre de chambre_ and myself--that he was going
to vomit. He leaned against the wall a moment, quite green; then
recovering said faintly--'The Kitchen.' The Directeur looked very nervous
and shouted, trembling all over, 'Yes, indeed! We'll see the cook about
this perfectly impossible coffee. I had no idea that my men were getting
such coffee. It's abominable! That's what it is, an outrage!'--And they
all tottered downstairs to The Cook; and M'sieu Jean, they searched the
kitchen; and what do you think? They found ten pounds of coffee and
twelve pounds of sugar all neatly hidden away, that The Cook had been
saving for himself out of our allowance. He's a beast, the Cook!"

I must say that, although the morning coffee improved enormously for as
much as a week, it descended afterwards to its original level of
excellence.

The Cook, I may add, officiated three times a week at a little table to
the left as you entered the dining-room. Here he stood, and threw at
everyone (as everyone entered) a hunk of the most extraordinary meat
which I have ever had the privilege of trying to masticate--it could not
be tasted. It was pale and leathery. B. and myself often gave ours away
in our hungriest moments; which statement sounds as if we were generous
to others, whereas the reason for these donations was that we couldn't
eat, let alone stand the sight of this staple of diet. We had to do our
donating on the sly, since the _chef_ always gave us choice pieces and we
were anxious not to hurt the _chef's_ feelings. There was a good deal of
spasmodic protestation _apropos la viande_, but the Cook always bullied
it down--nor was the meat his fault; since, from the miserable carcases
which I have often seen carried into the kitchen from without, the Cook
had to select something which would suit the meticulous stomach of the
Lord of Hell, as also the less meticulous digestive organs of his
minions; and it was only after every _planton_ had got a piece of viande
to his plantonic taste that the captives, female and male, came in for
consideration.

On the whole, I think I never envied the Cook his strange and difficult,
not to say gruesome, job. With the men en masse he was bound to be
unpopular. To the good-will of those above he was necessarily more or
less a slave. And on the whole, I liked the Cook very much, as did
B.--for the very good and sufficient reason that he liked us both.

About the _plantons_ I have something to say, something which it gives me
huge pleasure to say. I have to say, about the _plantons_, that as a
bunch they struck me at the time and will always impress me as the next
to the lowest species of human organism; the lowest, in my experienced
estimation, being the _gendarme_ proper. The _plantons_ were, with one
exception--he of the black holster with whom I collided on the first
day--changed from time to time. Again with this one exception, they were
(as I have noted) apparently disabled men who were enjoying a vacation
from the trenches in the lovely environs of Orne. Nearly all of them were
witless. Every one of them had something the matter with him physically
as well. For instance, one _planton_ had a large wooden hand. Another was
possessed of a long unmanageable left leg made, as nearly as I could
discover, of tin. A third had a huge glass eye.

These peculiarities of physique, however, did not inhibit the _plantons_
from certain essential and normal desires. On the contrary. The
_plantons_ probably realised that, in competition with the male world at
large, their glass legs and tin hands and wooden eyes would not stand a
Chinaman's chance of winning the affection and admiration of the fair
sex. At any rate they were always on the alert for opportunities to
triumph over the admiration and affection of _les femmes_ at La Ferté,
where their success was not endangered by competition. They had the bulge
on everybody; and they used what bulge they had to such good advantage
that one of them, during my stay, was pursued with a revolver by their
sergeant, captured, locked up and shipped off for court-martial on the
charge of disobedience and threatening the life of a superior officer. He
had been caught with the goods--that is to say, in the girl's
_cabinot_--by said superior: an incapable, strutting, undersized,
bepimpled person in a bright uniform who spent his time assuming the
poses of a general for the benefit of the ladies; of his admiration for
whom and his intentions toward whom he made no secret. By all means one
of the most disagreeable petty bullies whom I ever beheld. This arrest of
a _planton_ was, so long as I inhabited La Ferté, the only case in which
abuse of the weaker sex was punished. That attempts at abuse were
frequent I know from allusions and direct statements made in the letters
which passed by way of the sweeper from the girls to their captive
admirers. I might say that the senders of these letters, whom I shall
attempt to portray presently, have my unmitigated and unqualified
admiration. By all odds they possessed the most terrible vitality and
bravery of any human beings, women or men, whom it has ever been my
extraordinary luck to encounter, or ever will be (I am absolutely sure)
in this world.

The duties of the _plantons_ were those simple and obvious duties which
only very stupid persons can perfectly fulfill, namely: to take turns
guarding the building and its inhabitants; not to accept bribes, whether
in the form of matches, cigarettes or conversation, from their prisoners;
to accompany anyone who went anywhere outside the walls (as did
occasionally the _balayeurs_, to transport baggage; the men who did
_corvée_; and the catchers of water for the cook, who proceeded as far as
the hydrant situated on the outskirts of the town--a momentous distance
of perhaps five hundred feet); and finally to obey any and all orders
from all and any superiors without thinking. _Plantons_ were
supposed--but only supposed--to report any schemes for escaping which
they might overhear during their watch upon _les femmes et les hommes en
promenade_. Of course they never overheard any, since the least
intelligent of the watched was a paragon of wisdom by comparison with the
watchers. B. and I had a little ditty about _plantons_, of which I can
quote (unfortunately) only the first line and refrain:

  "A _planton_ loved a lady once
      (Cabbages and cauliflowers!)"

It was a very fine song. In concluding my remarks upon _plantons_ I must,
in justice to my subject, mention the three prime plantonic virtues--they
were (1) beauty, as regards face and person and bearing, (2) chivalry, as
regards women, (3) heroism, as regards males.

The somewhat unique and amusing appearance of the _plantons_ rather
militated against than served to inculcate Fear--it was therefore not
wonderful that they and the desired emotion were supported by two
strictly enforced punishments, punishments which were meted out with
equal and unflinching severity to both sexes alike. The less undesirable
punishment was known as _pain sec_--which Fritz, shortly after my
arrival, got for smashing a window-pane by accident; and which Harree and
Pom Pom, the incorrigibles, were getting most of the time. This
punishment consisted in denying to the culprit all nutriment save two
stone-hard morsels of dry bread per diem. The culprit's intimate friends,
of course, made a point of eating only a portion of their own morsels of
soft, heavy, sour bread (we got two a day, with each _soupe_) and
presenting the culprit with the rest. The common method of getting _pain
sec_ was also a simple one--it was for a man to wave, shout or make other
signs audible or visual to an inhabitant of the women's quarters; and,
for a girl, to be seen at her window by the Directeur at any time during
the morning and afternoon promenades of the men. The punishment for
sending a letter to a girl might possibly be _pain sec_, but was more
often--I pronounce the word even now with a sinking of the heart, though
curiously enough I escaped that for which it stands--_cabinot_.

There were (as already mentioned) a number of _cabinots_, sometimes
referred to as _cachots_ by persons of linguistic propensities. To repeat
myself a little: at least three were situated on the ground floor; and
these were used whenever possible in preference to the one or ones
upstairs, for the reason that they were naturally more damp and chill and
dark and altogether more dismal and unhealthy. Dampness and cold were
considerably increased by the substitution, for a floor, of two or three
planks resting here and there in mud. I am now describing what my eyes
saw, not what was shown to the inspectors on their rare visits to the
Directeur's little shop for making criminals. I know what these
occasional visitors beheld, because it, too, I have seen with my own
eyes: seen the two _balayeurs_ staggering downstairs with a bed
(consisting of a high iron frame, a huge mattress of delicious thickness,
spotless sheets, warm blankets, and a sort of quilt neatly folded over
all); seen this bed placed by the panting sweepers in the thoroughly
cleaned and otherwise immaculate _cabinot_ at the foot of the stairs and
opposite the kitchen, the well-scrubbed door being left wide open. I saw
this done as I was going to dinner. While the men were upstairs
recovering from _la soupe_, the gentleman-inspectors were invited
downstairs to look at a specimen of the Directeur's kindness--a kindness
which he could not restrain even in the case of those who were guilty of
some terrible wrong. (The little Belgian with the Broken Arm, alias the
Machine-Fixer, missed not a word nor a gesture of all this; and described
the scene to me with an indignation which threatened his sanity.) Then,
while _les hommes_ were in the _cour_ for the afternoon, the sweepers
were rushed to The Enormous Room, which they cleaned to beat the band
with the fear of Hell in them; after which, the Directeur led his amiable
guests leisurely upstairs and showed them the way the men kept their
quarters; kept them without dictation on the part of the officials, so
fond were they of what was to them one and all more than a delightful
temporary residence--was in fact a home. From The Enormous Room the
procession wended a gentle way to the women's quarters (scrubbed and
swept in anticipation of their arrival) and so departed; conscious--no
doubt--that in the Directeur France had found a rare specimen of
whole-hearted and efficient generosity.

Upon being sentenced to _cabinot_, whether for writing an intercepted
letter, fighting, threatening a _planton_, or committing some minor
offense for the _n_th time, a man took one blanket from his bed, carried
it downstairs to the _cachot_, and disappeared therein for a night or
many days and nights as the case might be. Before entering he was
thoroughly searched and temporarily deprived of the contents of his
pockets, whatever they might include. It was made certain that he had no
cigarettes nor tobacco in any other form upon his person, and no matches.
The door was locked behind him and double and triple locked--to judge by
the sound--by a _planton_, usually the Black Holster, who on such
occasions produced a ring of enormous keys suggestive of a burlesque
jailer. Within the stone walls of his dungeon (into which a beam of light
no bigger than a ten-cent piece, and in some cases no light at all,
penetrated) the culprit could shout and scream his or her heart out if he
or she liked, without serious annoyance to His Majesty King Satan. I
wonder how many times, en route to _la soupe_ or The Enormous Room or
promenade, I have heard the unearthly smouldering laughter of girls or of
men entombed within the drooling greenish walls of La Ferté Macé. A dozen
times, I suppose, I have seen a friend of the entombed stoop adroitly and
shove a cigarette or a piece of chocolate under the door, to the girls or
the men or the girl or man screaming, shouting, and pommeling faintly
behind that very door--but, you would say by the sound, a good part of a
mile away.... Ah well, more of this later, when we come to _les femmes_
on their own account.

The third method employed to throw Fear into the minds of his captives
lay, as I have said, in the sight of the Captor Himself. And this was by
far the most efficient method.

He loved to suddenly dash upon the girls when they were carrying their
slops along the hall and downstairs, as (in common with the men) they had
to do at least twice every morning and twice every afternoon. The
_corvée_ of girls and men were of course arranged so as not to coincide;
yet somehow or other they managed to coincide on the average about once a
week, or if not coincide, at any rate approach coincidence. On such
occasions, as often as not under the _planton's_ very stupid nose, a kiss
or an embrace would be stolen--provocative of much fierce laughter and
some scurrying. Or else, while the moneyed captives (including B. and
Cummings) were waiting their turn to enter the bureau de M. le
Gestionnaire, or even were ascending the stairs with a _planton_ behind
them, en route to Mecca, along the hall would come five or six women
staggering and carrying huge pails full to the brim of everyone knew
what; five or six heads lowered, ill-dressed bodies tense with effort,
free arms rigidly extended from the shoulder downward and outward in a
plane at right angles to their difficult progress and thereby helping to
balance the disconcerting load--all embarrassed, some humiliated, others
desperately at ease--along they would come under the steady sensual gaze
of the men, under a gaze which seemed to eat them alive ... and then one
of them would laugh with the laughter which is neither pitiful nor
terrible, but horrible....

And BANG! would a door fly open, and ROAR! a well-dressed animal about
five feet six inches in height, with prominent cuffs and a sportive tie,
the altogether decently and neatly clothed thick-built figure squirming
from top to toe with anger, the large head trembling and white-faced
beneath a flourishing mane of coarse blackish bristly perhaps hair, the
arm crooked at the elbow and shaking a huge fist of pinkish
well-manicured flesh, the distinct, cruel, brightish eyes sprouting from
their sockets under bushily enormous black eyebrows, the big, weak,
coarse mouth extended almost from ear to ear, and spouting invective, the
soggily brutal lips clinched upward and backward, showing the huge
horse-like teeth to the froth-shot gums--

And I saw once a little girl eleven years old scream in terror and drop
her pail of slops, spilling most of it on her feet; and seize it in a
clutch of frail child's fingers, and stagger, sobbing and shaking, past
the Fiend--one hand held over her contorted face to shield her from the
Awful Thing of Things--to the head of the stairs, where she collapsed,
and was half-carried, half-dragged by one of the older ones to the floor
below while another older one picked up her pail and lugged this and her
own hurriedly downward.

And after the last head had disappeared, Monsieur le Directeur continued
to rave and shake and tremble for as much as ten seconds, his shoebrush
mane crinkling with black anger--then, turning suddenly upon _les hommes_
(who cowered up against the wall as men cower up against a material thing
in the presence of the supernatural) he roared and shook his pinkish fist
at us till the gold stud in his immaculate cuff walked out upon the wad
of clenching flesh:

"AND YOU--TAKE CARE--IF I CATCH YOU WITH THE WOMEN AGAIN I'LL STICK YOU
IN CABINOT FOR TWO WEEKS, ALL--ALL OF YOU--"

for as much as half a minute; then turning his round-shouldered big back
suddenly he adjusted his cuffs, muttering PROSTITUTES and WHORES and
DIRTY FILTH OF WOMEN, crammed his big fists into his trousers, pulled in
his chin till his fattish jowl rippled along the square jaws, panted,
grunted, very completely satisfied, very contented, rather proud of
himself, took a strutting stride or two in his expensive shiny boots, and
shot all at once through the open door which he SLAMMED after him.

Apropos the particular incident described for purposes of illustration, I
wish to state that I believe in miracles: the miracle being that I did
not knock the spit-covered mouthful of teeth and jabbering brutish
outthrust jowl (which certainly were not farther than eighteen inches
from me) through the bullneck bulging in its spotless collar. For there
are times when one almost decides not to merely observe ... besides
which, never in my life before had I wanted to kill, to thoroughly
extinguish and to entirely murder. Perhaps ... some day.... Unto God I
hope so.

Amen.

Now I will try to give the reader a glimpse of the Women of La Ferté
Macé.

The little Machine-Fixer as I said in the preceding chapter, divided them
into Good and Bad. He said there were as much as three Good ones, of
which three he had talked to one and knew her story. Another of the three
Good Women obviously was Margherite--a big, strong female who did
washing, and who was a permanent resident because she had been careless
enough to be born of German parents. I think I spoke with number three on
the day I waited to be examined by the Commission--a Belgian girl, whom I
shall mention later along with that incident. Whereat, by process of
elimination, we arrive at _les putains_, whereof God may know how many
there were at La Ferté, but I certainly do not. To _les putains_ in
general I have already made my deep and sincere bow. I should like to
speak here of four individuals. They are Celina, Lena, Lily, Renée.

Celina Tek was an extraordinarily beautiful animal. Her firm girl's body
emanated a supreme vitality. It was neither tall nor short, its movements
nor graceful nor awkward. It came and went with a certain sexual
velocity, a velocity whose health and vigour made everyone in La Ferté
seem puny and old. Her deep sensual voice had a coarse richness. Her
face, dark and young, annihilated easily the ancient and greyish walls.
Her wonderful hair was shockingly black. Her perfect teeth, when she
smiled, reminded you of an animal. The cult of Isis never worshipped a
more deep luxurious smile. This face, framed in the night of its hair,
seemed (as it moved at the window overlooking the _cour des femmes_)
inexorably and colossally young. The body was absolutely and fearlessly
alive. In the impeccable and altogether admirable desolation of La Ferté
and the Normandy Autumn Celina, easily and fiercely moving, was a
kinesis.

The French Government must have already recognized this; it called her
incorrigible.

Lena, also a Belgian, always and fortunately just missed being a type
which in the American language (sometimes called "Slang") has a definite
nomenclature. Lena had the makings of an ordinary broad, and yet, thanks
to _La Misère_, a certain indubitable personality became gradually
rescued. A tall hard face about which was loosely pitched some
hay-coloured hair. Strenuous and mutilated hands. A loose, raucous way of
laughing, which contrasted well with Celina's definite gurgling titter.
Energy rather than vitality. A certain power and roughness about her
laughter. She never smiled. She laughed loudly and obscenely and always.
A woman.

Lily was a German girl, who looked unbelievably old, wore white, or once
white dresses, had a sort of drawling scream in her throat besides a
thick deadly cough, and floundered leanly under the eyes of men. Upon the
skinny neck of Lily a face had been set for all the world to look upon
and be afraid. The face itself was made of flesh green and almost
putrescent. In each cheek a bloody spot. Which was not rouge, but the
flower which consumption plants in the cheek of its favourite. A face
vulgar and vast and heavy-featured, about which a smile was always
flopping uselessly. Occasionally Lily grinned, showing several
monstrously decayed and perfectly yellow teeth, which teeth usually were
smoking a cigarette. Her bluish hands were very interestingly dead; the
fingers were nervous, they lived in cringing bags of freckled skin, they
might almost be alive.

She was perhaps eighteen years old.

Renée, the fourth member of the circle, was always well-dressed and
somehow _chic_. Her silhouette had character, from the waved coiffure to
the enormously high heels. Had Renée been able to restrain a perfectly
toothless smile she might possibly have passed for a _jeune gonzesse_.
She was not. The smile was ample and black. You saw through it into the
back of her neck. You felt as if her life was in danger when she smiled,
as it probably was. Her skin was not particularly tired. But Renée was
old, older than Lena by several years; perhaps twenty-five. Also about
Renée there was a certain dangerous fragility, the fragility of unhealth.
And yet Renée was hard, immeasurably hard. And accurate. Her exact
movements were the movements of a mechanism. Including her voice, which
had a purely mechanical timbre. She could do two things with this voice
and two only--screech and boom. At times she tried to chuckle and almost
fell apart. Renée was in fact dead. In looking at her for the first time,
I realised that there may be something stylish about death.

This first time was interesting in the extreme. It was Lily's birthday.
We looked out of the windows which composed one side of the otherwise
windowless Enormous Room; looked down, and saw--just outside the wall of
the building--Celina, Lena, Lily and a new girl who was Renée. They were
all individually intoxicated, Celina was joyously tight. Renée was
stiffly bunnied. Lena was raucously pickled. Lily, floundering and
staggering and tumbling and whirling was utterly soused. She was all
tricked out in an erstwhile dainty dress, white, and with ribbons. Celina
(as always) wore black. Lena had on a rather heavy striped sweater and
skirt. Renée was immaculate in tight-fitting satin or something of the
sort; she seemed to have somehow escaped from a doll's house overnight.
About the group were a number of _plantons_, roaring with laughter,
teasing, insulting, encouraging, from time to time attempting to embrace
the ladies. Celina gave one of them a terrific box on the ear. The mirth
of the others was redoubled. Lily spun about and fell down, moaning and
coughing, and screaming about her fiancée in Belgium: what a handsome
young fellow he was, how he had promised to marry her... shouts of
enjoyment from the _plantons_. Lena had to sit down or else fall down, so
she sat down with a good deal of dignity, her back against the wall, and
in that position attempted to execute a kind of dance. _Les Plantons_
rocked and applauded. Celina smiled beautifully at the men who were
staring from every window of The Enormous Room and, with a supreme
effort, went over and dragged Renée (who had neatly and accurately folded
up with machine-like rapidity in the mud) through the doorway and into
the house. Eventually Lena followed her example, capturing Lily en route.
The scene must have consumed all of twenty minutes. The _plantons_ were
so mirth-stricken that they had to sit down and rest under the
washing-shed. Of all the inhabitants of The Enormous Room, Fritz and
Harree and Pom Pom and Bathhouse John enjoyed it most. I should include
Jan, whose chin nearly rested on the window-sill with the little body
belonging to it fluttering in an ugly interested way all the time. That
Bathhouse John's interest was largely cynical is evidenced by the remarks
which he threw out between spittings--"_Une section mesdames!_" "_A la
gare!_" "_Aux armes tout le monde!_" etc. With the exception of these
enthusiastic watchers, the other captives evidenced vague
amusement--excepting Count Bragard who said with lofty disgust that it
was "no better than a bloody knocking 'ouse, Mr. Cummings" and Monsieur
Pet-airs whose annoyance amounted to agony. Of course these twain were,
comparatively speaking, old men....

The four female incorrigibles encountered less difficulty in attaining
_cabinot_ than any four specimens of incorrigibility among _les hommes_.
Not only were they placed in dungeon vile with a frequency which amounted
to continuity; their sentences were far more severe than those handed out
to the men. Up to the time of my little visit to La Ferté I had
innocently supposed that in referring to women as "the weaker sex" a man
was strictly within his rights. La Ferté, if it did nothing else for my
intelligence, rid it of this overpowering error. I recall, for example, a
period of sixteen days and nights spent (during my stay) by the woman
Lena in the _cabinot_. It was either toward the latter part of October or
the early part of November that this occurred, I will not be sure which.
The dampness of the Autumn was as terrible, under normal conditions--that
is to say in The Enormous Room--as any climatic eccentricity which I have
ever experienced. We had a wood-burning stove in the middle of the room,
which antiquated apparatus was kept going all day to the vast discomfort
of eyes and noses not to mention throats and lungs--the pungent smoke
filling the room with an atmosphere next to unbreathable, but tolerated
for the simple reason that it stood between ourselves and death. For even
with the stove going full blast the wall never ceased to sweat and even
trickle, so overpowering was the dampness. By night the chill was to
myself--fortunately bedded at least eighteen inches from the floor and
sleeping in my clothes; bed-roll, blankets, and all, under and over me
and around me--not merely perceptible but desolating. Once my bed broke,
and I spent the night perforce on the floor with only my mattress under
me; to awake finally in the whitish dawn perfectly helpless with
rheumatism. Yet with the exception of my bed and B.'s bed and a wooden
bunk which belonged to Bathhouse John, every _paillasse_ lay directly on
the floor; moreover the men who slept thus were three-quarters of them
miserably clad, nor had they anything beyond their light-weight
blankets--whereas I had a complete outfit including a big fur coat, which
I had taken with me (as previously described) from the _Section
Sanitaire_. The morning after my night spent on the floor I pondered,
having nothing to do and being unable to move, upon the subject of my
physical endurance--wondering just how the men about me, many of them
beyond middle age, some extremely delicate, in all not more than five or
six as rugged constitutionally as myself, lived through the nights in The
Enormous Room. Also I recollected glancing through an open door into the
women's quarters, at the risk of being noticed by the _planton_ in whose
charge I was at the time (who, fortunately, was stupid even for a
_planton_, else I should have been well punished for my curiosity) and
beholding _paillasses_ identical in all respects with ours reposing on
the floor; and I thought, if it is marvellous that old men and sick men
can stand this and not die, it is certainly miraculous that girls of
eleven and fifteen, and the baby which I saw once being caressed out in
the women's _cour_ with unspeakable gentleness by a little _putain_ whose
name I do not know, and the dozen or so oldish females whom I have often
seen on promenade--can stand this and not die. These things I mention not
to excite the reader's pity nor yet his indignation; I mention them
because I do not know of any other way to indicate--it is no more than
indicating--the significance of the torture perpetrated under the
Directeur's direction in the case of the girl Lena. If incidentally it
throws light on the personality of the torturer I shall be gratified.

Lena's confinement in the _cabinot_--which dungeon I have already
attempted to describe but to whose filth and slime no words can begin to
do justice--was in this case solitary. Once a day, of an afternoon and
always at the time when all the men were upstairs after the second
promenade (which gave the writer of this history an exquisite chance to
see an atrocity at first-hand), Lena was taken out of the _cabinot_ by
three _plantons_ and permitted a half-hour promenade just outside the
door of the building, or in the same locality--delimited by barbed wire
on one side and the washing-shed on another--made famous by the scene of
inebriety above described. Punctually at the expiration of thirty minutes
she was shoved back into the _cabinot_ by the _plantons_. Every day for
sixteen days I saw her; noted the indestructible bravado of her gait and
carriage, the unchanging timbre of her terrible laughter in response to
the salutation of an inhabitant of The Enormous Room (for there were at
least six men who spoke to her daily, and took their _pain sec_ and their
_cabinot_ in punishment therefor with the pride of a soldier who takes
the _medaille militaire_ in recompense for his valour); noted the
increasing pallor of her flesh, watched the skin gradually assume a
distinct greenish tint (a greenishness which I cannot describe save that
it suggested putrefaction); heard the coughing to which she had always
been subject grow thicker and deeper till it doubled her up every few
minutes, creasing her body as you crease a piece of paper with your
thumb-nail, preparatory to tearing it in two--and I realised fully and
irrevocably and for perhaps the first time the meaning of civilization.
And I realised that it was true--as I had previously only suspected it to
be true--that in finding us unworthy of helping to carry forward the
banner of progress, alias the tricolour, the inimitable and excellent
French government was conferring upon B. and myself--albeit with other
intent--the ultimate compliment.

And the Machine-Fixer, whose opinion of this blond _putain_ grew and
increased and soared with every day of her martyrdom till the
Machine-Fixer's former classification of _les femmes_ exploded and
disappeared entirely--the Machine-Fixer who would have fallen on his
little knees to Lena had she given him a chance, and kissed the hem of
her striped skirt in an ecstasy of adoration--told me that Lena on being
finally released, walked upstairs herself, holding hard to the banister
without a look for anyone, "having eyes as big as tea-cups." He added,
with tears in his own eyes:

"M'sieu' Jean, a woman."

I recall perfectly being in the kitchen one day, hiding from the
eagle-eye of the Black Holster and enjoying a talk on the economic
consequences of war, said talk being delivered by Afrique. As a matter of
fact, I was not in the _cuisine_ proper but in the little room which I
have mentioned previously. The door into the kitchen was shut. The
sweetly soft odour of newly cut wood was around me. And all the time that
Afrique was talking I heard clearly, through the shut door and through
the kitchen wall and through the locked door of the _cabinot_ situated
directly across the hall from _la cuisine_, the insane gasping voice of a
girl singing and yelling and screeching and laughing. Finally I
interrupted my speaker to ask what on earth was the matter in the
_cabinot?_--"_C'est la femme allemande qui s'appelle Lily_," Afrique
briefly answered. A little later BANG went the _cabinot_ door, and ROAR
went the familiar coarse voice of the Directeur. "It disturbs him, the
noise," Afrique said. The _cabinot_ door slammed. There was silence.
Heavily steps ascended. Then the song began again, a little more insane
than before; the laughter a little wilder.... "You can't stop her,"
Afrique said admiringly. "A great voice Mademoiselle has, eh? So, as I
was saying, the national debt being conditioned--"

But the experience _à propos les femmes_, which meant and will always
mean more to me than any other, the scene which is a little more
unbelievable than perhaps any scene that it has ever been my privilege to
witness, the incident which (possibly more than any other) revealed to me
those unspeakable foundations upon which are builded with infinite care
such at once ornate and comfortable structures as _La Gloire and Le
Patriotisme_--occurred in this wise.

The men, myself among them, were leaving _le cour_ for The Enormous Room
under the watchful eye (as always) of a _planton_. As we defiled through
the little gate in the barbed-wire fence we heard, apparently just
outside the building whither we were proceeding on our way to The Great
Upstairs, a tremendous sound of mingled screams, curses and crashings.
The _planton_ of the day was not only stupid--he was a little deaf; to
his ears this hideous racket had not, as nearly as one could see,
penetrated. At all events he marched us along toward the door with utmost
plantonic satisfaction and composure. I managed to insert myself in the
fore of the procession, being eager to witness the scene within; and
reached the door almost simultaneously with Fritz, Harree and two or
three others. I forget which of us opened it. I will never forget what I
saw as I crossed the threshold.

The hall was filled with stifling smoke; the smoke which straw makes when
it is set on fire, a peculiarly nauseous choking, whitish-blue smoke.
This smoke was so dense that only after some moments could I make out,
with bleeding eyes and wounded lungs, anything whatever. What I saw was
this: five or six _plantons_ were engaged in carrying out of the nearest
_cabinot_ two girls, who looked perfectly dead. Their bodies were
absolutely limp. Their hands dragged foolishly along the floor as they
were carried. Their upward white faces dangled loosely upon their necks.
Their crumpled fingers sagged in the _planton's_ arms. I recognised Lily
and Renée. Lena I made out at a little distance tottering against the
door of the kitchen opposite the _cabinot_, her hay-coloured head
drooping and swaying slowly upon the open breast of her shirt-waist, her
legs far apart and propping with difficulty her hinging body, her hands
spasmodically searching for the knob of the door. The smoke proceeded
from the open _cabinot_ in great ponderous murdering clouds. In one of
these clouds, erect and tense and beautiful as an angel--her wildly
shouting face framed in its huge night of dishevelled hair, her deep
sexual voice, hoarsely strident above the din and smoke, shouting
fiercely through the darkness--stood, triumphantly and colossally young,
Celina. Facing her, its clenched, pinkish fists raised high above its
savagely bristling head in a big, brutal gesture of impotence and rage
and anguish--the Fiend Himself paused quivering. Through the smoke, the
great bright voice of Celina rose at him, hoarse and rich and sudden and
intensely luxurious, quick, throaty, accurate, slaying deepness:

_SHIEZ, SI VOUS VOULEZ, SHIEZ,_

and over and beneath and around the voice I saw frightened faces of women
hanging in the smoke, some screaming with their lips apart and their eyes
closed, some staring with wide eyes; and among the women's faces I
discovered the large, placid, interested expression of the Gestionnaire
and the nervous clicking eyes of the Surveillant. And there was a
shout--it was the Black Holster shouting at us as we stood transfixed--

"Who the devil brought the men in here? Get up with you where you belong,
you...."

--And he made a rush at us, and we dodged in the smoke and passed slowly
up the hall, looking behind us, speechless to a man with the admiration
of Terror till we reached the further flight of stairs; and mounted
slowly, with the din falling below us, ringing in our ears, beating upon
our brains--mounted slowly with quickened blood and pale faces--to the
peace of The Enormous Room.

I spoke with both _balayeurs_ that night. They told me, independently,
the same story: the four incorrigibles had been locked in the _cabinot
ensemble_. They made so much noise, particularly Lily, that the
_plantons_ were afraid the Directeur would be disturbed. Accordingly the
_plantons_ got together and stuffed the contents of a _paillasse_ in the
cracks around the door, and particularly in the crack under the door
wherein cigarettes were commonly inserted by friends of the entombed.
This process made the _cabinot_ air-tight. But the _plantons_ were not
taking any chances on disturbing Monsieur le Directeur. They carefully
lighted the _paillasse_ at a number of points and stood back to see the
results of their efforts. So soon as the smoke found its way inward the
singing was supplanted by coughing; then the coughing stopped. Then
nothing was heard. Then Celina began crying out within--"Open the door,
Lily and Renée are dead"--and the _plantons_ were frightened. After some
debate they decided to open the door--out poured the smoke, and in it
Celina, whose voice in a fraction of a second roused everyone in the
building. The Black Holster wrestled with her and tried to knock her down
by a blow on the mouth; but she escaped, bleeding a little, to the foot
of the stairs--simultaneously with the advent of the Directeur who for
once had found someone beyond the power of his weapon, Fear, someone in
contact with whose indescribable Youth the puny threats of death withered
between his lips, someone finally completely and unutterably Alive whom
the Lie upon his slavering tongue could not kill.

I do not need to say that, as soon as the girls who had fainted could be
brought to, they joined Lena in _pain sec_ for many days to come; and
that Celina was overpowered by six _plantons_--at the order of Monsieur
le Directeur--and reincarcerated in the _cabinot_ adjoining that from
which she had made her velocitous exit--reincarcerated without food for
twenty-four hours. "_Mais, M'sieu' Jean_," the Machine-Fixer said
trembling, "_Vous savez elle est forte._ She gave the six of them a
fight, I tell you. And three of them went to the doctor as a result of
their efforts, including _le vieux_ (The Black Holster). But of course
they succeeded in beating her up, six men upon one woman. She was beaten
badly, I tell you, before she gave in. _M'sieu' Jean, ils sont tous--les
plantons et le Directeur Lui-Même et le Surveillant et le Gestionnaire et
tous--ils sont des--_" and he said very nicely what they were, and lit
his little black pipe with a crisp curving upward gesture, and shook like
a blade of grass.

With which specimen of purely mediaeval torture I leave the subject of
Women, and embark upon the quieter if no less enlightening subject of
Sunday.

Sunday, it will be recalled, was Monsieur le Directeur's third weapon.
That is to say: lest the ordinarily tantalising proximity of _les femmes_
should not inspire _les hommes_ to deeds which placed the doers
automatically in the clutches of himself, his subordinates, and _la
punition_, it was arranged that once a week the tantalising proximity
aforesaid should be supplanted by a positively maddening approach to
coincidence. Or in other words, the men and the women for an hour or less
might enjoy the same exceedingly small room; for purposes of course of
devotion--it being obvious to Monsieur le Directeur that the
representatives of both sexes at La Ferté Macé were inherently of a
strongly devotional nature. And lest the temptation to err in such
moments be deprived, through a certain aspect of compulsion, of its
complete force, the attendance of such strictly devotional services was
made optional.

The uplifting services to which I refer took place in that very room
which (the night of my arrival) had yielded me my _paillasse_ under the
Surveillant's direction. It may have been thirty feet long and twenty
wide. At one end was an altar at the top of several wooden stairs, with a
large candle on each side. To the right as you entered a number of
benches were placed to accommodate _les femmes_. _Les hommes_ upon
entering took off their caps and stood over against the left wall so as
to leave between them and the women an alley perhaps five feet wide. In
this alley stood the Black Holster with his _kepi_ firmly resting upon
his head, his arms folded, his eyes spying to left and right in order to
intercept any signals exchanged between the sheep and goats. Those who
elected to enjoy spiritual things left the _cour_ and their morning
promenade after about an hour of promenading, while the materially minded
remained to finish the promenade; or if one declined the promenade
entirely (as frequently occurred owing to the fact that weather
conditions on Sunday were invariably more indescribable than usual) a
_planton_ mounted to The Enormous Room and shouted, "_La Messe!_" several
times; whereat the devotees lined up and were carefully conducted to the
scene of spiritual operations.

The priest was changed every week. His assistant (whom I had the
indescribable pleasure of seeing only upon Sundays) was always the same.
It was his function to pick the priest up when he fell down after
tripping upon his robe, to hand him things before he wanted them, to ring
a huge bell, to interrupt the peculiarly divine portions of the service
with a squeaking of his shoes, to gaze about from time to time upon the
worshippers for purposes of intimidation, and finally--most important of
all--to blow out the two big candles at the very earliest opportunity, in
the interests (doubtless) of economy. As he was a short, fattish,
ancient, strangely soggy creature and as his longish black suit was
somewhat too big for him, he executed a series of profound efforts in
extinguishing the candles. In fact he had to climb part way up the
candles before he could get at the flame; at which moment he looked very
much like a weakly and fat boy (for he was obviously in his second or
fourth childhood) climbing a flag-pole. At moments of leisure he abased
his fatty whitish jowl and contemplated with watery eyes the floor in
front of his highly polished boots, having first placed his ugly clubby
hands together behind his most ample back.

Sunday: green murmurs in coldness. Surplice fiercely fearful, praying on
his bony both knees, crossing himself.... The Fake French Soldier, alias
Garibaldi, beside him, a little face filled with terror ... the Bell
cranks the sharp-nosed priest on his knees ... titter from bench of
whores--

And that reminds me of a Sunday afternoon on our backs spent with the
wholeness of a hill in Chevancourt, discovering a great apple pie, B. and
Jean Stahl and Maurice le Menusier and myself; and the sun falling
roundly before us.

--And then one _Dimanche_ a new high old man with a sharp violet face and
green hair--"You are free, my children, to achieve immortality--_Songes,
songez, donc--L'Eternité est une existence sans durée----Toujours le
Paradis, toujours L'Enfer_" (to the silently roaring whores) "Heaven is
made for you"--and the Belgian ten-foot farmer spat three times and wiped
them with his foot, his nose dripping; and the nigger shot a white oyster
into a far-off scarlet handkerchief--and the priest's strings came untied
and he sidled crablike down the steps--the two candles wiggle a strenuous
softness....

In another chapter I will tell you about the nigger.

And another Sunday I saw three tiny old females stumble forward, three
very formerly and even once bonnets perched upon three wizened skulls,
and flop clumsily before the priest, and take the wafer hungrily into
their leathery faces.



VII

AN APPROACH TO THE DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS

  "Sunday (says Mr. Pound with infinite penetration) is
     a dreadful day,
   Monday is much pleasanter.
   Then let us muse a little space
   Upon fond Nature's morbid grace."

It is a great and distinct pleasure to have penetrated and arrived upon
the outside of _La Dimanche_. We may now--Nature's morbid grace being a
topic whereof the reader has already heard much and will necessarily hear
more--turn to the "much pleasanter," the in fact "Monday," aspect of La
Ferté; by which I mean _les nouveaux_ whose arrivals and reactions
constituted the actual kinetic aspect of our otherwise merely real
Nonexistence. So let us tighten our belts, (everyone used to tighten his
belt at least twice a day at La Ferté, but for another reason--to follow
and keep track of his surely shrinking anatomy) seize our staffs into our
hands, and continue the ascent begun with the first pages of the story.

One day I found myself expecting _La Soupe_ Number 1 with something like
avidity. My appetite faded, however, upon perceiving a vision en route to
the empty place at my left. It slightly resembled a tall youth not more
than sixteen or seventeen years old, having flaxen hair, a face whose
whiteness I have never seen equalled, and an expression of intense
starvation which might have been well enough in a human being but was
somewhat unnecessarily uncanny in a ghost. The ghost, floating and
slenderly, made for the place beside me, seated himself suddenly and
gently like a morsel of white wind, and regarded the wall before him. _La
soupe_ arrived. He obtained a plate (after some protest on the part of
certain members of our table to whom the advent of a newcomer meant only
that everyone would get less for lunch), and after gazing at his portion
for a second in apparent wonderment at its size caused it gently and
suddenly to disappear. I was no sluggard as a rule, but found myself
outclassed by minutes--which, said I to myself, is not to be worried over
since 'tis sheer vanity to compete with the supernatural. But (even as I
lugged the last spoonful of luke-warm greasy water to my lips) this ghost
turned to me for all the world as if I too were a ghost, and remarked
softly:

"Will you lend me ten cents? I am going to buy tobacco at the canteen."

One has no business crossing a spirit, I thought; and produced the sum
cheerfully--which sum disappeared, the ghost arose slenderly and
soundlessly, and I was left with emptiness beside me.

Later I discovered that this ghost was called Pete.

Pete was a Hollander, and therefore found firm and staunch friends in
Harree, John o' the Bathhouse and the other Hollanders. In three days
Pete discarded the immateriality which had constituted the exquisite
definiteness of his advent, and donned the garb of flesh-and-blood. This
change was due equally to _La Soupe_ and the canteen, and to the finding
of friends. For Pete had been in solitary confinement for three months
and had had nothing to eat but bread and water during that time, having
been told by the jailors (as he informed us, without a trace of
bitterness) that they would shorten his sentence provided he did not
partake of _La Soupe_ during his incarceration--that is to say, _le
gouvernement français_ had a little joke at Pete's expense. Also he had
known nobody during that time but the five fingers which deposited said
bread and water with conscientious regularity on the ground beside him.
Being a Hollander neither of these things killed him--on the contrary, he
merely turned into a ghost, thereby fooling the excellent French
Government within an inch of its foolable life. He was a very excellent
friend of ours--I refer as usual to B. and myself--and from the day of
his arrival until the day of his departure to Précigne along with B. and
three others I never ceased to like and to admire him. He was naturally
sensitive, extremely the antithesis of coarse (which "refined" somehow
does not imply) had not in the least suffered from a "good," as we say,
education, and possessed an at once frank and unobstreperous personality.
Very little that had happened to Pete's physique had escaped Pete's mind.
This mind of his quietly and firmly had expanded in proportion as its
owner's trousers had become too big around the waist--altogether not so
extraordinary as was the fact that, after being physically transformed as
I have never seen a human being transformed by food and friends, Pete
thought and acted with exactly the same quietness and firmness as before.
He was a rare spirit, and I salute him wherever he is.

Mexique was a good friend of Pete's, as he was of ours. He had been
introduced to us by a man we called One Eyed David, who was married and
had a wife downstairs, with which wife he was allowed to live all
day--being conducted to and from her society by a _planton_. He spoke
Spanish well and French passably; had black hair, bright Jewish eyes, a
dead-fish expression, and a both amiable and courteous disposition. One
Eyed Dah-veed (as it was pronounced of course) had been in prison at
Noyon during the German occupation, which he described fully and without
hyperbole--stating that no one could have been more considerate or just
than the commander of the invading troops. Dah-veed had seen with his own
eyes a French girl extend an apple to one of the common soldiers as the
German army entered the outskirts of the city: "'Take it,' she said, 'you
are tired.'--'Madame,' answered the German soldier in French, 'thank
you'--and he looked in his pocket and found ten cents. 'No, no,' the
young girl said. 'I don't want any money. I give it to you with good
will.'--'Pardon, madame,' said the soldier, 'you must know that a German
soldier is forbidden to take anything without paying for it.'"--And
before that, One Eyed Dah-veed had talked at Noyon with a barber whose
brother was an aviator with the French Army: "'My brother,' the barber
said to me, 'told me a beautiful story the other day. He was flying over
the lines, and he was amazed, one day, to see that the French guns were
not firing on the boches but on the French themselves. He landed
precipitously, sprang from his machine and ran to the office of the
general. He saluted, and cried in great excitement: "General, you are
firing on the French!" The general regarded him without interest, without
budging; then, he said, very simply: "They have begun, they must
finish." "Which is why perhaps," said One Eyed Dah-veed, looking two
ways at once with his uncorrelated eyes, "the Germans entered Noyon...."
But to return to Mexique.

One night we had a _soirée_, as Dah-veed called it, _à propos_ a pot of
hot tea which Dah-veed's wife had given him to take upstairs, it being
damnably damp and cold (as usual) in The Enormous Room. Dah-veed,
cautiously and in a low voice, invited us to his mattress to enjoy this
extraordinary pleasure; and we accepted, B. and I, with huge joy; and
sitting on Dah-veed's _paillasse_ we found somebody who turned out to be
Mexique--to whom, by his right name, our host introduced us with all the
poise and courtesy vulgarly associated with a French salon.

For Mexique I cherish and always will cherish unmitigated affection. He
was perhaps nineteen years old, very chubby, extremely good-natured; and
possessed of an unruffled disposition which extended to the most violent
and obvious discomforts a subtle and placid illumination. He spoke
beautiful Spanish, had been born in Mexico, and was really called
Philippe Burgos. He had been in New York. He criticised someone for
saying "Yes" to us, one day, stating that no American said "Yes" but
"Yuh"; which--whatever the reader may think--is to my mind a very
profound observation. In New York he had worked nights as a fireman in
some big building or other and slept days, and this method of seeing
America he had enjoyed extremely. Mexique had one day taken ship (being
curious to see the world) and worked as chauffeur--that is to say in the
stoke-hole. He had landed in, I think, Havre; had missed his ship; had
inquired something of a _gendarme_ in French (which he spoke not at all,
with the exception of a phrase or two like "_quelle heure qu'il est?_");
had been kindly treated and told that he would be taken to a ship _de
suite_--had boarded a train in the company of two or three kind
_gendarmes_, ridden a prodigious distance, got off the train finally with
high hopes, walked a little distance, come in sight of the grey
perspiring wall of La Ferté, and--"So, I ask one of them: 'Where is the
Ship?' He point to here and tell me, 'There is the ship.' I say: 'This is
a God Dam Funny Ship'"--quoth Mexique, laughing.

Mexique played dominoes with us (B. having devised a set from
card-board), strolled The Enormous Room with us, telling of his father
and brother in Mexico, of the people, of the customs; and--when we were
in the _cour_--wrote the entire conjugation of _tengo_ in the deep mud
with a little stick, squatting and chuckling and explaining. He and his
brother had both participated in the revolution which made Carranza
president. His description of which affair was utterly delightful.

"Every-body run a-round with guns" Mexique said. "And bye-and-bye no see
to shoot everybody, so everybody go home." We asked if he had shot
anybody himself. "Sure. I shoot everybody I do'no" Mexique answered
laughing. "I t'ink every-body no hit me" he added, regarding his stocky
person with great and quiet amusement. When we asked him once what he
thought about the war, he replied, "I t'ink lotta bull--," which, upon
copious reflection, I decided absolutely expressed my own point of view.

Mexique was generous, incapable of either stupidity or despondency, and
mannered as a gentleman is supposed to be. Upon his arrival he wrote
almost immediately to the Mexican (or is it Spanish?) consul--"He know my
fader in Mexico"--stating in perfect and unambiguous Spanish the facts
leading to his arrest; and when I said good-bye to _La Misère_ Mexique
was expecting a favorable reply at any moment, as indeed he had been
cheerfully expecting for some time. If he reads this history I hope he
will not be too angry with me for whatever injustice it does to one of
the altogether pleasantest companions I have ever had. My notebooks, one
in particular, are covered with conjugations which bear witness to
Mexique's ineffable good-nature. I also have a somewhat superficial
portrait of his back sitting on a bench by the stove. I wish I had
another of Mexique out in _le jardin_ with a man who worked there who was
a Spaniard, and whom the Surveillant had considerately allowed Mexique to
assist; with the perfectly correct idea that it would be pleasant for
Mexique to talk to someone who could speak Spanish--if not as well as he,
Mexique, could, at least passably well. As it is, I must be content to
see my very good friend sitting with his hands in his pockets by the
stove with Bill the Hollander beside him. And I hope it was not many days
after my departure that Mexique went free. Somehow I feel that he went
free ... and if I am right, I will only say about Mexique's freedom what
I have heard him slowly and placidly say many times concerning not only
the troubles which were common property to us all but his own peculiar
troubles as well.

"That's fine."

Here let me introduce the Guard Champêtre, whose name I have already
taken more or less in vain. A little, sharp, hungry-looking person who,
subsequent to being a member of a rural police force (of which membership
he seemed rather proud), had served his _patrie_--otherwise known as _La
Belgique_--in the capacity of motorcyclist. As he carried dispatches from
one end of the line to the other his disagreeably big eyes had absorbed
certain peculiarly inspiring details of civilised warfare. He had, at one
time, seen a bridge hastily constructed by _les alliés_ over the Yser
River, the cadavers of the faithful and the enemy alike being thrown in
helter-skelter to make a much needed foundation for the timbers. This
little procedure had considerably outraged the Guard Champêtre's sense of
decency. The Yser, said he, flowed perfectly red for a long time. "We
were all together: Belgians, French, English ... we Belgians did not see
any good reason for continuing the battle. But we continued. O indeed we
continued. Do you know why?"

I said that I was afraid I didn't.

"Because in front of us we had the German shells, behind, the French
machine guns, always the French machine guns, _mon vieux_."

"_Je ne comprends pas bien_" I said in confusion, recalling all the
highfalutin rigmarole which Americans believed--(little martyred Belgium
protected by the allies from the inroads of the aggressor, etc.)--"why
should the French put machine guns behind you?"

The Guard Champêtre lifted his big empty eyes nervously. The vast hollows
in which they lived darkened. His little rather hard face trembled within
itself. I thought for a second he was going to throw a fit at my
feet--instead of doing which he replied pettishly, in a sunken bright
whisper:

"To keep us going forward. At times a company would drop its guns and
turn to run. Pupupupupupupupup ..." his short unlovely arms described
gently the swinging of a _mitrailleuse_ ... "finish. The Belgian
soldiers to left and right of them took the hint. If they did
not--pupupupupupup.... O we went forward. Yes. _Vive le patriotisme._"

And he rose with a gesture which seemed to brush away these painful
trifles from his memory, crossed the end of the room with short rapid
steps, and began talking to his best friend Judas, who was at that moment
engaged in training his wobbly mustachios.... Toward the close of my
visit to La Ferté the Guard Champêtre was really happy for a period of
two days--during which time he moved in the society of a rich,
intelligent, mistakenly arrested and completely disagreeable youth in
bone spectacles, copious hair and spiral putees, whom B. and I partially
contented ourselves by naming Jo Jo The Lion Faced Boy. Had the charges
against Jo Jo been stronger my tale would have been longer--fortunately
for _tout le monde_ they had no basis; and back went Jo Jo to his native
Paris, leaving the Guard Champêtre with Judas and attacks of only
occasionally interesting despair.

The reader may suppose that it is about time another Delectable Mountain
appeared upon his horizon. Let him keep his eyes wide open, for here one
comes....

Whenever our circle was about to be increased, a bell from somewhere afar
(as a matter of fact the gate which had admitted my weary self to La
Ferté upon a memorable night, as already has been faithfully recounted)
tanged audibly--whereat up jumped the more strenuous inhabitants of The
Enormous Room and made pell-mell for the common peephole, situated at the
door end or nearer end of our habitat and commanding a somewhat
fragmentary view of the gate together with the arrivals, male and female,
whom the bell announced. In one particular case the watchers appeared
almost unduly excited, shouting "four!"--"big box"--"five _gendarmes_!"
and other incoherences with a loudness which predicted great things. As
nearly always, I had declined to participate in the mêlée; and was still
lying comfortably horizontal on my bed (thanking God that it had been
well and thoroughly mended by a fellow prisoner whom we called The Frog
and Le Coiffeur--a tremendously keen-eyed man with a large drooping
moustache, whose boon companion, chiefly on account of his shape and
gait, we knew as The Lobster) when the usual noises attendant upon the
unlocking of the door began with exceptional violence. I sat up. The door
shot open, there was a moment's pause, a series of grunting remarks
uttered by two rather terrible voices; then in came four _nouveaux_ of a
decidedly interesting appearance. They entered in two ranks of two each.
The front rank was made up of an immensely broad shouldered hipless and
consequently triangular man in blue trousers belted with a piece of
ordinary rope, plus a thick-set ruffianly personage the most prominent
part of whose accoutrements were a pair of hideous whiskers. I leaped to
my feet and made for the door, thrilled in spite of myself. By the, in
this case, shifty blue eyes, the pallid hair, the well-knit form of the
rope's owner I knew instantly a Hollander. By the coarse brutal features
half-hidden in the piratical whiskers, as well as by the heavy mean
wandering eyes. I recognised with equal speed a Belgian. Upon his
shoulders the front rank bore a large box, blackish, well-made, obviously
very weighty, which box it set down with a grunt of relief hard by the
cabinet. The rear rank marched behind in a somewhat asymmetrical manner:
a young, stupid-looking, clear-complexioned fellow (obviously a farmer,
and having expensive black puttees and a handsome cap with a shiny black
leather visor) slightly preceded a tall, gliding, thinnish, unjudgeable
personage who peeped at everyone quietly and solemnly from beneath the
visor of a somewhat large slovenly cloth cap showing portions of a lean,
long, incognisable face upon which sat, or rather drooped, a pair of
mustachios identical in character with those which are sometimes
pictorially attributed to a Chinese dignitary--in other words, the
mustachios were exquisitely narrow, homogeneously downward, and made of
something like black corn-silk. Behind _les nouveaux_ staggered four
_paillasses_ motivated mysteriously by two pair of small legs belonging
(as it proved) to Garibaldi and the little Machine-Fixer; who, coincident
with the tumbling of the mattresses to the floor, perspiringly emerged to
sight.

The first thing the shifty-eyed Hollander did was to exclaim
_Gottverdummer_. The first thing the whiskery Belgian did was to grab his
_paillasse_ and stand guard over it. The first thing the youth in the
leggings did was to stare helplessly about him, murmuring something
whimperingly in Polish. The first thing the fourth _nouveau_ did was pay
attention to anybody; lighting a cigarette in an unhurried manner as he
did so, and puffing silently and slowly as if in all the universe nothing
whatever save the taste of tobacco existed.

A bevy of Hollanders were by this time about the triangle, asking him all
at once Was he from so and so, What was in his box. How long had he been
in coming, etc. Half a dozen stooped over the box itself, and at least
three pairs of hands were on the point of trying the lock--when suddenly
with incredible agility the unperturbed smoker shot a yard forward,
landing quietly beside them; and exclaimed rapidly and briefly through
his nose.

"_Mang._"

He said it almost petulantly, or as a child says "Tag! You're it."

The onlookers recoiled, completely surprised. Whereat the frightened
youth in black puttees sidled over and explained with a pathetic, at once
ingratiating and patronising, accent.

"He is not nasty. He's a good fellow. He's my friend. He wants to say
that it's his, that box. He doesn't speak French."

"It's the _Gottverdummer_ Polak's box," said the Triangular Man exploding
in Dutch. "They're a pair of Polakers; and this man" (with a twist of his
pale-blue eyes in the direction of the Bewhiskered One) "and I had to
carry it all the _Gottverdummer_ way to this _Gottverdummer_ place."

All this time the incognizable _nouveau_ was smoking slowly and calmly,
and looking at nothing at all with his black buttonlike eyes. Upon his
face no faintest suggestion of expression could be discovered by the
hungry minds which focussed unanimously upon its almost stern contours.
The deep furrows in the cardboardlike cheeks (furrows which resembled
slightly the gills of some extraordinary fish, some unbreathing fish)
moved not an atom. The moustache drooped in something like mechanical
tranquillity. The lips closed occasionally with a gesture at once
abstracted and sensitive upon the lightly and carefully held cigarette;
whose curling smoke accentuated the poise of the head, at once alert and
uninterested.

Monsieur Auguste broke in, speaking, as I thought, Russian--and in an
instant he and the youth in puttees and the Unknowable's cigarette and
the box and the Unknowable had disappeared through the crowd in the
direction of Monsieur Auguste's _paillasse_, which was also the direction
of the _paillasse_ belonging to the Cordonnier as he was sometimes
called--a diminutive man with immense mustachios of his own who
promenaded with Monsieur Auguste, speaking sometimes French but, as a
general rule, Russian or Polish.

Which was my first glimpse, and is the reader's, of the Zulu; he being
one of the Delectable Mountains. For which reason I shall have more to
say of him later, when I ascend the Delectable Mountains in a separate
chapter or chapters; till when the reader must be content with the above,
however unsatisfactory description....

One of the most utterly repulsive personages whom I have met in my
life--perhaps (and on second thought I think certainly) the most utterly
repulsive--was shortly after this presented to our midst by the
considerate French government. I refer to The Fighting Sheeney. Whether
or no he arrived after the Spanish Whoremaster I cannot say. I remember
that Bill the Hollander--which was the name of the triangular rope-belted
man with shifty blue eyes (co-_arrivé_ with the whiskey Belgian; which
Belgian, by the way, from his not to be exaggerated brutal look, B. and
myself called The Baby-snatcher)--upon his arrival told great tales of a
Spanish millionaire with whom he had been in prison just previous to his
discovery of La Ferté. "He'll be here too in a couple o' days," added
Bill the Hollander, who had been fourteen years in These United States,
spoke the language to a T, talked about "The America Lakes," and was
otherwise amazingly well acquainted with The Land of The Free. And sure
enough, in less than a week one of the fattest men whom I have ever laid
eyes on, over-dressed, much beringed and otherwise wealthy-looking,
arrived--and was immediately played up to by Judas (who could smell cash
almost as far as _le gouvernement français_ could smell sedition) and, to
my somewhat surprise, by the utterly respectable Count Bragard. But most
emphatically NOT by Mexique, who spent a half-hour talking to the
_nouveau_ in his own tongue, then drifted placidly over to our beds and
informed us:

"You see dat feller over dere, dat fat feller? I speak Spanish to him. He
no good. Tell me he make fifty thousand franc last year runnin'
whorehouse in" (I think it was) "Brest. Son of bitch!"

"Dat fat feller" lived in a perfectly huge bed which he contrived to have
brought up for him immediately upon his arrival. The bed arrived in a
knock-down state and with it a mechanician from _la ville_, who set about
putting it together, meanwhile indulging in many glances expressive not
merely of interest but of amazement and even fear. I suppose the bed had
to be of a special size in order to accommodate the circular millionaire
and being an extraordinary bed required the services of a skilled
artisan--at all events, "dat fat feller's" couch put the Skipper's
altogether in the shade. As I watched the process of construction it
occurred to me that after all here was the last word in luxury--to call
forth from the metropolis not only a special divan but with it a special
slave, the Slave of the Bed.... "Dat fat feller" had one of the prisoners
perform his _corvée_ for him. "Dat fat feller" bought enough at the
canteen twice every day to stock a transatlantic liner for seven voyages,
and never ace with the prisoners. I will mention him again àpropos the
Mecca of respectability, the Great White Throne of purity, Three rings
Three--alias Count Bragard, to whom I have long since introduced my
reader.

So we come, willy-nilly, to The Fighting Sheeney.

The Fighting Sheeney arrived carrying the expensive suitcase of a livid,
strangely unpleasant-looking Roumanian gent, who wore a knit sweater of a
strangely ugly red hue, impeccable clothes, and an immaculate velour hat
which must have been worth easily fifty francs. We called this gent
Rockyfeller. His personality might be faintly indicated by the adjective
Disagreeable. The porter was a creature whom Ugly does not even slightly
describe. There are some specimens of humanity in whose presence one
instantly and instinctively feels a profound revulsion, a revulsion
which--perhaps because it is profound--cannot be analysed. The Fighting
Sheeney was one of these specimens. His face (or to use the good American
idiom, his mug) was exceedingly coarse-featured and had an indefatigable
expression of sheer brutality--yet the impression which it gave could not
be traced to any particular plane or line. I can and will say, however,
that this face was most hideous--perhaps that is the word--when it
grinned. When The Fighting Sheeney grinned you felt that he desired to
eat you, and was prevented from eating you only by a superior desire to
eat everybody at once. He and Rockyfeller came to us from, I think it
was, the Santé; both accompanied B. to Précigne. During the weeks which
The Fighting Sheeney spent at La Ferté Macé, the non-existence of the
inhabitants of The Enormous Room was rendered something more than
miserable. It was rendered well-nigh unbearable.

The night Rockyfeller and his slave arrived was a night to be remembered
by everyone. It was one of the wildest and strangest and most perfectly
interesting nights I, for one, ever spent. Rockyfeller had been corralled
by Judas, and was enjoying a special bed to our right at the upper end of
The Enormous Room. At the canteen he had purchased a large number of
candles in addition to a great assortment of dainties which he and Judas
were busily enjoying--when the _planton_ came up, counted us twice,
divided by three, gave the order "_Lumières éteintes_," and descended,
locking the door behind him. Everyone composed himself for miserable
sleep. Everyone except Judas, who went on talking to Rockyfeller, and
Rockyfeller, who proceeded to light one of his candles and begin a
pleasant and conversational evening. The Fighting Sheeney lay stark-naked
on a _paillasse_ between me and his lord. The Fighting Sheeney told
everyone that to sleep stark-naked was to avoid bugs (whereof everybody,
including myself, had a goodly portion). The Fighting Sheeney was,
however, quieted by the _planton's_ order; whereas Rockyfeller continued
to talk and munch to his heart's content. This began to get on
everybody's nerves. Protests in a number of languages arose from all
parts of The Enormous Room. Rockyfeller gave a contemptuous look around
him and proceeded with his conversation. A curse emanated from the
darkness. Up sprang The Fighting Sheeney, stark naked; strode over to the
bed of the curser, and demanded ferociously:

"_Boxe? Vous!_"

The curser was apparently fast asleep, and even snoring. The Fighting
Sheeney turned away disappointed, and had just reached his _paillasse_
when he was greeted by a number of uproariously discourteous remarks
uttered in all sorts of tongues. Over he rushed, threatened, received no
response, and turned back to his place. Once more ten or twelve voices
insulted him from the darkness. Once more The Fighting Sheeney made for
them, only to find sleeping innocents. Again he tried to go to bed. Again
the shouts arose, this time with redoubled violence and in greatly
increased number. The Fighting Sheeney was at his wits' end. He strode
about challenging everyone to fight, receiving not the slightest
recognition, cursing, reviling, threatening, bullying. The darkness
always waited for him to resume his mattress, then burst out in all sorts
of maledictions upon his head and the sacred head of his lord and master.
The latter was told to put out his candle, go to sleep and give the rest
a chance to enjoy what pleasure they might in forgetfulness of their
woes. Whereupon he appealed to The Sheeney to stop this. The Sheeney
(almost weeping) said he had done his best, that everyone was a pig, that
nobody would fight, that it was disgusting. Roars of applause. Protests
from the less strenuous members of our circle against the noise in
general: Let him have his _foutue_ candle, Shut up, Go to sleep yourself,
etc. Rockyfeller kept on talking (albeit visibly annoyed by the
ill-breeding of his fellow-captives) to the smooth and oily Judas. The
noise, or rather noises, increased. I was for some reason angry at
Rockyfeller--I think I had a curious notion that if I couldn't have a
light after "_lumières éteintes_" and if my very good friends were none
of them allowed to have one, then, by God! neither should Rockyfeller. At
any rate, I passed a few remarks calculated to wither the by this time a
little nervous Übermench; got up, put on some enormous _sabots_ (which I
had purchased from a horrid little boy whom the French Government had
arrested with his parent, for some cause unknown--which horrid little boy
told me that he had "found" the _sabots_ "in a train" on the way to La
Ferté) shook myself into my fur coat, and banged as noisemakingly as I
knew how over to One Eyed Dah-veed's _paillasse_, where Mexique joined
us. "It is useless to sleep," said One Eyed Dah-veed in French and
Spanish. "True," I agreed; "therefore, let's make all the noise we can."

Steadily the racket bulged in the darkness. Human cries, quips and
profanity had now given place to wholly inspired imitations of various,
not to say sundry, animals. Afrique exclaimed--with great pleasure I
recognised his voice through the impenetrable gloom:

"Agahagahagahagahagah!"

--"perhaps," said I, "he means a machine gun; it sounds like either that
or a monkey." The Wanderer crowed beautifully. Monsieur Auguste's bosom
friend, _le Cordonnier_, uttered an astonishing:

"Meeee-ooooooOW!"

which provoked a tornado of laughter and some applause. Mooings,
chirpings, cacklings--there was a superb hen--neighings, he-hawing,
roarings, bleatings, growlings, quackings, peepings, screamings,
bellowings, and--something else, of course--set The Enormous Room
suddenly and entirely alive. Never have I imagined such a menagerie as
had magically instated itself within the erstwhile soggy and dismal four
walls of our chamber. Even such staid characters as Count Bragard set up
a little bawling. Monsieur Pet-airs uttered a tiny aged crowing to my
immense astonishment and delight. The dying, the sick, the ancient, the
mutilated, made their contributions to the common pandemonium. And then,
from the lower left darkness, sprouted one of the very finest noises
which ever fell on human ears--the noise of a little dog with floppy ears
who was tearing after something on very short legs and carrying his very
fuzzy tail straight up in the air as he tore; a little dog who was busier
than he was wise, louder than he was big; a red-tongued, foolish
breathless, intent little dog with black eyes and a great smile and
woolly paws--which noise, conceived and executed by The Lobster, sent The
Enormous Room into an absolute and incurable hysteria.

The Fighting Sheeney was at a standstill. He knew not how to turn. At
last he decided to join with the insurgents, and wailed brutally and
dismally. That was the last straw: Rockyfeller, who could no longer (even
by shouting to Judas) make himself heard, gave up conversation and gazed
angrily about him; angrily yet fearfully, as if he expected some of these
numerous bears, lions, tigers and baboons to leap upon him from the
darkness. His livid super-disagreeable face trembled with the flickering
cadence of the candle. His lean lips clenched with mortification and
wrath. "_Vous êtes chef de chambre_," he said fiercely to Judas--"why
don't you make the men stop this? _C'est enmerdant._" "Ah," replied Judas
smoothly and insinuatingly--"They are only men, and boors at that; you
can't expect them to have any manners." A tremendous group of Something
Elses greeted this remark together with cries, insults, groans and
linguistic trumpetings. I got up and walked the length of the room to the
cabinet (situated as always by this time of night in a pool which was in
certain places six inches deep, from which pool my _sabots_ somewhat
protected me) and returned, making as loud a clattering as I was able.
Suddenly the voice of Monsieur Auguste leaped through the din in an

"_Alors! c'est as-sez._"

The next thing we knew he had reached the window just below the cabinet
(the only window, by the way, not nailed up with good long wire nails for
the sake of warmth) and was shouting in a wild, high, gentle, angry voice
to the sentinel below:

"_Plan-ton!_ It is impos-si-ble to sleep!"

A great cry: "Yes! I am coming!" floated up--every single noise
dropped--Rockyfeller shot out his hand for the candle, seized it in
terror, blew it out as if blowing it out were the last thing he would do
in this life--and The Enormous Room hung silent; enormously dark,
enormously expectant....

BANG! Open the door. "_Alors, qui, m'appelle? Qu'est-ce qu'on a foutu
ici._" And the Black Holster, revolver in hand, flashed his torch into
the inky stillness of the chamber. Behind him stood two _plantons_ white
with fear; their trembling hands clutching revolvers, the barrels of
which shook ludicrously.

"_C'est moi, plan-ton!_" Monsieur Auguste explained that no one could
sleep because of the noise, and that the noise was because "_ce monsieur
là_" would not extinguish his candle when everyone wanted to sleep. The
Black Holster turned to the room at large and roared: "You children of
_Merde_ don't let this happen again or I'll fix you every one of
you."--Then he asked if anyone wanted to dispute this assertion (he
brandishing his revolver the while) and was answered by peaceful
snorings. Then he said by X Y and Z he'd fix the noisemakers in the
morning and fix them good--and looked for approbation to his trembling
assistants. Then he swore twenty or thirty times for luck, turned, and
thundered out on the heels of his fleeing _confrères_ who almost tripped
over each other in their haste to escape from The Enormous Room. Never
have I seen a greater exhibition of bravery than was afforded by The
Black Holster, revolver in hand, holding at bay the snoring and
weaponless inhabitants of The Enormous Room. _Vive les plantons._ He
should have been a _gendarme_.

Of course Rockyfeller, having copiously tipped the officials of La Ferté
upon his arrival, received no slightest censure nor any hint of
punishment for his deliberate breaking an established rule--a rule for
the breaking of which anyone of the common scum (e.g., thank God, myself)
would have got _cabinot de suite_. No indeed. Several of _les hommes_,
however, got _pain sec_--not because they had been caught in an act of
vociferous protestation by the Black Holster, which they had not--but
just on principle, as a warning to the rest of us and to teach us a
wholesome respect for (one must assume) law and order. One and all, they
heartily agreed that it was worth it. Everyone knew, of course, that the
Spy had peached. For, by Jove, even in The Enormous Room there was a man
who earned certain privileges and acquired a complete immunity from
punishment by squealing on his fellow-sufferers at each and every
opportunity. A really ugly person, with a hard knuckling face and
treacherous hands, whose daughter lived downstairs in a separate room
apart from _les putains_ (against which "dirty," "filthy," "whores" he
could not say enough--"Hi'd rather die than 'ave my daughter with them
stinkin' 'ores," remarked once to me this strictly moral man, in Cockney
English) and whose daughter (aged thirteen) was generally supposed to
serve in a pleasurable capacity. One did not need to be warned against
the Spy (as both B. and I were warned, upon our arrival)--a single look
at that phiz was enough for anyone partially either intelligent or
sensitive. This phiz or mug had, then, squealed. Which everyone took as a
matter of course and admitted among themselves that hanging was too good
for him.

But the vast and unutterable success achieved by the _Menagerie_ was
this--Rockyfeller, shortly after, left our ill-bred society for
"_l'hôpital_"; the very same "hospital" whose comforts and seclusion
Monsieur le Surveillant had so dextrously recommended to B. and myself.
Rockyfeller kept The Fighting Sheeney in his way, in order to defend him
when he went on promenade; otherwise our connection with him was
definitely severed, his new companions being Muskowitz the Cock-eyed
Millionaire, and The Belgian Song Writer--who told everyone to whom he
spoke that he was a government official ("_de la blague_" cried the
little Machine-Fixer, "_c'est un menteur!_" Adding that he knew of this
person in Belgium and that this person was a man who wrote popular
ditties). Would to Heaven we had got rid of the slave as well as the
master--but unfortunately The Fighting Sheeney couldn't afford to follow
his lord's example. So he went on making a nuisance of himself, trying
hard to curry favour with B. and me, getting into fights and bullying
everyone generally.

Also this lion-hearted personage spent one whole night shrieking and
moaning on his _paillasse_ after an injection by Monsieur Richard--for
syphilis. Two or three men were, in the course of a few days, discovered
to have had syphilis for some time. They had it in their mouths. I don't
remember them particularly, except that at least one was a Belgian. Of
course they and The Fighting Sheeney had been using the common dipper and
drink pail. _Le gouvernement français_ couldn't be expected to look out
for a little thing like venereal disease among prisoners: didn't it have
enough to do curing those soldiers who spent their time on permission
trying their best to infect themselves with both gonorrhea and syphilis?
Let not the reader suppose I am day-dreaming: let him rather recall that
I had had the honour of being a member of Section Sanitaire Vingt-et-Un,
which helped evacuate the venereal hospital at Ham, with whose
inhabitants (in odd moments) I talked and walked and learned several
things about _la guerre_. Let the reader--if he does not realise it
already--realise that This Great War for Humanity, etc., did not agree
with some people's ideas, and that some people's ideas made them prefer
to the glories of the front line the torments (I have heard my friends at
Ham screaming a score of times) attendant upon venereal diseases. Or as
one of my aforesaid friends told me--after discovering that I was, in
contrast to _les américains_, not bent upon making France discover
America but rather upon discovering France and _les français_ myself:

"_Mon vieux_, it's quite simple. I go on leave. I ask to go to Paris,
because there are prostitutes there who are totally diseased. I catch
syphilis, and, when possible gonorrhea also. I come back. I leave for the
front line. I am sick. The hospital. The doctor tells me: you must not
smoke or drink, then you will be cured quickly. 'Thanks, doctor!' I drink
all the time and I smoke all the time and I do not get well. I stay five,
six, seven weeks. Perhaps a few months. At last, I am well. I rejoin my
regiment. And now it is my turn to go on leave. I go. Again the same
thing. It's very pretty, you know."

But about the syphilitics at La Ferté: they were, somewhat tardily to be
sure, segregated in a very small and dirty room--for a matter of,
perhaps, two weeks. And the Surveillant actually saw to it that during
this period they ate _la soupe_ out of individual china bowls.

I scarcely know whether The Fighting Sheeney made more of a nuisance of
himself during his decumbiture or during the period which followed
it--which period houses an astonishing number of fights, rows, bullyings,
etc. He must have had a light case for he was cured in no time, and on
everyone's back as usual. Well, I will leave him for the nonce; in fact,
I will leave him until I come to The Young Pole, who wore black puttees
and spoke of The Zulu as "_mon ami_"--the Young Pole whose troubles I
will recount in connection with the second Delectable Mountain Itself. I
will leave the Sheeney with the observation that he was almost as vain as
he was vicious; for with what ostentation, one day when we were in the
kitchen, did he show me a post-card received that afternoon from Paris,
whereon I read "Comme vous êtes beau" and promises to send more money as
fast as she earned it and, hoping that he had enjoyed her last present,
the signature (in a big, adoring hand)

"_Ta mome. Alice._"

and when I had read it--sticking his map up into my face, The Fighting
Sheeney said with emphasis:

"_No travailler moi. Femme travaille, fait la noce, tout le temps.
Toujours avec officiers anglais. Gagne beaucoup, cent franc, deux cent
franc, trois cent franc, toutes les nuits. Anglais riches. Femme me donne
tout. Moi no travailler. Bon, eh?_"

Grateful for this little piece of information, and with his leer an inch
from my chin, I answered slowly and calmly that it certainly was. I might
add that he spoke Spanish by preference (according to Mexique very bad
Spanish); for The Fighting Sheeney had made his home for a number of
years in Rio, and his opinion thereof may be loosely translated by the
expressive phrase, "it's a swell town."

A charming fellow, The Fighting Sheeney.

Now I must tell you what happened to the poor Spanish Whoremaster. I have
already noted the fact that Count Bragard conceived an immediate fondness
for this rolypoly individual, whose belly--as he lay upon his back of a
morning in bed--rose up with the sheets, blankets and quilts as much as
two feet above the level of his small, stupid head studded with chins. I
have said that this admiration on the part of the admirable Count and R.
A. for a personage of the Spanish Whoremaster's profession somewhat
interested me. The fact is, a change had recently come in our own
relations with Vanderbilt's friend. His cordiality toward B. and myself
had considerably withered. From the time of our arrivals the good
nobleman had showered us with favours and advice. To me, I may say, he
was even extraordinarily kind. We talked painting, for example: Count
Bragard folded a piece of paper, tore it in the centre of the folded
edge, unfolded it carefully, exhibiting a good round hole, and remarking:
"Do you know this trick? It's an English trick, Mr. Cummings," held the
paper before him and gazed profoundly through the circular aperture at an
exceptionally disappointing section of the altogether gloomy landscape,
visible thanks to one of the ecclesiastical windows of The Enormous Room.
"Just look at that, Mr. Cummings," he said with quiet dignity. I looked.
I tried my best to find something to the left. "No, no, straight
through," Count Bragard corrected me. "There's a lovely bit of
landscape," he said sadly. "If I only had my paints here. I thought, you
know, of asking my housekeeper to send them on from Paris--but how can
you paint in a bloody place like this with all these bloody pigs around
you? It's ridiculous to think of it. And it's tragic, too," he added
grimly, with something like tears in his grey, tired eyes.

Or we were promenading The Enormous Room after supper--the evening
promenade in the _cour_ having been officially eliminated owing to the
darkness and the cold of the autumn twilight--and through the windows the
dull bloating colours of sunset pouring faintly; and the Count stops dead
in his tracks and regards the sunset without speaking for a number of
seconds. Then--"it's glorious, isn't it?" he asks quietly. I say
"Glorious indeed." He resumes his walk with a sigh, and I accompany him.
"_Ce n'est pas difficile à peindre, un coucher du soleil_, it's not
hard," he remarks gently. "No?" I say with deference. "Not hard a bit,"
the Count says, beginning to use his hands. "You only need three colours,
you know. Very simple." "Which colours are they?" I inquire ignorantly.
"Why, you know of course," he says surprised. "Burnt sienna, cadmium
yellow, and--er--there! I can't think of it. I know it as well as I know
my own face. So do you. Well, that's stupid of me."

Or, his worn eyes dwelling benignantly upon my duffle-bag, he warns me
(in a low voice) of Prussian Blue.

"Did you notice the portrait hanging in the bureau of the Surveillant?"
Count Bragard inquired one day. "That's a pretty piece of work, Mr.
Cummings. Notice it when you get a chance. The green moustache,
particularly fine. School of Cézanne."--"Really?" I said in
surprise.--"Yes, indeed," Count Bragard said, extracting his
tired-looking hands from his tired-looking trousers with a cultured
gesture. "Fine young fellow painted that. I knew him. Disciple of the
master. Very creditable piece of work."--"Did you ever see Cézanne?" I
ventured.--"Bless you, yes, scores of times," he answered almost
pityingly.--"What did he look like?" I asked, with great
curiosity.--"Look like? His appearance, you mean?" Count Bragard seemed
at a loss. "Why he was not extraordinary looking. I don't know how you
could describe him. Very difficult in English. But you know a phrase we
have in French, '_l'air pésant_'; I don't think there's anything in
English for it; _il avait l'air pésant_, Cézanne, if you know what I
mean.

"I should work, I should not waste my time," the Count would say almost
weepingly. "But it's no use, my things aren't here. And I'm getting old
too; couldn't concentrate in this stinking hole of a place, you know."

I did some hasty drawings of Monsieur Pet-airs washing and rubbing his
bald head with a great towel in the dawn. The R.A. caught me in the act
and came over shortly after, saying, "Let me see them." In some
perturbation (the subject being a particular friend of his) I showed one
drawing. "Very good, in fact, excellent," the R.A. smiled whimsically.
"You have a real talent for caricature, Mr. Cummings, and you should
exercise it. You really got Peters. Poor Peters, he's a fine fellow, you
know; but this business of living in the muck and filth, _c'est
malheureux_. Besides, Peters is an old man. It's a dirty bloody shame,
that's what it is. A bloody shame that all of us here should be forced to
live like pigs with this scum!

"I tell you what, Mr. Cummings," he said, with something like fierceness,
his weary eyes flashing, "I'm getting out of here shortly, and when I do
get out (I'm just waiting for my papers to be sent on by the French
consul) I'll not forget my friends. We've lived together and suffered
together and I'm not a man to forget it. This hideous mistake is nearly
cleared up, and when I go free I'll do anything for you and your chum.
Anything I can do for you I'd be only too glad to do it. If you want me
to buy you paints when I'm in Paris, nothing would give me more pleasure.
I know French as well as I know my own language" (he most certainly did)
"and whereas you might be cheated, I'll get you everything you need _à
bon marché_. Because you see they know me there, and I know just where to
go. Just give me the money for what you need and I'll get you the best
there is in Paris for it. You needn't worry"--I was protesting that it
would be too much trouble--"my dear fellow, it's no trouble to do a
favour for a friend."

And to B. and myself _ensemble_ he declared, with tears in his eyes, "I
have some marmalade at my house in Paris, real marmalade, not the sort of
stuff you buy these days. We know how to make it. You can't get an idea
how delicious it is. In big crocks"--the Count said simply--"well, that's
for you boys." We protested that he was too kind. "Nothing of the sort,"
he said, with a delicate smile. "I have a son in the English Army," and
his face clouded with worry, "and we send him some now and then, he's
crazy about it. I know what it means to him. And you shall share in it
too. I'll send you six crocks." Then, suddenly looking at us with a
pleasant expression, "By Jove!" the Count said, "do you like whiskey?
Real Bourbon whiskey? I see by your look that you know what it is. But
you never tasted anything like this. Do you know London?" I said no, as I
had said once before. "Well, that's a pity," he said, "for if you did
you'd know this bar. I know the barkeeper well, known him for thirty
years. There's a picture of mine hanging in his place. Look at it when
you're in London, drop in to ---- Street, you'll find the place, anyone
will tell you where it is. This fellow would do anything for me. And now
I'll tell you what I'll do: you fellows give me whatever you want to
spend and I'll get you the best whiskey you ever tasted. It's his own
private stock, you understand. I'll send it on to you--God knows you need
it in this place. I wouldn't do this for anyone else, you understand,"
and he smiled kindly; "but we've been prisoners together, and we
understand each other, and that's enough for gentlemen. I won't forget
you." He drew himself up. "I shall write," he said slowly and distinctly,
"to Vanderbilt about you. I shall tell him it's a dirty bloody shame that
you two young Americans, gentlemen born, should be in this foul place.
He's a man who's quick to act. He'll not tolerate a thing like this--an
outrage, a bloody outrage, upon two of his own countrymen. We shall see
what happens then."

It was during this period that Count Bragard lent us for our personal use
his greatest treasure, a water glass. "I don't need it," he said simply
and pathetically.

Now, as I have said, a change in our relations came.

It came at the close of one soggy, damp, raining afternoon. For this
entire hopeless grey afternoon Count Bragard and B. promenaded The
Enormous Room. Bragard wanted the money--for the whiskey and the paints.
The marmalade and the letter to Vanderbilt were, of course, gratis.
Bragard was leaving us. Now was the time to give him money for what we
wanted him to buy in Paris and London. I spent my time rushing about,
falling over things, upsetting people, making curious and secret signs to
B., which signs, being interpreted, meant be careful! But there was no
need of telling him this particular thing. When the _planton_ announced
_la soupe_, a fiercely weary face strode by me en route to his mattress
and his spoon. I knew that B. had been careful. A minute later he joined
me, and told me as much....

On the way downstairs we ran into the Surveillant. Bragard stepped from
the ranks and poured upon the Surveillant a torrent of French, of which
the substance was: you told them not to give me anything. The Surveillant
smiled and bowed and wound and unwound his hands behind his back and
denied anything of the sort.

It seems that B. had heard that the kindly nobleman wasn't going to Paris
at all.

Moreover, Monsieur Pet-airs had said to B. something about Count Bragard
being a suspicious personage--Monsieur Pet-airs, the R.A.'s best friend.

Moreover, as I have said, Count Bragard had been playing up to the poor
Spanish Whoremaster to beat the band. Every day had he sat on a little
stool beside the rolypoly millionaire, and written from dictation letter
after letter in French--with which language the rolypoly was sadly
unfamiliar.... And when next day Count Bragard took back his treasure of
treasures, his personal water glass, remarking briefly that he needed it
once again, I was not surprised. And when, a week or so later, he left--I
was not surprised to have Mexique come up to us and placidly remark:

"I give dat feller five francs. Tell me he send me overcoat, very good
overcoat. But say: Please no tell anybody come from me. Please tell
everybody your family send it." And with a smile, "I t'ink dat feller
fake."

Nor was I surprised to see, some weeks later, the poor Spanish
Whoremaster rending his scarce hair as he lay in bed of a morning. And
Mexique said with a smile:

"Dat feller give dat English feller one hundred francs. Now he sorry."

All of which meant merely that Count Bragard should have spelt his name,
not Bra-, but with an l.

And I wonder to this day that the only letter of mine which ever reached
America and my doting family should have been posted by this highly
entertaining personage en ville, whither he went as a trusted inhabitant
of La Ferté to do a few necessary errands for himself; whither he
returned with a good deal of colour in his cheeks and a good deal of _vin
rouge_ in his guts; going and returning with Tommy, the _planton_ who
brought him The Daily Mail every day until Bragard couldn't afford it,
after which either B. and I or Jean le Nègre took it off Tommy's
hands--Tommy, for whom we had a delightful name which I sincerely regret
being unable to tell, Tommy, who was an Englishman for all his French
_planton's_ uniform and worshipped the ground on which the Count stood;
Tommy, who looked like a boiled lobster and had tears in his eyes when he
escorted his idol back to captivity.... _Mirabile dictu_, so it was.

Well, such was the departure of a great man from among us.

And now, just to restore the reader's faith in human nature, let me
mention an entertaining incident which occurred during the latter part of
my stay at La Ferté Macé. Our society had been gladdened--or at any rate
galvanized--by the biggest single contribution in its history; the
arrival simultaneously of six purely extraordinary persons, whose names
alone should be of more than general interest: The Magnifying Glass, The
Trick Raincoat, The Messenger Boy, The Hat, The Alsatian, The
Whitebearded Raper and His Son. In order to give the reader an idea of
the situation created by these _arrivés_, which situation gives the
entrance of the Washing Machine Man--the entertaining incident, in other
words--its full and unique flavour, I must perforce sketch briefly each
member of a truly imposing group. Let me say at once that, so terrible an
impression did the members make, each inhabitant of The Enormous Room
rushed at break-neck speed to his _paillasse_; where he stood at bay,
assuming as frightening an attitude as possible. The Enormous Room was
full enough already, in all conscience. Between sixty and seventy
mattresses, with their inhabitants and, in nearly every case, baggage,
occupied it so completely as scarcely to leave room for _le poêle_ at the
further end and the card table in the centre. No wonder we were struck
with terror upon seeing the six _nouveaux_. Judas immediately protested
to the _planton_ who brought them up that there were no places, getting a
roar in response and the door slammed in his face to boot. But the reader
is not to imagine that it was the number alone of the arrivals which
inspired fear and distrust--their appearance was enough to shake anyone's
sanity. I do protest that never have I experienced a feeling of more
profound distrust than upon this occasion; distrust of humanity in
general and in particular of the following individuals:

An old man shabbily dressed in a shiny frock coat, upon whose peering and
otherwise very aged face a pair of dirty spectacles rested. The first
thing he did, upon securing a place, was to sit upon his mattress in a
professorial manner, tremulously extract a journal from his left coat
pocket, tremblingly produce a large magnifying glass from his upper right
vest pocket, and forget everything. Subsequently, I discovered him
promenading the room with an enormous expenditure of feeble energy,
taking tiny steps flat-footedly and leaning in when he rounded a corner
as if he were travelling at terrific speed. He suffered horribly from
rheumatism, could scarcely move after a night on the floor, and must have
been at least sixty-seven years old.

Second, a palish, foppish, undersized, prominent-nosed creature who
affected a deep musical voice and the cut of whose belted raincoat gave
away his profession--he was a pimp, and proud of it, and immediately upon
his arrival boasted thereof, and manifested altogether as disagreeable a
species of bullying vanity as I ever (save in the case of The Fighting
Sheeney) encountered. He got his from Jean le Nègre, as the reader will
learn later.

Third, a super-Western-Union-Messenger type of ancient-youth,
extraordinarily unhandsome if not positively ugly. He had a weak pimply
grey face, was clad in a brownish uniform, puttees (on pipestem calves),
and a regular Messenger Boy cap. Upon securing a place he instantly went
to the card-table, seated himself hurriedly, pulled out a batch of
blanks, and wrote a telegram to (I suppose) himself. Then he returned to
his _paillasse_, lay down with apparently supreme contentment, and fell
asleep.

Fourth, a tiny old man who looked like a caricature of an East Side
second-hand clothes dealer--having a long beard, a long, worn and dirty
coat reaching just to his ankles, and a small derby hat on his head. The
very first night his immediate neighbour complained that "Le Chapeau" (as
he was christened by The Zulu) was guilty of fleas. A great tempest
ensued immediately. A _planton_ was hastily summoned. He arrived, heard
the case, inspected The Hat (who lay on his _paillasse_ with his derby
on, his hand far down the neck of his shirt, scratching busily and
protesting occasionally his entire innocence), uttered (being the Black
Holster) an oath of disgust, and ordered The Frog to "_couper les cheveux
de suite et la barbe aussi; après il va au bain, le vieux_." The Frog
approached and gently requested The Hat to seat himself upon a chair--the
better of two chairs boasted by The Enormous Room. The Frog, successor to
The Barber, brandished his scissors. The Hat lay and scratched. "_Allez,
Nom de Dieu_" the _planton_ roared. The poor Hat arose trembling, assumed
a praying attitude; and began to talk in a thick and sudden manner.
"_Asseyez-vous là, tête de cochon_." The pitiful Hat obeyed, clutching
his derby to his head in both withered hands. "Take off your hat, you son
of a bitch," the _planton_ yelled. "I don't want to," the tragic Hat
whimpered. BANG! the derby hit the floor, bounded upward and lay still.
"Proceed," the orderly thundered to The Frog, who regarded him with a
perfectly inscrutable expression on his extremely keen face, then turned
to his subject, snickered with the scissors, and fell to. Locks ear-long
fell in crisp succession. Pete the Shadow, standing beside the barber,
nudged me; and I looked; and I beheld upon the floor the shorn locks
rising and curling with a movement of their own.... "Now for the beard,"
said the Black Holster.--"No, no, _Monsieur, s'il vous plait, pas ma
barbe, monsieur_"--The Hat wept, trying to kneel.--"_Ta gueule_ or I'll
cut your throat," the _planton_ replied amiably; and The Frog, after
another look, obeyed. And lo, the beard squirmed gently upon the floor,
alive with a rhythm of its own; squirmed and curled crisply as it lay....
When The Hat was utterly shorn, he was bathed and became comparatively
unremarkable, save for the worn long coat which he clutched about him,
shivering. And he borrowed five francs from me twice, and paid me
punctually each time when his own money arrived, and presented me with
chocolate into the bargain, tipping his hat quickly and bowing (as he
always did whenever he addressed anyone). Poor Old Hat, B. and I and the
Zulu were the only men at La Ferté who liked you.

Fifth, a fat, jolly, decently dressed man.--He had been to a camp where
everyone danced, because an entire ship's crew was interned there, and
the crew were enormously musical, and the captain (having sold his ship)
was rich and tipped the Director regularly; so everyone danced night and
day, and the crew played, for the crew had brought their music with
them.--He had a way of borrowing the paper (_Le Matin_) which we bought
from one of the lesser _plantons_ who went to the town and got _Le Matin_
there; borrowing it before we had read it--by the sunset. And his
favourite observations were:

"It's a rotten country. Dirty weather."

Fifth and sixth, a vacillating, staggering, decrepit creature with
wildish white beard and eyes, who had been arrested--incredibly
enough--for "rape." With him his son, a pleasant youth quiet of
demeanour, inquisitive of nature, with whom we sometimes conversed on the
subject of the English Army.

Such were the individuals whose concerted arrival taxed to its utmost the
capacity of The Enormous Room. And now for my incident:

In the doorway, one day shortly after the arrival of the gentlemen
mentioned, quietly stood a well-dressed handsomely middle-aged man, with
a sensitive face culminating in a groomed Van Dyck beard. I thought for a
moment that the Mayor of Orne, or whatever his title is, had dropped in
for an informal inspection of The Enormous Room. Thank God, I said to
myself, it has never looked so chaotically filthy since I have had the
joy of inhabiting it. And _sans blague_, The Enormous Room _was_ in a
state of really supreme disorder; shirts were thrown everywhere, a few
twine clothes lines supported various pants, handkerchiefs and stockings,
the stove was surrounded by a gesticulating group of nearly undressed
prisoners, the stink was actually sublime.

As the door closed behind him, the handsome man moved slowly and
vigorously up The Enormous Room. His eyes were as big as turnips. His
neat felt hat rose with the rising of his hair. His mouth opened in a
gesture of unutterable astonishment. His knees trembled with surprise and
terror, the creases of his trousers quivering. His hands lifted
themselves slowly outward and upward till they reached the level of his
head; moved inward till they grasped his head: and were motionless. In a
deep awe-struck resonant voice he exclaimed simply and sincerely:

"_Nom de nom de nom de nom de nom de DIEU!_"

Which introduces the reader to The Washing Machine Man, a Hollander,
owner of a store at Brest where he sold the highly _utiles_ contrivances
which gave him his name. He, as I remember, had been charged with aiding
and abetting in the case of escaping deserters--but I know a better
reason for his arrest: undoubtedly _le gouvernement français_ caught him
one day in the act of inventing a super-washing machine, in fact, a
Whitewashing machine, for the private use of the Kaiser and His
Family....

Which brings us, if you please, to the first Delectable Mountain.



VIII

THE WANDERER

One day somebody and I were "catching water" for Monsieur the Chef.

"Catching water" was ordinarily a mixed pleasure. It consisted, as I have
mentioned, in the combined pushing and pulling of a curiously primitive
two-wheeled cart over a distance of perhaps three hundred yards to a kind
of hydrant situated in a species of square upon which the mediaeval
structure known as Porte (or Camp) de Triage faced stupidly and
threateningly. A _planton_ always escorted the catchers through a big
door, between the stone wall, which backed the men's _cour_ and the end
of the building itself, or, in other words, the canteen. The ten-foot
stone wall was, like every other stone wall, connected with La Ferté,
topped with three feet of barbed wire. The door by which we exited with
the water-wagon to the street outside was at least eight feet high,
adorned with several large locks. One pushing behind, one pulling in the
shafts, we rushed the wagon over a sort of threshold or sill and into the
street; and were immediately yelled at by the _planton_, who commanded us
to stop until he had locked the door. We waited until told to proceed;
then yanked and shoved the reeling vehicle up the street to our right,
that is to say, along the wall of the building, but on the outside. All
this was pleasant and astonishing. To feel oneself, however temporarily,
outside the eternal walls in a street connected with a rather selfish and
placid looking little town (whereof not more than a dozen houses were
visible) gave the prisoner an at once silly and uncanny sensation, much
like the sensation one must get when he starts to skate for the first
time in a dozen years or so. The street met two others in a moment, and
here was a very nourishing sumach bush (as I guess) whose berries shocked
the stunned eye with a savage splash of vermilion. Under this colour one
discovered the Mecca of water-catchers in the form of an iron contrivance
operating by means of a stubby lever which, when pressed down, yielded
grudgingly a spout of whiteness. The contrivance was placed in
sufficiently close proximity to a low wall so that one of the catchers
might conveniently sit on the wall and keep the water spouting with a
continuous pressure of his foot, while the other catcher manipulated a
tin pail with telling effect. Having filled the barrel which rode on the
two wagon wheels, we turned it with some difficulty and started it down
the street with the tin pail on top; the man in the shafts leaning back
with all his might to offset a certain velocity promoted by the down
grade, while the man behind tugged helpingly at the barrel itself. On
reaching the door we skewed the machine skillfully to the left, thereby
bringing it to a complete standstill, and waited for the _planton_ to
unlock the locks; which done, we rushed it violently over the threshold,
turned left, still running, and came to a final stop in front of the
kitchen. Here stood three enormous wooden tubs. We backed the wagon
around; then one man opened a spigot in the rear of the barrel, and at
the same time the other elevated the shafts in a clever manner, inducting
the _jet d'eau_ to hit one of the tubs. One tub filled, we switched the
stream wittily to the next. To fill the three tubs (they were not always
all of them empty) required as many as six or eight delightful trips.
After which one entered the _cuisine_ and got his well-earned
reward--coffee with sugar.

I have remarked that catching water was a mixed pleasure. The mixedness
of the pleasure came from certain highly respectable citizens, and more
often citizenesses, of _la ville_ de La Ferté Macé; who had a habit of
endowing the poor water-catchers with looks which I should not like to
remember too well, at the same moment clutching whatever infants they
carried or wore or had on leash spasmodically to them. I never ceased to
be surprised by the scorn, contempt, disgust and frequently sheer
ferocity manifested in the male and particularly in the female faces. All
the ladies wore, of course, black; they were wholly unbeautiful of face
or form, some of them actually repellant; not one should I, even under
more favourable circumstances, have enjoyed meeting. The first time I
caught water everybody in the town was returning from church, and a
terrific sight it was. _Vive la bourgeoisie_, I said to myself, ducking
the shafts of censure by the simple means of hiding my face behind the
moving water barrel.

But one day--as I started to inform the reader--somebody and I were
catching water, and, in fact, had caught our last load, and were
returning with it down the street; when I, who was striding rapidly
behind trying to lessen with both hands the impetus of the machine,
suddenly tripped and almost fell with surprise--

On the curb of the little unbeautiful street a figure was sitting, a
female figure dressed in utterly barbaric pinks and vermilions, having a
dark shawl thrown about her shoulders; a positively Arabian face
delimited by a bright coif of some tenuous stuff, slender golden hands
holding with extraordinary delicacy what appeared to be a baby of not
more than three months old; and beside her a black-haired child of
perhaps three years and beside this child a girl of fourteen, dressed
like the woman in crashing hues, with the most exquisite face I had ever
known.

_Nom de Dieu_, I thought vaguely. Am I or am I not completely asleep? And
the man in the shafts craned his neck in stupid amazement, and the
_planton_ twirled his moustache and assumed that intrepid look which only
a _planton_ (or a _gendarme_) perfectly knows how to assume in the
presence of female beauty.

That night The Wanderer was absent from _la soupe_, having been called by
Apollyon to the latter's office upon a matter of superior import.
Everyone was abuzz with the news. The gypsy's wife and three children,
one a baby at the breast, were outside demanding to be made prisoners.
Would the Directeur allow it? They had been told a number of times by
_plantons_ to go away, as they sat patiently waiting to be admitted to
captivity. No threats, pleas nor arguments had availed. The wife said she
was tired of living without her husband--roars of laughter from all the
Belgians and most of the Hollanders, I regret to say Pete included--and
wanted merely and simply to share his confinement. Moreover, she said,
without him she was unable to support his children! and it was better
that they should grow up with their father as prisoners than starve to
death without him. She would not be moved. The Black Holster told her he
would use force--she answered nothing. Finally she had been admitted
pending judgment. _Also sprach_, highly excited, the _balayeur_.

"Looks like a--hoor," was the Belgian-Dutch verdict, a verdict which was
obviously due to the costume of the lady in question almost as much as to
the untemperamental natures sojourning at La Ferté. B. and I agreed that
she and her children were the most beautiful people we had ever seen, or
would ever be likely to see. So _la soupe_ ended, and everybody belched
and gasped and trumpeted up to The Enormous Room as usual.

That evening, about six o'clock, I heard a man crying as if his heart
were broken. I crossed The Enormous Room. Half-lying on his _paillasse_,
his great beard pouring upon his breast, his face lowered, his entire
body shuddering with sobs, lay The Wanderer. Several of the men were
about him, standing in attitudes ranging from semi-amusement to stupid
sympathy, listening to the anguish which--as from time to time he lifted
his majestic head--poured slowly and brokenly from his lips. I sat down
beside him. And he told me: "I bought him for six hundred francs, and I
sold him for four hundred and fifty ... it was not a horse of this race,
but of the race" (I could not catch the word) "as long as from here to
that post. I cried for a quarter of an hour just as if my child were dead
... and it is seldom I weep over horses--I say: you are going, Jewel, _au
r'oir et bon jour._" ...

The vain little dancer interrupted about "broken-down horses" ...
"_Excuses donc_--this was no disabled horse, such as goes to the
front--these are some horses--pardon, whom you give eat, this, it is
colie, that, the other, it's colie--this never--he could go forty
kilometres a day...."

One of the strongest men I have seen in my life is crying because he has
had to sell his favourite horse. No wonder _les hommes_ in general are
not interested. Someone said: "Be of good cheer, Demestre, your wife and
kids are well enough."

"Yes--they are not cold; they have a bed like that" (a high gesture
toward the quilt of many colours on which we were sitting, such a quilt
as I have not seen since; a feathery deepness soft to the touch as air in
Spring), "which is worth three times this of mine--but _tu comprends_,
it's not hot these mornings"--then he dropped his head, and lifted it
again, crying, crying.

"_Et mes outils_, I had many--and my garments--where are they put,
_où--où? Kis!_ And I had _chemises_ ... this is poor" (looking at himself
as a prince might look at his disguise)--"and like this, that--where?"

"_Si_ the wagon is not sold ... I never will stay here for _la durée de
la guerre_. No--bahsht! To resume, that is why I need...."

(more than upright in the priceless bed--the twice streaming darkness of
his beard, his hoarse sweetness of voice--his immense perfect face and
deeply softnesses eyes--pouring voice)

"my wife sat over there, she spoke to No one and bothered Nobody--why was
my wife taken here and shut up? Had she done anything? There is a wife
who _fait la putain_ and turns, to everyone and another, whom I bring
another tomorrow ... but a woman who loves only her husband, who waits
for no one but her husband--"

(the tone bulged, and the eyes together)

"--_Ces cigarettes ne fument pas!_" I added an apology, having presented
him with the package. "Why do you shell out these? They cost fifteen
sous, you may spend for them if you like, you understand what I'm saying?
But some time when you have nothing" (extraordinary gently) "what then?
Better to save for that day ... better to buy _du tabac_ and _faire_
yourself; these are made of tobacco dust."

And there was someone to the right who was saying: "To-morrow is Sunday"
... wearily. The King, lying upon his huge quilt, sobbing now only a
little, heard:

"So--ah--he was born on a Sunday--my wife is nursing him, she gives him
the breast" (the gesture charmed) "she said to them she would not eat if
they gave her that--that's not worth anything--meat is necessary every
day ..." he mused. I tried to go.

"Sit there" (graciousness of complete gesture. The sheer kingliness of
poverty. He creased the indescribably soft _couverture_ for me and I sat
and looked into his forehead bounded by the cube of square sliced hair.
Blacker than Africa. Than imagination).

After this evening I felt that possibly I knew a little of The Wanderer,
or he of me.

The Wanderer's wife and his two daughters and his baby lived in the
women's quarters. I have not described and cannot describe these four.
The little son of whom he was tremendously proud slept with his father in
the great quilts in The Enormous Room. Of The Wanderer's little son I may
say that he had lolling buttons of eyes sewed on gold flesh, that he had
a habit of turning cart-wheels in one-third of his father's trousers,
that we called him The Imp. He ran, he teased, he turned handsprings, he
got in the way, and he even climbed the largest of the scraggly trees in
the _cour_ one day. "You will fall," Monsieur Peters (whose old eyes had
a fondness for this irrepressible creature) remarked with
conviction.--"Let him climb," his father said quietly. "I have climbed
trees. I have fallen out of trees. I am alive." The Imp shinnied like a
monkey, shouting and crowing, up a lean gnarled limb--to the amazement of
the very _planton_ who later tried to rape Celina and was caught. This
_planton_ put his gun in readiness and assumed an eager attitude of
immutable heroism. "Will you shoot?" the father inquired politely.
"Indeed it would be a big thing of which you might boast all your life:
I, a _planton_, shot and killed a six-year-old child in a tree."--"_C'est
enmerdant_," the _planton_ countered, in some confusion--"he may be
trying to escape. How do I know?"--"Indeed, how do you know anything?"
the father murmured quietly. "It's a _mystère_." The Imp, all at once,
fell. He hit the muddy ground with a disagreeable thud. The breath was
utterly knocked out of him. The Wanderer picked him up kindly. His son
began, with the catching of his breath, to howl uproariously. "Serves him
right, the ---- jackanapes," a Belgian growled.--"I told you so, didn't
I?" Monsieur Petairs worringly cried: "I said he would fall out of that
tree!"--"Pardon, you were right, I think," the father smiled pleasantly.
"Don't be sad, my little son, everybody falls out of trees, they're made
for that by God," and he patted The Imp, squatting in the mud and
smiling. In five minutes The Imp was trying to scale the shed. "Come down
or I fire," the _planton_ cried nervously ... and so it was with The
Wanderer's son from morning till night. "Never," said Monsieur Pet-airs
with solemn desperation, "have I seen such an incorrigible child, a
perfectly incorrigible child," and he shook his head and immediately
dodged a missile which had suddenly appeared from nowhere.

Night after night The Imp would play around our beds, where we held court
with our chocolate and our candles; teasing us, cajoling us, flattering
us, pretending tears, feigning insult, getting lectures from Monsieur
Peters on the evil of cigarette smoking, keeping us in a state of
perpetual inquietude. When he couldn't think of anything else to do he
sang at the top of his clear bright voice:

  "_C'est la guerre
    faut pas t'en faire_"

and turned a handspring or two for emphasis.... Mexique once cuffed him
for doing something peculiarly mischievous, and he set up a great
crying--instantly The Wanderer was standing over Mexique, his hands
clenched, his eyes sparkling--it took a good deal of persuasion to
convince the parent that his son was in error, meanwhile Mexique placidly
awaited his end ... and neither B. nor I, despite the Imp's tormentings,
could keep from laughing when he all at once with a sort of crowing cry
rushed for the nearest post, jumped upon his hands, arched his back, and
poised head-downward; his feet just touching the pillar. Bare-footed, in
a bright chemise and one-third of his father's trousers....

Being now in a class with "_les hommes mariés_" The Wanderer spent most
of the day downstairs, coming up with his little son every night to sleep
in The Enormous Room. But we saw him occasionally in the _cour_; and
every other day when the dreadful cry was raised

"_Allez, tout-le-monde, 'plicher les pommes!_" and we descended, in fair
weather, to the lane between the building and the _cour_, and in foul
(very foul I should say) the dynosaur-coloured sweating walls of the
dining-room--The Wanderer would quietly and slowly appear, along with the
other _hommes mariés_, and take up the peeling of the amazingly cold
potatoes which formed the _pièce de resistance_ (in guise of _Soupe_) for
both women and men at La Ferté. And if the wedded males did not all of
them show up for this unagreeable task, a dreadful hullabaloo was
instantly raised--

"_LES HOMMES MARIÉS!_"

and forth would more or less sheepishly issue the delinquents.

And I think The Wanderer, with his wife and children whom he loved as
never have I seen a man love anything in this world, was partly happy;
walking in the sun when there was any, sleeping with his little boy in a
great gulp of softness. And I remember him pulling his fine beard into
two darknesses--huge-sleeved, pink-checked chemise--walking kindly like a
bear--corduroy bigness of trousers, waistline always amorous of
knees--finger-ends just catching tops of enormous pockets. When he feels,
as I think, partly happy, he corrects our pronunciation of the ineffable
Word--saying

"_O, May-err-DE!_"

and smiles. And once Jean Le Nègre said to him as he squatted in the
_cour_ with his little son beside him, his broad strong back as nearly
always against one of the gruesome and minute _pommiers_--

"_Barbu! j'vais couper ta barbe, barbu!_" Whereat the father answered
slowly and seriously.

"When you cut my beard you will have to cut off my head" regarding Jean
le Nègre with unspeakably sensitive, tremendously deep, peculiarly soft
eyes. "My beard is finer than that; you have made it too coarse," he
gently remarked one day, looking attentively at a piece of _photographie_
which I had been caught in the act of perpetrating: whereat I bowed my
head in silent shame.

"Demestre, Josef (_femme, née_ Feliska)" I read another day in the
Gestionnaire's book of judgment. O Monsieur le Gestionnaire, I should not
have liked to have seen those names in my book of sinners, in my album of
filth and blood and incontinence, had I been you.... O little, very
little, _gouvernement français_, and you, the great and comfortable
_messieurs_ of the world, tell me why you have put a gypsy who dresses
like To-morrow among the squabbling pimps and thieves of yesterday....

He had been in New York one day.

One child died at sea.

"_Les landes_" he cried, towering over The Enormous Room suddenly one
night in Autumn, "_je les connais commes ma poche_--Bordeaux? _Je sais où
que c'est._ Madrid? _Je sais où que c'est._ Tolède? Seville? Naples? _Je
sais où que c'est. Je les connais comme ma poche._"

He could not read. "Tell me what it tells," he said briefly and without
annoyance, when once I offered him the journal. And I took pleasure in
trying to do so.

One fine day, perhaps the finest day, I looked from a window of The
Enormous Room and saw (in the same spot that Lena had enjoyed her
half-hour promenade during confinement in the _cabinet_, as related) the
wife of The Wanderer, "_née_ Feliska," giving his baby a bath in a pail,
while The Wanderer sat in the sun smoking. About the pail an absorbed
group of _putains_ stood. Several _plantons_ (abandoning for one instant
their plantonic demeanour) leaned upon their guns and watched. Some even
smiled a little. And the mother, holding the brownish, naked, crowing
child tenderly, was swimming it quietly to and fro, to the delight of
Celina in particular. To Celina it waved its arms greetingly. She stooped
and spoke to it. The mother smiled. The Wanderer, looking from time to
time at his wife, smoked and pondered by himself in the sunlight.

This baby was the delight of the _putains_ at all times. They used to
take turns carrying it when on promenade. The Wanderer's wife, at such
moments, regarded them with a gentle and jealous weariness.

There were two girls, as I said. One, the littlest girl I ever saw walk
and act by herself, looked exactly like a gollywog. This was because of
the huge mop of black hair. She was very pretty. She used to sit with her
mother and move her toes quietly for her own private amusement. The older
sister was as divine a creature as God in His skillful and infinite
wisdom ever created. Her intensely sexual face greeted us nearly always
as we descended _pour la soupe_. She would come up to B. and me slenderly
and ask, with the brightest and darkest eyes in the world,

"_Chocolat, M'sieu'?_"

and we would present her with a big or small, as the case might be,
_morceau de chocolat_. We even called her _Chocolat_. Her skin was nearly
sheer gold; her fingers and feet delicately formed: her teeth wonderfully
white; her hair incomparably black and abundant. Her lips would have
seduced, I think, _le gouvernement français_ itself. Or any saint.

Well....

_Le gouvernement français_ decided in its infinite but unskillful wisdom
that The Wanderer, being an inexpressibly bad man (guilty of who knows
what gentleness, strength and beauty) should suffer as much as he was
capable of suffering. In other words, it decided (through its Three Wise
Men, who formed the visiting Commission whereof I speak anon) that the
wife, her baby, her two girls, and her little son should be separated
from the husband by miles and by stone walls and by barbed wire and by
Law. Or perhaps (there was a rumour to this effect) The Three Wise Men
discovered that the father of these incredibly exquisite children was not
her lawful husband. And of course, this being the case, the utterly and
incomparably moral French Government saw its duty plainly; which duty was
to inflict the ultimate anguish of separation upon the sinners concerned.
I know The Wanderer came from _la commission_ with tears of anger in his
great eyes. I know that some days later he, along with that deadly and
poisonous criminal Monsieur Auguste and that aged archtraitor Monsieur
Pet-airs, and that incomparably wicked person Surplice, and a ragged
gentle being who one day presented us with a broken spoon which he had
found somewhere--the gift being a purely spontaneous mark of approval and
affection--who for this reason was known as The Spoonman and the vast and
immeasurable honour of departing for Précigne _pour la durée de la
guerre_. If ever I can create by some occult process of imagining a deed
so perfectly cruel as the deed perpetrated in the case of Joseph
Demestre, I shall consider myself a genius. Then let us admit that the
Three Wise Men were geniuses. And let us, also and softly, admit that it
takes a good and great government perfectly to negate mercy. And let us,
bowing our minds smoothly and darkly, repeat with Monsieur le
Curée--"_toujours l'enfer...._"

The Wanderer was almost insane when he heard the judgment of _la
commission_. And hereupon I must pay my respects to Monsieur Pet-airs;
whom I had ever liked, but whose spirit I had not, up to the night
preceding The Wanderer's departure, fully appreciated. Monsieur Pet-airs
sat for hours at the card-table, his glasses continually fogging,
censuring The Wanderer in tones of apparent annoyance for his frightful
weeping (and now and then himself sniffing faintly with his big red
nose); sat for hours pretending to take dictation from Joseph Demestre,
in reality composing a great letter or series of great letters to the
civil and I guess military authorities of Orne on the subject of the
injustice done to the father of four children, one a baby at the breast,
now about to be separated from all he held dear and good in this world.
"I appeal" (Monsieur Pet-airs wrote in his boisterously careful, not to
say elegant, script) "to your sense of mercy and of fair play and of
honour. It is not merely an unjust thing which is being done, not merely
an unreasonable thing, it is an unnatural thing...." As he wrote I found
it hard to believe that this was the aged and decrepit and fussing biped
whom I had known, whom I had caricatured, with whom I had talked upon
ponderous subjects (a comparison between the Belgian and French cities
with respect to their location as favouring progress and prosperity, for
example); who had with a certain comic shyness revealed to me a secret
scheme for reclaiming inundated territories by means of an extraordinary
pump "of my invention." Yet this was he, this was Monsieur Pet-airs
Lui-Même; and I enjoyed peculiarly making his complete acquaintance for
the first and only time.

May the Heavens prosper him!

The next day The Wanderer appeared in the _cour_ walking proudly in a
shirt of solid vermilion.

He kissed his wife--excuse me, Monsieur Malvy, I should say the mother of
his children--crying very bitterly and suddenly.

The _plantons_ yelled for him to line up with the rest, who were waiting
outside the gate, bag and baggage. He covered his great king's eyes with
his long golden hands and went.

With him disappeared unspeakable sunlight, and the dark keen bright
strength of the earth.



IX

ZOO-LOO

This is the name of the second Delectable Mountain.

Zulu is he called, partly because he looks like what I have never seen,
partly because the sounds somehow relate to his personality and partly
because they seemed to please him.

He is, of all the indescribables I have known, definitely the most
completely or entirely indescribable. Then (quoth my reader) you will not
attempt to describe him, I trust.--Alas, in the medium which I am now
using a certain amount or at least quality of description is disgustingly
necessary. Were I free with a canvas and some colours ... but I am not
free. And so I will buck the impossible to the best of my ability. Which,
after all, is one way of wasting your time.

He did not come and he did not go. He drifted.

His angular anatomy expended and collected itself with an effortless
spontaneity which is the prerogative of fairies perhaps, or at any rate
of those things in which we no longer believe. But he was more. There are
certain things in which one is unable to believe for the simple reason
that he never ceases to feel them. Things of this sort--things which are
always inside of us and, in fact, are us and which consequently will not
be pushed off or away where we can begin thinking about them--are no
longer things; they, and the us which they are, equals A Verb; an IS. The
Zulu, then, I must perforce call an IS.

In this chapter I shall pretend briefly to describe certain aspects and
attributes of an IS. Which IS we have called The Zulu, who Himself
intrinsically and indubitably escapes analysis. _Allons!_

Let me first describe a Sunday morning when we lifted our heads to the
fight of the stove-pipes.

I was awakened by a roar, a human roar, a roar such as only a Hollander
can make when a Hollander is honestly angry. As I rose from the domain of
the subconscious, the idea that the roar belonged to Bill The Hollander
became conviction. Bill The Hollander, alias America Lakes, slept next to
The Young Pole (by whom I refer to that young stupid-looking farmer with
that peaches-and-cream complexion and those black puttees who had formed
the rear rank, with the aid of The Zulu Himself, upon the arrival of
Babysnatcher, Bill, Box, Zulu, and Young Pole aforesaid). Now this same
Young Pole was a case. Insufferably vain and self-confident was he.
Monsieur Auguste palliated most of his conceited offensiveness on the
ground that he was _un garçon_; we on the ground that he was obviously
and unmistakably The Zulu's friend. This Young Pole, I remember, had me
design upon the wall over his _paillasse_ (shortly after his arrival) a
virile _soldat_ clutching a somewhat dubious flag--I made the latter from
descriptions furnished by Monsieur Auguste and The Young Pole
himself--intended, I may add, to be the flag of Poland. Underneath which
beautiful picture I was instructed to perpetrate the flourishing
inscription

"_Vive la Pologne_"

which I did to the best of my limited ability and for Monsieur Auguste's
sake. No sooner was the _photographie_ complete than The Young Pole,
patriotically elated, set out to demonstrate the superiority of his race
and nation by making himself obnoxious. I will give him this credit: he
was _pas méchant_, he was, in fact, a stupid boy. The Fighting Sheeney
temporarily took him down a peg by flooring him in the nightly "_Boxe_"
which The Fighting Sheeney instituted immediately upon the arrival of The
Trick Raincoat--a previous acquaintance of The Sheeney's at La Santé; the
similarity of occupations (or non-occupation; I refer to the profession
of pimp) having cemented a friendship between these two. But, for all
that The Young Pole's Sunday-best clothes were covered with filth, and
for all that his polished puttees were soiled and scratched by the
splintery floor of The Enormous Room (he having rolled well off the
blanket upon which the wrestling was supposed to occur), his spirit was
dashed but for the moment. He set about cleaning and polishing himself,
combing his hair, smoothing his cap--and was as cocky as ever next
morning. In fact I think he was cockier; for he took to guying Bill The
Hollander in French, with which tongue Bill was only faintly familiar and
of which, consequently, he was doubly suspicious. As The Young Pole lay
in bed of an evening after _lumières éteintes_, he would guy his somewhat
massive neighbour in a childish almost girlish voice, shouting with
laughter when The Triangle rose on one arm and volleyed Dutch at him,
pausing whenever The Triangle's good-nature threatened to approach the
breaking point, resuming after a minute or two when The Triangle appeared
to be on the point of falling into the arms of Morpheus. This sort of
_blague_ had gone on for several nights without dangerous results. It
was, however, inevitable that sooner or later something would happen--and
as we lifted our heads on this particular Sunday morn we were not
surprised to see The Hollander himself standing over The Young Pole, with
clenched paws, wringing shoulders, and an apocalyptic face whiter than
Death's horse.

The Young Pole seemed incapable of realising that the climax had come. He
lay on his back, cringing a little and laughing foolishly. The Zulu (who
slept next to him on our side) had, apparently, just lighted a cigarette
which projected upward from a slender holder. The Zulu's face was as
always absolutely expressionless. His chin, with a goodly growth of
beard, protruded tranquilly from the blanket which concealed the rest of
him with the exception of his feet--feet which were ensconced in large,
somewhat clumsy, leather boots. As The Zulu wore no socks, the Xs of the
rawhide lacings on his bare flesh (blue, of course, with cold) presented
a rather fascinating design. The Zulu was, to all intents and purposes,
gazing at the ceiling....

Bill The Hollander, clad only in his shirt, his long lean muscled legs
planted far apart, shook one fist after another at the recumbent Young
Pole, thundering (curiously enough in English):

"Come on you _Gottverdummer_ son-of-a-bitch of a Polak bastard and fight!
Get up out o' there you Polak hoor and I'll kill you, you _Gottverdummer_
bastard you! I stood enough o' your _Gottverdummer_ nonsense you
_Gottverdummer_" etc.

As Bill The Hollander's thunder crescendoed steadily, cramming the utmost
corners of The Enormous Room with _Gottverdummers_ which echoingly
telescoped one another, producing a dim huge shaggy mass of vocal anger,
The Young Pole began to laugh less and less; began to plead and excuse
and palliate and demonstrate--and all the while the triangular tower in
its naked legs and its palpitating chemise brandished its vast fists
nearer and nearer, its ghastly yellow lips hurling cumulative volumes of
rhythmic profanity, its blue eyes snapping like fire-crackers, its
enormous hairy chest heaving and tumbling like a monstrous hunk of
sea-weed, its flat soiled feet curling and uncurling their ten sour
mutilated toes.

The Zulu puffed gently as he lay.

Bill The Hollander's jaw, sticking into the direction of The Young Pole's
helpless gestures, looked (with the pitiless scorching face behind it)
like some square house carried in the fore of a white cyclone. The Zulu
depressed his chin; his eyes (poking slowly from beneath the visor of the
cap which he always wore, in bed or out of it) regarded the vomiting
tower with an abstracted interest. He allowed one hand delicately to
escape from the blanket and quietly to remove from his lips the gently
burning cigarette.

"You won't eh? You bloody Polak coward!"

and with a speed in comparison to which lightning is snail-like the tower
reached twice for the peaches-and-cream cheeks of the prone victim; who
set up a tragic bellowing of his own, writhed upon his somewhat
dislocated _paillasse_, raised his elbows shieldingly, and started to get
to his feet by way of his trembling knees--to be promptly knocked flat.
Such a howling as The Young Pole set up I have rarely heard: he crawled
sideways; he got on one knee; he made a dart forward--and was caught
cleanly by an uppercut, lifted through the air a yard, and spread-eagled
against the stove which collapsed with an unearthly crash yielding an
inky shower of soot upon the combatants and almost crowning The Hollander
simultaneously with three four-feet sections of pipe. The Young Pole hit
the floor, shouting, on his head, at the apogee of a neatly executed
back-somersault, collapsed; rose yelling, and with flashing eyes picked
up a length of the ruined _tuyau_ which he lifted high in the air--at
which The Hollander seized in both fists a similar piece, brought it
instantly forward and sideways with incognisable velocity and delivered
such an immense wallop as smoothed The Young Pole horizontally to a
distance of six feet; where he suddenly landed, stove-pipe and all in a
crash of entire collapse, having passed clear over The Zulu's head. The
Zulu, remarking

"_Muh_"

floated hingingly to a sitting position and was saluted by

"Lie down you _Gottverdummer_ Polaker, I'll get you next."


In spite of which he gathered himself to rise upward, catching as he did
so a swish of The Hollander's pipe-length which made his cigarette leap
neatly, holder and all, upward and outward. The Young Pole had by this
time recovered sufficiently to get upon his hands and knees behind the
Zulu; who was hurriedly but calmly propelling himself in the direction of
the cherished cigarette-holder, which had rolled under the remains of the
stove. Bill The Hollander made for his enemy, raising perpendicularly ten
feet in air the unrecognisably dented summit of the pipe which his
colossal fists easily encompassed, the muscles in his treelike arms
rolling beneath the chemise like balloons. The Young Pole with a shriek
of fear climbed the Zulu--receiving just as he had compassed this human
hurdle a crack on the seat of his black pants that stood him directly
upon his head. Pivoting slightly for an instant he fell loosely at full
length on his own _paillasse_, and lay sobbing and roaring, one elbow
protectingly raised, interspersing the inarticulations of woe with a
number of sincerely uttered "_Assez!'s_". Meanwhile The Zulu had
discovered the whereabouts of his treasure, had driftingly resumed his
original position; and was quietly inserting the also-captured cigarette
which appeared somewhat confused by its violent aerial journey. Over The
Young Pole stood toweringly Bill The Hollander, his shirt almost in
ribbons about his thick bulging neck, thundering as only Hollanders
thunder

"Have you got enough you _Gottverdummer_ Polak?"

and The Young Pole, alternating nursing the mutilated pulp where his face
had been and guarding it with futile and helpless and almost infantile
gestures of his quivering hands, was sobbing

"_Oui, Oui, Oui, Assez!_"


And Bill The Hollander hugely turned to The Zulu, stepping accurately to
the _paillasse_ of that individual, and demanded

"And you, you _Gottverdummer_ Polaker, do you want t' fight?"

at which The Zulu gently waved in recognition of the compliment and
delicately and hastily replied, between slow puffs

"_Mog._"

Whereat Bill The Hollander registered a disgusted kick in The Young
Pole's direction and swearingly resumed his _paillasse_.

All this, the reader understands, having taken place in the terribly cold
darkness of the half-dawn.

That very day, after a great deal of examination (on the part of the
Surveillant) of the participants in this Homeric struggle--said
examination failing to reveal the particular guilt or the particular
innocence of either--Judas, immaculately attired in a white coat, arrived
from downstairs with a step ladder and proceeded with everyone's
assistance to reconstruct the original pipe. And a pretty picture Judas
made. And a pretty bum job he made. But anyway the stove-pipe drew; and
everyone thanked God and fought for places about _le poêle_. And Monsieur
Pet-airs hoped there would be no more fights for a while.

One might think that The Young Pole had learned a lesson. But no. He had
learned (it is true) to leave his immediate neighbour, America Lakes, to
himself; but that is all he had learned. In a few days he was up and
about, as full of _la blague_ as ever. The Zulu seemed at times almost
worried about him. They spoke together in Polish frequently and--on The
Zulu's part--earnestly. As subsequent events proved, whatever counsel The
Zulu imparted was wasted upon his youthful friend. But let us turn for a
moment to The Zulu himself.

He could not, of course, write any language whatever. Two words of French
he knew: they were _fromage_ and _chapeau_. The former he pronounced
"grumidge." In English his vocabulary was even more simple, consisting of
the single word "po-lees-man." Neither B. nor myself understood a
syllable of Polish (tho' we subsequently learned _Jin-dobri_,
_nima-Zatz_, _zampni-pisk_ and _shimay pisk_, and used to delight The
Zulu hugely by giving him

"_Jin-dobri, pan_"

every morning, also by asking him if he had a "_papierosa_");
consequently in that direction the path of communication was to all
intents shut. And withal--I say this not to astonish my reader but merely
in the interests of truth--I have never in my life so perfectly
understood (even to the most exquisite nuances) whatever idea another
human being desired at any moment to communicate to me, as I have in the
case of The Zulu. And if I had one-third the command over the written
word that he had over the unwritten and the unspoken--not merely that;
over the unspeakable and the unwritable--God knows this history would
rank with the deepest art of all time.

It may be supposed that he was master of an intricate and delicate system
whereby ideas were conveyed through signs of various sorts. On the
contrary. He employed signs more or less, but they were in every case
extraordinarily simple. The secret of his means of complete and
unutterable communication lay in that very essence which I have only
defined as an IS; ended and began with an innate and unlearnable control
over all which one can only describe as the homogeneously tactile. The
Zulu, for example communicated the following facts in a very few minutes,
with unspeakable ease, one day shortly after his arrival:

He had been formerly a Polish farmer, with a wife and four children. He
had left Poland to come to France, where one earned more money. His
friend (The Young Pole) accompanied him. They were enjoying life placidly
in, it may have been, Brest--I forget--when one night the _gendarmes_
suddenly broke into their room, raided it, turned it bottomside up,
handcuffed the two arch-criminals wrist to wrist, and said "Come with
us." Neither The Zulu nor The Young Pole had the ghost of an idea what
all this meant or where they were going. They had no choice but to obey,
and obey they did. Everyone boarded a train. Everyone got out. Bill The
Hollander and The Babysnatcher appeared under escort, handcuffed to each
other. They were immediately re-handcuffed to the Polish delegation. The
four culprits were hustled, by rapid stages, through several small
prisons to La Ferté Macé. During this journey (which consumed several
nights and days) the handcuffs were not once removed. The prisoners slept
sitting up or falling over one another. They urinated and defecated with
the handcuffs on, all of them hitched together. At various times they
complained to their captors that the agony caused by the swelling of
their wrists was unbearable--this agony, being the result of
over-tightness of the handcuffs, might easily have been relieved by one
of the _plantons_ without loss of time or prestige. Their complaints were
greeted by commands to keep their mouths shut or they'd get it worse than
they had it. Finally they hove in sight of La Ferté and the handcuffs
were removed in order to enable two of the prisoners to escort The Zulu's
box upon their shoulders, which they were only too happy to do under the
circumstances. This box, containing not only The Zulu's personal effects
but also a great array of cartridges, knives and heaven knows what
extraordinary souvenirs which he had gathered from God knows where, was a
strong point in the disfavour of The Zulu from the beginning; and was
consequently brought along as evidence. Upon arriving, all had been
searched, the box included, and sent to The Enormous Room. The Zulu (at
the conclusion of this dumb and eloquent recital) slipped his sleeve
gently above his wrist and exhibited a bluish ring, at whose persistence
upon the flesh he evinced great surprise and pleasure, winking happily to
us. Several days later I got the same story from The Young Pole in
French; but after some little difficulty due to linguistic
misunderstandings, and only after a half-hour's intensive conversation.
So far as directness, accuracy and speed are concerned, between the
method of language and the method of The Zulu, there was not the
slightest comparison.

Not long after The Zulu arrived I witnessed a mystery: it was toward the
second _soupe_, and B. and I were proceeding (our spoons in our hands) in
the direction of the door, when beside us suddenly appeared The Zulu--who
took us by the shoulders gently and (after carefully looking about him)
produced from, as nearly as one could see, his right ear a twenty franc
note; asking us in a few well-chosen silences to purchase with it
_confiture_, _fromage_, and _chocolat_ at the canteen. He silently
apologized for encumbering us with these errands, averring that he had
been found when he arrived to have no money upon him and consequently
wished to keep intact this little tradition. We were only too delighted
to assist so remarkable a prestidigitator--we scarcely knew him at that
time--and _après la soupe_ we bought as requested, conveying the
treasures to our bunks and keeping guard over them. About fifteen minutes
after the _planton_ had locked everyone in, The Zulu driftingly arrived
before us; whereupon we attempted to give him his purchases--but he
winked and told us wordlessly that we should (if we would be so kind)
keep them for him, immediately following this suggestion by a request
that we open the marmalade or jam or whatever it might be
called--preserve is perhaps the best word. We complied with alacrity. Now
(he said soundlessly), you may if you like offer me a little. We did. Now
have some yourselves, The Zulu commanded. So we attacked the _confiture_
with a will, spreading it on pieces or, rather, chunks of the brownish
bread whose faintly rotten odour is one element of the life at La Ferté
which I, for one, find it easier to remember than to forget. And next, in
similar fashion, we opened the cheese and offered some to our visitor;
and finally the chocolate. Whereupon The Zulu rose up, thanked us
tremendously for our gifts, and--winking solemnly--floated off.

Next day he told us that he wanted us to eat all of the delicacies we had
purchased, whether or not he happened to be in the vicinity. He also
informed us that when they were gone we should buy more until the twenty
francs gave out. And, so generous were our appetites, it was not more
than two or three weeks later that The Zulu having discovered that our
supplies were exhausted produced from his back hair a neatly folded
twenty franc note; wherewith we invaded the canteen with renewed
violence. About this time The Spy got busy and The Zulu, with The Young
Pole for interpreter, was summoned to Monsieur le Directeur, who stripped
The Zulu and searched every wrinkle and crevice of his tranquil anatomy
for money (so The Zulu vividly informed us)--finding not a sou. The Zulu,
who vastly enjoyed the discomfiture of Monsieur, cautiously extracted
(shortly after this) a twenty franc note from the back of his neck, and
presented it to us with extreme care. I may say that most of his money
went for cheese, of which The Zulu was almost abnormally fond. Nothing
more suddenly delightful has happened to me than happened, one day, when
I was leaning from the next to the last window--the last being the
property of users of the cabinet--of The Enormous Room, contemplating the
muddy expanse below, and wondering how the Hollanders had ever allowed
the last two windows to be opened. Margherite passed from the door of the
building proper to the little washing shed. As the sentinel's back was
turned I saluted her, and she looked up and smiled pleasantly. And
then--a hand leapt quietly forward from the wall, just to my right; the
fingers clenched gently upon one-half a newly broken cheese; the hand
moved silently in my direction, cheese and all, pausing when perhaps six
inches from my nose. I took the cheese from the hand, which departed as
if by magic; and a little later had the pleasure of being joined at my
window by The Zulu, who was brushing cheese crumbs from his long slender
Mandarin mustaches, and who expressed profound astonishment and equally
profound satisfaction upon noting that I too had been enjoying the
pleasures of cheese. Not once, but several times, this Excalibur
appearance startled B. and me: in fact the extreme modesty and
incomparable shyness of The Zulu found only in this procedure a
satisfactory method of bestowing presents upon his two friends ... I
would I could see that long hand once more, the sensitive fingers poised
upon a half-camembert; the bodiless arm swinging gently and surely with a
derrick-like grace and certainty in my direction....

Not very long after The Zulu's arrival occurred an incident which I give
with pleasure because it shows the dauntless and indomitable, not to say
intrepid, stuff of which _plantons_ are made. The single _sceau_ which
supplied the (at this time) sixty-odd inhabitants of The Enormous Room
with drinking water had done its duty, shortly after our arrival from the
first _soupe_ with such thoroughness as to leave a number of unfortunate
(among whom I was one) waterless. The interval between _soupe_ and
promenade loomed darkly and thirstily before us unfortunates. As the
minutes passed, it loomed with greater and greater distinctness. At the
end of twenty minutes our thirst--stimulated by an especially salty dose
of lukewarm water for lunch--attained truly desperate proportions.
Several of the bolder thirsters leaned from the various windows of the
room and cried

"_De l'eau, planton; de l'eau, s'il vous plaît_"

upon which the guardian of the law looked up suspiciously; pausing a
moment as if to identify the scoundrels whose temerity had so far got the
better of their understanding as to lead them to address him, a
_planton_, in familiar terms--and then grimly resumed his walk, gun on
shoulder, revolver on hip, the picture of simple and unaffected majesty.
Whereat, seeing that entreaties were of no avail, we put our seditious
and dangerous heads together and formulated a very great scheme; to wit,
the lowering of an empty tin-pail about eight inches high, which tin-pail
had formerly contained confiture, which confiture had long since passed
into the guts of Monsieur Auguste, The Zulu, B., myself, and--as The
Zulu's friend--The Young Pole. Now this fiendish imitation of The Old
Oaken Bucket That Hung In The Well was to be lowered to the good-natured
Marguerite (who went to and fro from the door of the building to the
washing shed); who was to fill it for us at the pump situated directly
under us in a cavernous chilly cave on the ground-floor, then rehitch it
to the rope, and guide its upward beginning. The rest was in the hands of
Fate.

Bold might the _planton_ be; we were no _fainéants_. We made a little
speech to everyone in general desiring them to lend us their belts. The
Zulu, the immensity of whose pleasure in this venture cannot be even
indicated, stripped off his belt with unearthly agility--Monsieur Auguste
gave his, which we tongue-holed to The Zulu's--somebody else contributed
a necktie--another a shoe-string--The Young Pole his scarf, of which he
was impossibly proud--etc. The extraordinary rope so constructed was now
tried out in The Enormous Room, and found to be about thirty-eight feet
long; or in other words of ample length, considering that the window
itself was only three stories above terra firma. Margherite was put on
her guard by signs, executed when the _planton's_ back was turned (which
it was exactly half the time, as his patrol stretched at right angles to
the wing of the building whose third story we occupied). Having attached
the minute bucket to one end (the stronger looking end, the end which had
more belts and less neckties and handkerchiefs) of our improvised rope,
B., Harree, myself and The Zulu bided our time at the window--then
seizing a favourable opportunity, in enormous haste began paying out the
infernal contrivance. Down went the sinful tin-pail, safely past the
window-ledge just below us, straight and true to the waiting hands of the
faithful Margherite--who had just received it and was on the point of
undoing the bucket from the first belt when, lo! who should come in sight
around the corner but the pimply-faced brilliantly-uniformed
glitteringly-putteed _sergeant de plantons lui-même_. Such amazement as
dominated his puny features I have rarely seen equalled. He stopped dead
in his tracks; for one second stupidly contemplated the window,
ourselves, the wall, seven neckties, five belts, three handkerchiefs, a
scarf, two shoe-strings, the jam pail, and Margherite--then, wheeling,
noticed the _planton_ (who peacefully and with dignity was pursuing a
course which carried him further and further from the zone of operations)
and finally, spinning around again, cried shrilly

"_Qu'est-ce que vous avez foutu avec cette machine-là?_"

At which cry the _planton_ staggered, rotated, brought his gun clumsily
off his shoulder, and stared, trembling all over with emotion, at his
superior.

"_Là-bas!_" screamed the pimply _sergeant de plantons_, pointing fiercely
in our direction.

Margherite, at his first command, had let go the jam-pail and sought
shelter in the building. Simultaneously with her flight we all began
pulling on the rope for dear life, making the bucket bound against the
wall.

Upon hearing the dreadful exclamation "_Là-bas!_" the _planton_ almost
fell down. The sight which greeted his eyes caused him to excrete a
single mouthful of vivid profanity, made him grip his gun like a hero,
set every nerve in his noble and faithful body tingling. Apparently
however he had forgotten completely his gun, which lay faithfully and
expectingly in his two noble hands.

"Attention!" screamed the sergeant.

The _planton_ did something to his gun very aimlessly and rapidly.

"FIRE!" shrieked the sergeant, scarlet with rage and mortification.

The _planton_, cool as steel, raised his gun.

"_NOM DE DIEU TIREZ!_"

The bucket, in big merry sounding jumps, was approaching the window below
us.

The _planton_ took aim, falling fearlessly on one knee, and closing both
eyes. I confess that my blood stood on tip-toe; but what was death to the
loss of that jam-bucket, let alone everyone's apparel which everyone had
so generously loaned? We kept on hauling silently. Out of the corner of
my eye I beheld the _planton_--now on both knees, musket held to his
shoulder by his left arm and pointing unflinchingly at us one and
all--hunting with his right arm and hand in his belt for cartridges! A
few seconds after this fleeting glimpse of heroic devotion had penetrated
my considerably heightened sensitivity--UP suddenly came the bucket and
over backwards we all went together on the floor of The Enormous Room.
And as we fell I heard a cry like the cry of a boiler announcing noon--

"Too late!"

I recollect that I lay on the floor for some minutes, half on top of The
Zulu and three-quarters smothered by Monsieur Auguste, shaking with
laughter....

Then we all took to our hands and knees, and made for our bunks.

I believe no one (curiously enough) got punished for this atrocious
misdemeanour--except the _planton_; who was punished for not shooting us,
although God knows he had done his very best.

And now I must chronicle the famous duel which took place between The
Zulu's compatriot, The Young Pole, and that herebefore introduced pimp,
The Fighting Sheeney; a duel which came as a climax to a vast deal of
teasing on the part of The Young Pole--who, as previously remarked, had
not learned his lesson from Bill The Hollander with the thoroughness
which one might have expected of him.

In addition to a bit of French and considerable Spanish, Rockyfeller's
valet spoke Russian very (I did not have to be told) badly. The Young
Pole, perhaps sore at being rolled on the floor of The Enormous Room by
the worthy Sheeney, set about nagging him just as he had done in the case
of neighbour Bill. His favourite epithet for the conqueror was "_moshki_"
or "_moski_" I never was sure which. Whatever it meant (The Young Pole
and Monsieur Auguste informed me that it meant "Jew" in a highly
derogatory sense) its effect upon the noble Sheeney was definitely
unpleasant. But when coupled with the word "_moskosi_," accent on the
second syllable or long o, its effect was more than unpleasant--it was
really disagreeable. At intervals throughout the day, on promenade, of an
evening, the ugly phrase

"_MOS-ki mosKOsi_"

resounded through The Enormous Room. The Fighting Sheeney, then rapidly
convalescing from syphilis, bided his time. The Young Pole moreover had a
way of jesting upon the subject of The Sheeney's infirmity. He would,
particularly during the afternoon promenade, shout various none too
subtle allusions to Moshki's physical condition for the benefit of _les
femmes_. And in response would come peals of laughter from the girls'
windows, shrill peals and deep guttural peals intersecting and breaking
joints like overlapping shingles on the roof of Craziness. So hearty did
these responses become one afternoon that, in answer to loud pleas from
the injured Moshki, the pimply _sergeant de plantons_ himself came to the
gate in the barbed wire fence and delivered a lecture upon the
seriousness of venereal ailments (heart-felt, I should judge by the looks
of him), as follows:

"_Il ne faut pas rigoler de ça. Savez-vous? C'est une maladie, ça,_"

which little sermon contrasted agreeably with his usual remarks
concerning, and in the presence of, _les femmes_, whereof the essence lay
in a single phrase of prepositional significance--

"_bon pour coucher avec_"

he would say shrilly, his puny eyes assuming an expression of amorous
wisdom which was most becoming....

One day we were all upon afternoon promenade, (it being _beau temps_ for
that part of the world), under the auspices of by all odds one of the
littlest and mildest and most delicate specimens of mankind that ever
donned the high and dangerous duties of a _planton_. As B. says: "He
always looked like a June bride." This mannikin could not have been five
feet high, was perfectly proportioned (unless we except the musket upon
his shoulder and the bayonet at his belt), and minced to and fro with a
feminine grace which suggested--at least to _les deux citoyens_ of These
United States--the extremely authentic epithet "fairy." He had such a
pretty face! and so cute a moustache! and such darling legs! and such a
wonderful smile! For plantonic purposes the smile--which brought two
little dimples into his pink cheeks--was for the most part suppressed.
However it was impossible for this little thing to look stern: the best
he could do was to look poignantly sad. Which he did with great success,
standing like a tragic last piece of uneaten candy in his big box at the
end of the _cour_, and eyeing the sinful _hommes_ with sad pretty eyes.
Won't anyone eat me?--he seemed to ask.--I'm really delicious, you know,
perfectly delicious, really I am.

To resume: everyone being in the _cour_, it was well filled, not only
from the point of view of space but of sound. A barnyard crammed with
pigs, cows, horses, ducks, geese, hens, cats and dogs could not possibly
have produced one-fifth of the racket that emanated, spontaneously and
inevitably, from the _cour_. Above which racket I heard _tout à coup_ a
roar of pain and surprise; and looking up with some interest and also in
some alarm, beheld The Young Pole backing and filling and slipping in the
deep ooze under the strenuous jolts, jabs and even haymakers of The
Fighting Sheeney, who, with his coat off and his cap off and his shirt
open at the neck, was swatting luxuriously and for all he was worth that
round helpless face and that peaches-and-cream complexion. From where I
stood, at a distance of six or eight yards, the impact of the Sheeney's
fist on The Young Pole's jaw and cheeks was disconcertingly audible. The
latter made not the slightest attempt to defend himself, let alone
retaliate; he merely skidded about, roaring and clutching desperately out
of harm's way his long white scarf, of which (as I have mentioned) he was
extremely proud. But for the sheer brutality of the scene it would have
been highly ludicrous. The Sheeney was swinging like a windmill and
hammering like a blacksmith. His ugly head lowered, the chin protruding,
lips drawn back in a snarl, teeth sticking forth like a gorilla's, he
banged and smote that moon-shaped physiognomy as if his life depended
upon utterly annihilating it. And annihilate it he doubtless would have,
but for the prompt (not to say punctual) heroism of The June Bride--who,
lowering his huge gun, made a rush for the fight; stopped at a safe
distance; and began squeaking at the very top and even summit of his
faint girlish voice:

"_Aux armes! Aux armes!_"

which plaintive and intrepid utterance by virtue of its very fragility
penetrated the building and released The Black Holster, who bounded
through the gate, roaring a salutation as he bounded, and in a jiffy had
cuffed the participants apart. "All right, whose fault is this?" he
roared. And a number of highly reputable spectators, such as Judas and
The Fighting Sheeney himself, said it was The Young Pole's fault.
"_Allez! Au cabinot! De suits!_" And off trickled the sobbing Young Pole,
winding his great scarf comfortingly about him, to the dungeon.

Some few minutes later we encountered The Zulu speaking with Monsieur
Auguste. Monsieur Auguste was very sorry. He admitted that The Young Pole
had brought his punishment upon himself. But he was only a boy. The
Zulu's reaction to the affair was absolutely profound: he indicated _les
femmes_ with one eye, his trousers with another, and converted his
utterly plastic personality into an amorous machine for several seconds,
thereby vividly indicating the root of the difficulty. That the stupidity
of his friend, The Young Pole, hurt The Zulu deeply I discovered by
looking at him as he lay in bed the next morning, limply and sorrowfully
prone; beside him the empty _paillasse_, which meant _cabinot_ ... his
perfectly extraordinary face (a face perfectly at once fluent and
angular, expressionless and sensitive) told me many things whereof even
The Zulu might not speak, things which in order entirely to suffer he
kept carefully and thoroughly ensconced behind his rigid and mobile eyes.

From the day that The Young Pole emerged from _cabinot_ he was our
friend. The _blague_ had been at last knocked out of him, thanks to Un
Mangeur de Blanc, as the little Machine-Fixer expressively called The
Fighting Sheeney. Which _mangeur_, by the way (having been exonerated
from all blame by the more enlightened spectators of the unequal battle)
strode immediately and ferociously over to B. and me, a hideous grin
crackling upon the coarse surface of his mug, and demanded--hiking at the
front of his trousers--

"_Bon, eh? Bien fait, eh?_"

and a few days later asked us for money, even hinting that he would be
pleased to become our special protector. I think, as a matter of fact, we
"lent" him one-eighth of what he wanted (perhaps we lent him five cents)
in order to avoid trouble and get rid of him. At any rate, he didn't
bother us particularly afterwards; and if a nickel could accomplish that
a nickel should be proud of itself.

And always, through the falling greyness of the desolate Autumn, The Zulu
was beside us, or wrapped around a tree in the _cour_, or melting in a
post after tapping Mexique in a game of hide-and-seek, or suffering from
toothache--God, I wish I could see him expressing for us the wickedness
of toothache--or losing his shoes and finding them under Garibaldi's bed
(with a huge perpendicular wink which told tomes about Garibaldi's fatal
propensities for ownership), or marvelling silently at the power of _les
femmes à propos_ his young friend--who, occasionally resuming his former
bravado, would stand in the black evil rain with his white farm scarf
twined about him, singing as of old:

  "_Je suis content
  pour mettre dedans
  suis pas pressé
  pour tirer
  ah-la-la-la ..._"

... And the Zulu came out of _la commission_ with identically the
expressionless expression which he had carried into it; and God knows
what The Three Wise Men found out about him, but (whatever it was) they
never found and never will find that Something whose discovery was worth
to me more than all the round and powerless money of the world--limbs'
tin grace, wooden wink, shoulderless, unhurried body, velocity of a
grasshopper, soul up under his arm-pits, mysteriously falling over the
ownness of two feet, floating fish of his slimness half a bird....

Gentlemen, I am inexorably grateful for the gift of these ignorant and
indivisible things.



X

SURPLICE

Let us ascend the third Delectable Mountain, which is called Surplice.

I will admit, in the beginning, that I never knew Surplice. This for the
simple reason that I am unwilling to know except as a last resource. And
it is by contrast with Harree The Hollander, whom I knew, and Judas, whom
I knew, that I shall be able to give you (perhaps) a little of Surplice,
whom I did not know. For that matter, I think Monsieur Auguste was the
only person who might possibly have known him; and I doubt whether
Monsieur Auguste was capable of descending to such depths in the case of
so fine a person as Surplice.

Take a sheer animal of a man. Take the incredible Hollander with
cobalt-blue breeches, shock of orange hair pasted over forehead, pink
long face, twenty-six years old, had been in all the countries of all the
world: "Australia girl fine girl--Japanese girl cleanest girl of the
world--Spanish girl all right--English girl no good, no face--everywhere
these things: Norway sailors German girls Sweedisher matches Holland
candles" ... had been to Philadelphia; worked on a yacht for a
millionaire; knew and had worked in the Krupp factories; was on two boats
torpedoed and one which struck a mine when in sight of shore through the
"looking-glass": "Holland almost no soldier--India" (the Dutch Indies)
"nice place, always warm there, I was in cavalry; if you kill a man or
steal one hundred franc or anything, in prison twenty-four hours; every
week black girl sleep with you because government want white children,
black girl fine girl, always doing something, your fingernails or clean
your ears or make wind because it's hot.... No one can beat German
people; if Kaiser tell man to kill his father and mother he do it
quick!"--the tall, strong, coarse, vital youth who remarked:

"I sleep with black girl who smoke a pipe in the night."

Take this animal. You hear him, you are afraid of him, you smell and you
see him and you know him--but you do not touch him.

Or a man who makes us thank God for animals, Judas, as we called him: who
keeps his moustaches in press during the night (by means of a kind of
transparent frame which is held in place by a band over his head); who
grows the nails of his two little fingers with infinite care; has two
girls with both of whom he flirts carefully and wisely, without ever once
getting into trouble; talks in French; converses in Belgian; can speak
eight languages and is therefore always useful to Monsieur le
Surveillant--Judas with his shining horrible forehead, pecked with little
indentures; with his Reynard full-face--Judas with his pale almost
putrescent fatty body in the _douche_--Judas with whom I talked one night
about Russia, he wearing my _pélisse_--the frightful and impeccable
Judas: take this man. You see him, you smell the hot stale odour of
Judas' body; you are not afraid of him, in fact, you hate him; you hear
him and you know him. But you do not touch him.

And now take Surplice, whom I see and hear and smell and touch and even
taste, and whom I do not know.

Take him in dawn's soft squareness, gently stooping to pick chewed
cigarette ends from the spitty floor ... hear him, all night: retchings
which light into the dark ... see him all day and all days, collecting
his soaked ends and stuffing them gently into his round pipe (when he can
find none he smokes tranquilly little splinters of wood) ... watch him
scratching his back (exactly like a bear) on the wall ... or in the
_cour_, speaking to no one, sunning his soul....

He is, we think, Polish. Monsieur Auguste is very kind to him, Monsieur
Auguste can understand a few words of his language and thinks they mean
to be Polish. That they are trying hard to be and never can be Polish.

Everyone else roars at him, Judas refers to him before his face as a
dirty pig, Monsieur Peters cries angrily: "_Il ne faut pas cracher par
terre_" eliciting a humble not to stay abject apology; the Belgians spit
on him; the Hollanders chaff him and bulldoze him now and then, crying
"Syph'lis"--at which he corrects them with offended majesty

"_pas syph'lis, Surplice_"

causing shouts of laughter from everyone--of nobody can he say My Friend,
of no one has he ever or will he ever say My Enemy.

When there is labour to do he works like a dog ... the day we had
_nettoyage de chambre_, for instance, and Surplice and The Hat did most
of the work; and B. and I were caught by the _planton_ trying to stroll
out into the _cour_ ... every morning he takes the pail of solid
excrement down, without anyone's suggesting that he take it; takes it as
if it were his, empties it in the sewer just beyond the _cour des femmes_
or pours a little (just a little) very delicately on the garden where
Monsieur le Directeur is growing a flower for his daughter--he has, in
fact, an unobstreperous affinity for excrement; he lives in it; he is
shaggy and spotted and blotched with it; he sleeps in it; he puts it in
his pipe and says it is delicious....

And he is intensely religious, religious with a terrible and exceedingly
beautiful and absurd intensity ... every Friday he will be found sitting
on a little kind of stool by his _paillasse_ reading his prayer-book
upside down; turning with enormous delicacy the thin difficult leaves,
smiling to himself as he sees and does not read. Surplice is actually
religious, and so are Garibaldi and I think The Woodchuck (a little dark
sad man who spits blood with regularity); by which I mean they go to _la
messe_ for _la messe_, whereas everyone else goes _pour voir les femmes_.
And I don't know for certain why The Woodchuck goes, but I think it's
because he feels entirely sure he will die. And Garibaldi is afraid,
immensely afraid. And Surplice goes in order to be surprised, surprised
by the amazing gentleness and delicacy of God--Who put him, Surplice,
upon his knees in La Ferté Macé, knowing that Surplice would appreciate
His so doing.

He is utterly ignorant. He thinks America is out a particular window on
your left as you enter The Enormous Room. He cannot understand the
submarine. He does now know that there is a war. On being informed upon
these subjects he is unutterably surprised, he is inexpressibly
astonished. He derives huge pleasure from this astonishment. His filthy
rather proudly noble face radiates the pleasure he receives upon being
informed that people are killing people for nobody knows what reason,
that boats go under water and fire six-foot long bullets at ships, that
America is not really outside this window close to which we are talking,
that America is, in fact, over the sea. The sea: is that water?--"_c'est
de l'eau, monsieur?_" Ah: a great quantity of water; enormous amounts of
water, water and then water; water and water and water and water and
water. "Ah! You cannot see the other side of this water, monsieur?
Wonderful, monsieur!"--He meditates it, smiling quietly; its wonder, how
wonderful it is, no other side, and yet--the sea. In which fish swim.
Wonderful.

He is utterly curious. He is utterly hungry. We have bought cheese with
The Zulu's money. Surplice comes up, bows timidly and ingratiatingly with
the demeanour of a million-times whipped but somewhat proud dog. He
smiles. He says nothing, being terribly embarrassed. To help his
embarrassment, we pretend we do not see him. That makes things better:

"_Fromage, monsieur?_"

"_Oui, c'est du frommage._"

"_Ah-h-h-h-h-h-h...._"

his astonishment is supreme. _C'est du frommage._ He ponders this. After
a little

"_Monsieur, c'est bon, monsieur?_"

asking the question as if his very life depended on the answer: "Yes, it
is good," we tell him reassuringly.

"_Ah-h-h. Ah-h._"

He is once more superlatively happy. It is good, _le fromage_. Could
anything be more superbly amazing? After perhaps a minute

"_monsieur--monsieur--c'est chère le fromage?_"


"Very," we tell him truthfully. He smiles, blissfully astonished. Then,
with extreme delicacy and the utmost timidity conceivable

"_monsieur, combien ça coute, monsieur?_"


We tell him. He totters with astonishment and happiness. Only now, as if
we had just conceived the idea, we say carelessly

"_en voulez-vous?_"

He straightens, thrilled from the top of his rather beautiful filthy head
to the soleless slippers with which he promenades in rain and frost:

"_Merci, Monsieur!_"

We cut him a piece. He takes it quiveringly, holds it a second as a king
might hold and contemplate the best and biggest jewel of his realm, turns
with profuse thanks to us--and disappears....

He is perhaps most curious of this pleasantly sounding thing which
everyone around him, everyone who curses and spits upon and bullies him,
desires with a terrible desire--_Liberté_. Whenever anyone departs
Surplice is in an ecstasy of quiet excitement. The lucky man may be
Fritz; for whom Bathhouse John is taking up a collection as if he, Fritz,
were a Hollander and not a Dane--for whom Bathhouse John is striding
hither and thither, shaking a hat into which we drop coins for Fritz;
Bathhouse John, chipmunk-cheeked, who talks Belgian, French, English and
Dutch in his dreams, who has been two years in La Ferté (and they say he
declined to leave, once, when given the chance), who cries "_baigneur de
femmes moi_" and every night hoists himself into his wooden bunk crying
"goo-d ni-te"; whose favourite joke is "_une section pour les femmes_,"
which he shouts occasionally in the _cour_ as he lifts his paper-soled
slippers and stamps in the freezing mud, chuckling and blowing his nose
on the Union Jack ... and now Fritz, beaming with joy, shakes hands and
thanks us all and says to me "Good-bye, Johnny," and waves and is gone
forever--and behind me I hear a timid voice

"_monsieur, Liberté?_"

and I say Yes, feeling that Yes in my belly and in my head at the same
instant; and Surplice stands beside me, quietly marvelling, extremely
happy, uncaring that _le parti_ did not think to say good-bye to him. Or
it may be Harree and Pompom who are running to and fro shaking hands with
everybody in the wildest state of excitement, and I hear a voice behind
me:

"_Liberté, monsieur? Liberté?_"

and I say, No. Précigne, feeling weirdly depressed, and Surplice is
standing to my left, contemplating the departure of the incorrigibles
with interested disappointment--Surplice of whom no man takes any notice
when that man leaves, be it for Hell or Paradise....

And once a week the _maître de chambre_ throws soap on the mattresses,
and I hear a voice

"_monsieur, voulez pas?_"

and Surplice is asking that we give him our soap to wash with.

Sometimes, when he has made _quelques sous_ by washing for others, he
stalks quietly to the Butcher's chair (everyone else who wants a shave
having been served) and receives with shut eyes and a patient expression
the blade of The Butcher's dullest razor--for The Butcher is not a man to
waste a good razor on Surplice; he, The Butcher, as we call him, the
successor of The Frog (who one day somehow managed to disappear like his
predecessor The Barber), being a thug and a burglar fond of telling us
pleasantly about German towns and prisons, prisons where men are not
allowed to smoke, clean prisons where there is a daily medical
inspection, where anyone who thinks he has a grievance of any sort has
the right of immediate and direct appeal; he, The Butcher, being perhaps
happiest when he can spend an evening showing us little parlour tricks
fit for children of four and three years old; quite at his best when he
remarks:

"Sickness doesn't exist in France,"

meaning that one is either well or dead; or

"If they (the French) get an inventor they put him in prison."

--So The Butcher is stooping heavily upon Surplice and slicing and
gashing busily and carelessly, his thick lips stuck a little pursewise,
his buried pig's eyes glistening--and in a moment he cries "_Fini!_" and
poor Surplice rises unsteadily, horribly slashed, bleeding from at least
three two-inch cuts and a dozen large scratches; totters over to his
couch holding on to his face as if he were afraid it would fall off any
moment; and lies down gently at full length, sighing with pleasurable
surprise, cogitating the inestimable delights of cleanness....

It struck me at the time as intensely interesting that, in the case of a
certain type of human being, the more cruel are the miseries inflicted
upon him the more cruel does he become toward anyone who is so
unfortunate as to be weaker or more miserable than himself. Or perhaps I
should say that nearly every human being, given sufficiently miserable
circumstances, will from time to time react to those very circumstances
(whereby his own personality is mutilated) through a deliberate
mutilation on his own part of a weaker or already more mutilated
personality. I daresay that this is perfectly obvious. I do not pretend
to have made a discovery. On the contrary, I merely state what interested
me peculiarly in the course of my sojourn at La Ferté: I mention that I
was extremely moved to find that, however busy sixty men may be kept
suffering in common, there is always one man or two or three men who can
always find time to make certain that their comrades enjoy a little extra
suffering. In the case of Surplice, to be the butt of everyone's ridicule
could not be called precisely suffering; inasmuch as Surplice, being
unspeakably lonely, enjoyed any and all insults for the simple reason
that they constituted or at least implied a recognition of his existence.
To be made a fool of was, to this otherwise completely neglected
individual, a mark of distinction; something to take pleasure in; to be
proud of. The inhabitants of The Enormous Room had given to Surplice a
small but essential part in the drama of La Misère: he would play that
part to the utmost of his ability; the cap-and-bells should not grace a
head unworthy of their high significance. He would be a great fool, since
that was his function; a supreme entertainer, since his duty was to
amuse. After all, men in La Misère as well as anywhere else rightly
demand a certain amount of amusement; amusement is, indeed, peculiarly
essential to suffering; in proportion as we are able to be amused we are
able to suffer; I, Surplice, am a very necessary creature after all.

I recall one day when Surplice beautifully demonstrated his ability to
play the fool. Someone had crept up behind him as he was stalking to and
fro, head in air proudly, hands in pockets, pipe in teeth, and had (after
several heart-breaking failures) succeeded in attaching to the back of
his jacket by means of a pin a huge placard carefully prepared
beforehand, bearing the numerical inscription

    606

in vast writing. The attacher, having accomplished his difficult feat,
crept away. So soon as he reached his _paillasse_ a volley of shouts went
up from all directions, shouts in which all nationalities joined, shouts
or rather jeers which made the pillars tremble and the windows rattle--

"_SIX CENT SIX! SYPH'LIS!_"

Surplice started from his reverie, removed his pipe from his lips, drew
himself up proudly, and--facing one after another the sides of The
Enormous Room--blustered in his bad and rapid French accent:

"_Pas syph'lis! Pas syph'lis!_"

at which, rocking with mirth, everyone responded at the top of his voice:

"_SIX CENT SIX!_"

Whereat, enraged, Surplice made a dash at Pete The Shadow and was greeted
by

"Get away, you bloody Polak, or I'll give you something you'll be sorry
for"--this from the lips of America Lakes. Cowed, but as majestic as
ever, Surplice attempted to resume his promenade and his composure
together. The din bulged:

"_Six cent six! Syph'lis! Six cent Six!_"

--increasing in volume with every instant. Surplice, beside himself with
rage, rushed another of his fellow-captives (a little old man, who fled
under the table) and elicited threats of:

"Come on now, you Polak hoor, and quit that business or I'll kill you,"
upon which he dug his hands into the pockets of his almost transparent
pantaloons and marched away in a fury, literally frothing at the mouth.--

"_Six Cent Six!_"

everyone cried. Surplice stamped with wrath and mortification. "_C'est
domage_" Monsieur Auguste said gently beside me. "_C'est un bon-homme, le
pauvre, il ne faut pas l'enmerd-er._"

"Look behind you!"

somebody yelled. Surplice wheeled, exactly like a kitten trying to catch
its own tail, and provoked thunders of laughter. Nor could anything at
once more pitiful and ridiculous, more ludicrous and horrible, be
imagined.

"On your coat! Look on your jacket!"

Surplice bent backward, staring over his left, then his right, shoulder,
pulled at his jacket first one way then the other--thereby making his
improvised tail to wag, which sent The Enormous Room into spasms of
merriment--finally caught sight of the incriminating appendage, pulled
his coat to the left, seized the paper, tore it off, threw it fiercely
down, and stamped madly on the crumpled 606; spluttering and blustering
and waving his arms; slavering like a mad dog. Then he faced the most
prominently vociferous corner and muttered thickly and crazily:

"_Wuhwuhwuhwuhwuh...._"

Then he strode rapidly to his _paillasse_ and lay down; in which position
I caught him, a few minutes later, smiling and even chuckling ... very
happy ... as only an actor is happy whose efforts have been greeted with
universal applause....

In addition to being called "Syph'lis" he was popularly known as "Chaude
Pisse, the Pole." If there is anything particularly terrifying about
prisons, or at least imitations of prisons such as La Ferté, it is
possibly the utter obviousness with which (quite unknown to themselves)
the prisoners demonstrate willy-nilly certain fundamental psychological
laws. The case of Surplice is a very exquisite example: everyone, of
course, is afraid of _les maladies venérinnes_--accordingly all pick an
individual (of whose inner life they know and desire to know nothing,
whose external appearance satisfies the requirements of the mind _à
propos_ what is foul and disgusting) and, having tacitly agreed upon this
individual as a Symbol of all that is evil, proceed to heap insults upon
him and enjoy his very natural discomfiture ... but I shall remember
Surplice on his both knees sweeping sacredly together the spilled sawdust
from a spittoon-box knocked over by the heel of the omnipotent _planton_;
and smiling as he smiled at _la messe_ when Monsieur le Curé told him
that there was always Hell....

He told us one day a great and huge story of an important incident in his
life, as follows:

"_Monsieur_, disabled me--yes, _monsieur_--disabled--I work, many people,
house, very high, third floor, everybody, planks up there--planks no
good--all shake..." (here he began to stagger and rotate before us)
"begins to fall ... falls, falls, all, all twenty-seven men--bricks--
planks--wheelbarrows--all--ten metres ... _zuhzuhzuhzuhzuhPOOM_!...
everybody hurt, everybody killed, not me, injured ... _oui
monsieur_"--and he smiled, rubbing his head foolishly. Twenty-seven men,
bricks, planks and wheelbarrows. Ten metres. Bricks and planks. Men and
wheelbarrows....

Also he told us, one night, in his gentle, crazy, shrugging voice, that
once upon a time he played the fiddle with a big woman in Alsace-Lorraine
for fifty francs a night; "_c'est la misère_"--adding quietly, "I can
play well, I can play anything, I can play _n'importe quoi_."

Which I suppose and guess I scarcely believed--until one afternoon a man
brought up a harmonica which he had purchased _en ville_; and the man
tried it; and everyone tried it; and it was perhaps the cheapest
instrument and the poorest that money can buy, even in the fair country
of France; and everyone was disgusted--but, about six o'clock in the
evening, a voice came from behind the last experimenter; a timid hasty
voice:

"_monsieur, monsieur, permettez?_"

the last experimenter turned and to his amazement saw Chaude Pisse the
Pole, whom everyone had (of course) forgotten.

The man tossed the harmonica on the table with a scornful look (a
menacingly scornful look) at the object of universal execration; and
turned his back. Surplice, trembling from the summit of his filthy and
beautiful head to the naked soles of his filthy and beautiful feet,
covered the harmonica delicately and surely with one shaking paw; seated
himself with a surprisingly deliberate and graceful gesture; closed his
eyes, upon whose lashes there were big filthy tears ... and played....

... and suddenly:

He put the harmonica softly upon the table. He rose. He went quickly to
his _paillasse_. He neither moved nor spoke nor responded to
the calls for more music, to the cries of "_Bis!_"--"_Bien
joué!_"--"_Allez!_"--"_Va-g-y!_" He was crying, quietly and carefully, to
himself ... quietly and carefully crying, not wishing to annoy anyone ...
hoping that people could not see that Their Fool had temporarily failed
in his part.

The following day he was up as usual before anyone else, hunting for
chewed cigarette ends on the spitty slippery floor of The Enormous Room;
ready for insult, ready for ridicule, for buffets, for curses.

_Alors_--

One evening, some days after everyone who was fit for _la commission_ had
enjoyed the privilege of examination by that inexorable and delightful
body--one evening very late, in fact, just before _lumières éteintes_, a
strange _planton_ arrived in The Enormous Room and hurriedly read a list
of five names, adding:

"_demain partis, à bonne heure_"

and shut the door behind him. Surplice was, as usual, very interested,
enormously interested. So were we: for the names respectively belonged to
Monsieur Auguste, Monsieur Pet-airs, The Wanderer, Surplice and The
Spoonman. These men had been judged. These men were going to Précigne.
These men would be _prisoniers pour la durée de la guerre_.

I have already told how Monsieur Pet-airs sat with the frantically
weeping Wanderer writing letters, and sniffing with his big red nose, and
saying from time to time: "Be a man, Demestre, don't cry, crying does no
good."--Monsieur Auguste was broken-hearted. We did our best to cheer
him; we gave him a sort of Last Supper at our bedside, we heated some red
wine in the tin cup and he drank with us. We presented him with certain
tokens of our love and friendship, including--I remember--a huge cheese
... and then, before us, trembling with excitement, stood Surplice--

We asked him to sit down. The onlookers (there were always onlookers at
every function, however personal, which involved Food or Drink) scowled
and laughed. _Le con, surplice, chaude pisse_--how could he sit with men
and gentlemen? Surplice sat down gracefully and lightly on one of our
beds, taking extreme care not to strain the somewhat capricious mechanism
thereof; sat very proudly; erect; modest but unfearful. We offered him a
cup of wine. A kind of huge convulsion gripped, for an instant, fiercely
his entire face: then he said in a whisper of sheer and unspeakable
wonderment, leaning a little toward us without in any way suggesting that
the question might have an affirmative answer,

"_pour moi, monsieur?_"

We smiled at him and said "_Prenez, monsieur._" His eyes opened. I have
never seen eyes since. He remarked quietly, extending one hand with
majestic delicacy:

"_Merci, monsieur._"

... Before he left, B. gave him some socks and I presented him with a
flannel shirt, which he took softly and slowly and simply and otherwise
not as an American would take a million dollars.

"I will not forget you," he said to us, as if in his own country he were
a more than very great king ... and I think I know where that country is,
I think I know this; I, who never knew Surplice, know.

       *       *       *       *       *

For he has the territory of harmonicas, the acres of flutes, the meadows
of clarinets, the domain of violins. And God says: Why did they put you
in prison? What did you do to the people? "I made them dance and they put
me in prison. The soot-people hopped; and to twinkle like sparks on a
chimney-back and I made eighty francs every _dimanche_, and beer and
wine, and to eat well. _Maintenant ... c'est fini ... Et tout suite_
(gesture of cutting himself in two) _la tête_." And He says: "O you who
put the jerk into joys, come up hither. There's a man up here called
Christ who likes the violin."



XI

JEAN LE NÈGRE

On a certain day the ringing of the bell and accompanying rush of men to
the window facing the entrance gate was supplemented by an unparalleled
volley of enthusiastic exclamations in all the languages of La Fertè
Macé--provoking in me a certainty that the queen of fair women had
arrived. This certainty thrillingly withered when I heard the cry: "_II y
a un noir!_" Fritz was at the best peep-hole, resisting successfully the
onslaught of a dozen fellow prisoners, and of him I demanded in English,
"Who's come?"--"Oh, a lot of girls," he yelled, "and there's a NIGGER
too"--hereupon writhing with laughter.

I attempted to get a look, but in vain; for by this at least two dozen
men were at the peep-hole, fighting and gesticulating and slapping each
other's back with joy. However, my curiosity was not long in being
answered. I heard on the stairs the sound of mounting feet, and knew that
a couple of _plantons_ would before many minutes arrive at the door with
their new prey. So did everyone else--and from the farthest beds uncouth
figures sprang and rushed to the door, eager for the first glimpse of the
_nouveau_; which was very significant, as the ordinary procedure on
arrival of prisoners was for everybody to rush to his own bed and stand
guard over it.

Even as the _plantons_ fumbled with the locks I heard the inimitable,
unmistakable divine laugh of a negro. The door opened at last. Entered a
beautiful pillar of black strutting muscle topped with a tremendous
display of the whitest teeth on earth. The muscle bowed politely in our
direction, the grin remarked musically: "_Bo'jour, tou'l'monde_"; then
came a cascade of laughter. Its effect on the spectators was
instantaneous: they roared and danced with joy. "_Comment vous
appelez-vous?_" was fired from the hubbub.--"_J'm'appelle Jean, moi_,"
the muscle rapidly answered with sudden solemnity, proudly gazing to left
and right as if expecting a challenge to this statement: but when none
appeared, it relapsed as suddenly into laughter--as if hugely amused at
itself and everyone else including a little and tough boy, whom I had not
previously noted, although his entrance had coincided with the muscle's.

Thus into the _misère_ of La Ferté Macé stepped lightly and proudly Jean
le Nègre.

Of all the fine people in La Ferté, Monsieur Jean ("_le noir_" as he was
entitled by his enemies) swaggers in my memory as the finest.

Jean's first act was to complete the distribution (begun, he announced,
among the _plantons_ who had escorted him upstairs) of two pockets full
of Cubebs. Right and left he gave them up to the last, remarking
carelessly, "_J'ne veux, moi._"

_Après la soupe_ (which occurred a few minutes after _le noir's_ entry)
B. and I and the greater number of prisoners descended to the _cour_ for
our afternoon promenade. The cook spotted us immediately and desired us
to "catch water"; which we did, three cartfuls of it, earning our usual
_café sucré_. On quitting the kitchen after this delicious repast (which
as usual mitigated somewhat the effects of the swill that was our
official nutriment) we entered the _cour_. And we noticed at once a
well-made figure standing conspicuously by itself, and poring with
extraordinary intentness over the pages of a London Daily Mail which it
was holding upside-down. The reader was culling choice bits of news of a
highly sensational nature, and exclaiming from time to time: "You don't
say! Look, the King of England is sick. Some news!... What? The queen
too? Good God! What's this?--My father is dead! Oh, well. The war is
over. Good."--It was Jean le Nègre, playing a little game with himself to
beguile the time.

When we had mounted _à la chambre_, two or three tried to talk with this
extraordinary personage in French; at which he became very superior and
announced: "_J'suis anglais, moi. Parlez anglais. Comprends pas français,
moi._" At this a crowd escorted him over to B. and me--anticipating great
deeds in the English language. Jean looked at us critically and said:
"_Vous parlez anglais? Moi parlez anglais._"--"We are Americans, and
speak English," I answered.--"_Moi anglais_," Jean said. "_Mon père,
capitaine de gendarmes, Londres. Comprends pas français, moi._
SPEE-Kingliss"--he laughed all over himself.

At this display of English on Jean's part the English-speaking Hollanders
began laughing. "The son of a bitch is crazy," one said.

And from that moment B. and I got on famously with Jean.

His mind was a child's. His use of language was sometimes exalted
fibbing, sometimes the purely picturesque. He courted above all the sound
of words, more or less disdaining their meaning. He told us immediately
(in pidgeon French) that he was born without a mother because his mother
died when he was born, that his father was (first) sixteen (then) sixty
years old, that his father _gagnait cinq cent franc par jour_ (later, par
_année_), that he was born in London and not in England, that he was in
the French army and had never been in any army.

He did not, however, contradict himself in one statement: "_Les français
sont des cochons_"--to which we heartily agreed, and which won him the
approvel of the Hollanders.

The next day I had my hands full acting as interpreter for "_le noir qui
comprends pas français_." I was summoned from the _cour_ to elucidate a
great grief which Jean had been unable to explain to the Gestionnaire. I
mounted with a _planton_ to find Jean in hysterics, speechless, his eyes
starting out of his head. As nearly as I could make out, Jean had had
sixty francs when he arrived, which money he had given to a _planton_
upon his arrival, the _planton_ having told Jean that he would deposit
the money with the Gestionnaire in Jean's name (Jean could not write).
The _planton_ in question who looked particularly innocent denied this
charge upon my explaining Jean's version; while the Gestionnaire puffed
and grumbled, disclaiming any connection with the alleged theft and
protesting sonorously that he was hearing about Jean's sixty francs for
the first time. The Gestionnaire shook his thick piggish finger at the
book wherein all financial transactions were to be found--from the year
one to the present year, month, day, hour and minute (or words to that
effect). "_Mais c'est pas là_" he kept repeating stupidly. The
Surveillant was uh-ahing at a great rate and attempting to pacify Jean in
French. I myself was somewhat fearful for Jean's sanity and highly
indignant at the _planton_. The matter ended with the _planton's_ being
sent about his business; simultaneously with Jean's dismissal to the
_cour_, whither I accompanied him. My best efforts to comfort Jean in
this matter were quite futile. Like a child who has been unjustly
punished he was inconsolable. Great tears welled in his eyes. He kept
repeating "_sees-tee franc--planton voleur_," and--absolutely like a
child who in anguish calls itself by the name which has been given itself
by grown-ups--"steel Jean munee." To no avail I called the _planton_ a
_menteur_, a _voleur_, a _fils d'un chien_, and various other names. Jean
felt the wrong itself too keenly to be interested in my denunciation of
the mere agent through whom injustice had (as it happened) been
consummated.

But--again like an inconsolable child who weeps his heart out when no
human comfort avails and wakes the next day without an apparent trace of
the recent grief--Jean le Nègre, in the course of the next twenty-four
hours, had completely recovered his normal buoyancy of spirit. The
_sees-tee franc_ were gone. A wrong had been done. But that was
yesterday. To-day--

    and he wandered up and down, joking, laughing, singing "_après la
    guerre finit_." ...

In the _cour_ Jean was the target of all female eyes. Handkerchiefs were
waved to him; phrases of the most amorous nature greeted his every
appearance. To all these demonstrations he by no means turned a deaf ear;
on the contrary. Jean was irrevocably vain. He boasted of having been
enormously popular with the girls wherever he went and of having never
disdained their admiration. In Paris one day--(and thus it happened that
we discovered why _le gouvernement français_ had arrested Jean)--

One afternoon, having _rien à faire_, and being flush (owing to his
success as a thief, of which vocation he made a great deal, adding as
many ciphers to the amounts as fancy dictated) Jean happened to cast his
eyes in a store window where were displayed all possible appurtenances
for the _militaire_. Vanity was rooted deeply in Jean's soul. The uniform
of an English captain met his eyes. Without a moment's hesitation he
entered the store, bought the entire uniform, including leather puttees
and belt (of the latter purchase he was especially proud), and departed.
The next store contained a display of medals of all descriptions. It
struck Jean at once that a uniform would be incomplete without medals. He
entered this store, bought one of every decoration--not forgetting the
Colonial, nor yet the Belgian Cross (which on account of its size and
colour particularly appealed to him)--and went to his room. There he
adjusted the decorations on the chest of his blouse, donned the uniform,
and sallied importantly forth to capture Paris.

Everywhere he met with success. He was frantically pursued by women of
all stations from _les putains_ to _les princesses._ The police salaamed
to him. His arm was wearied with the returning of innumerable salutes. So
far did his medals carry him that, although on one occasion a _gendarme_
dared to arrest him for beating-in the head of a fellow English officer
(who being a mere lieutenant, should not have objected to Captain Jean's
stealing the affections of his lady), the sergeant of police before whom
Jean was arraigned on a charge of attempting to kill refused to even hear
the evidence, and dismissed the case with profuse apologies to the heroic
Captain. "_'Le gouvernement français, Monsieur_, extends to you, through
me, its profound apology for the insult which your honour has received.'
_Ils sont des cochons, les français_," said Jean, and laughed throughout
his entire body.

Having had the most blue-blooded ladies of the capital cooing upon his
heroic chest, having completely beaten up, with the full support of the
law, whosoever of lesser rank attempted to cross his path or refused him
the salute--having had "great fun" saluting generals on _les grands
boulevards_ and being in turn saluted ("_tous les générals, tous_, salute
me, Jean have more medals"), and this state of affairs having lasted for
about three months--Jean began to be very bored (me _très ennuyé_). A fit
of temper ("me _très faché_") arising from this _ennui_ led to a _rixe_
with the police, in consequence of which (Jean, though outnumbered three
to one, having almost killed one of his assailants), our hero was a
second time arrested. This time the authorities went so far as to ask the
heroic captain to what branch of the English army he was at present
attached; to which Jean first replied "_parle pas français, moi_," and
immediately after announced that he was a Lord of the Admiralty, that he
had committed robberies in Paris to the tune of _sees meel-i-own franc_,
that he was a son of the Lord Mayor of London by the Queen, that he had
lost a leg in Algeria, and that the French were _cochons_. All of which
assertions being duly disproved, Jean was remanded to La Ferté for
psychopathic observation and safe keeping on the technical charge of
wearing an English officer's uniform.

Jean's particular girl at La Ferté was "LOO-Loo." With Lulu it was the
same as with _les princesses_ in Paris--"me no _travaille, jam-MAIS. Les
femmes travaillent_, geev Jean mun-ee, _sees, sees-tee, see-cent francs.
Jamais travaille, moi._" Lulu smuggled Jean money; and not for some time
did the woman who slept next Lulu miss it. Lulu also sent Jean a lace
embroidered handkerchief, which Jean would squeeze and press to his lips
with a beatific smile of perfect contentment. The affair with Lulu kept
Mexique and Pete The Hollander busy writing letters; which Jean dictated,
rolling his eyes and scratching his head for words.

At this time Jean was immensely happy. He was continually playing
practical jokes on one of the Hollanders, or Mexique, or the Wanderer,
or, in fact, anyone of whom he was particularly fond. At intervals
between these demonstrations of irrepressibility (which kept everyone in
a state of laughter) he would stride up and down the filth-sprinkled
floor with his hands in the pockets of his stylish jacket, singing at the
top of his lungs his own version of the famous song of songs:

  _après la guerre finit,
  soldat anglais parti,
  mademoiselle que je laissais en France
  avec des pickaninee._ PLENTY!

and laughing till he shook and had to lean against a wall.

B. and Mexique made some dominoes. Jean had not the least idea of how to
play, but when we three had gathered for a game he was always to be found
leaning over our shoulders, completely absorbed, once in a while offered
us sage advice, laughing utterly when someone made a _cinque_ or a
multiple thereof.

One afternoon, in the interval between _la soupe_ and _promenade_, Jean
was in especially high spirits. I was lying down on my collapsible bed
when he came up to my end of the room and began showing off exactly like
a child. This time it was the game of _l'armée française_ which Jean was
playing.--"_Jamais soldat, moi. Connais tous l'armée française._" John
The Bathman, stretched comfortably in his bunk near me, grunted.
"_Tous_," Jean repeated.--And he stood in front of us; stiff as a stick
in imitation of a French lieutenant with an imaginary company in front of
him. First he would be the lieutenant giving commands, then he would be
the Army executing them. He began with the manual of arms. "_Com-pag-nie
..._" then, as he went through the manual, holding his imaginary
gun--"_htt, htt, htt_."--Then as the officer commending his troops:
"_Bon. Très bon. Très bien fait_"--laughing with head thrown back and
teeth aglitter at his own success. John le Baigneur was so tremendously
amused that he gave up sleeping to watch. _L'armée_ drew a crowd of
admirers from every side. For at least three-quarters of an hour this
game went on....

Another day Jean, being angry at the weather and having eaten a huge
amount of _soupe_, began yelling at the top of his voice: "_MERDE à la
France_" and laughing heartily. No one paying especial attention to him,
he continued (happy in this new game with himself) for about fifteen
minutes. Then The Trick Raincoat (that undersized specimen, clad in
feminine-fitting raiment with flashy shoes, who was by trade a pimp,
being about half Jean's height and a tenth of his physique,) strolled up
to Jean--who had by this time got as far as my bed--and, sticking his
sallow face as near Jean's as the neck could reach, said in a solemn
voice: "_II ne faut pas dire ça._" Jean astounded, gazed at the intruder
for a moment; then demanded: "_Qui dit ça? Moi? Jean? Jamais, ja-MAIS.
MERDE à la France!_" nor would he yield a point, backed up as he was by
the moral support of everyone present except the Raincoat--who found
discretion the better part of valour and retired with a few dark threats;
leaving Jean master of the situation and yelling for the Raincoat's
particular delectation: "_MAY-RRR-DE à la France!_" more loudly than
ever.

A little after the epic battle with stovepipes between The Young Pole and
Bill The Hollander, the wrecked _poêle_ (which was patiently waiting to
be repaired) furnished Jean with perhaps his most brilliant inspiration.
The final section of pipe (which conducted the smoke through a hole in
the wall to the outer air) remained in place all by itself, projecting
about six feet into the room at a height of seven or eight feet from the
floor. Jean noticed this; got a chair; mounted on it, and by applying
alternately his ear and his mouth to the end of the pipe created for
himself a telephone, with the aid of which he carried on a conversation
with The Wanderer (at that moment visiting his family on the floor below)
to this effect:

--Jean, grasping the pipe and speaking angrily into it, being evidently
nettled at the poor connection--"Heh-loh, hello, hello, hello"--surveying
the pipe in consternation--"_Merde. Ça marche pas_"--trying again with a
deep frown--"heh-LOH!"--tremendously agitated--"HEHLOH!"--a beautiful
smile supplanting the frown--"hello Barbu. Are you there? _Oui?
Bon!_"--evincing tremendous pleasure at having succeeded in establishing
the connection satisfactorily--"Barbu? Are you listening to me? _Oui?_
What's the matter Barbu? _Comment? Moi? Oui, MOI? JEAN jaMAIS! jamais,
jaMAIS_, Barbu. I have never said you have fleas. _C'était pas moi, tu
sais. JaMAIS, c'était un autre. Peutêtre c'était Mexique_"--turning his
head in Mexique's direction and roaring with laughter--"Hello, HEH-LOH.
Barbu? _Tu sais_, Barbu, _j'ai jamais dit ça. Au contraire_, Barbu. _J'ai
dit que vous avez des totos_"--another roar of laughter--"What? It isn't
true? Good. Then. What have you got, Barbu? Barbu? Lice--OHHHH. I
understand. It's better"--shaking with laughter, then suddenly
tremendously serious--"hellohellohellohello HEHLOH!"--addressing the
stove-pipe--"_C'est une mauvaise machine, ça_"--speaking into it with the
greatest distinctness--"HEL-L-LOH. Barbu? _Liberté_, Barbu. _Oui.
Comment? C'est ça. Liberté pour tou'l'monde. Quand? Après la soupe. Oui.
Liberté pour tou'l'monde après la soupe!_"--to which jest astonishingly
reacted a certain old man known as the West Indian Negro (a stocky
credulous creature with whom Jean would have nothing to do, and whose
tales of Brooklyn were indeed outclassed by Jean's _histoires d'amour_)
who leaped rheumatically from his _paillasse_ at the word "_Liberté_" and
rushed limpingly hither and thither inquiring Was it true? to the
enormous and excruciating amusement of The Enormous Room in general.

After which Jean, exhausted with laughter, descended from the chair and
lay down on his bed to read a letter from Lulu (not knowing a syllable of
it). A little later he came rushing up to my bed in the most terrific
state of excitement, the whites of his eyes gleaming, his teeth bared,
his kinky hair fairly standing on end, and cried:

"You--me, me--you? _Pas bon._ You--you, me--me: _bon_. Me--me, you--you!"
and went away capering and shouting with laughter, dancing with great
grace and as great agility and with an imaginary partner the entire
length of the room.

There was another game--a pure child's game--which Jean played. It was
the name game. He amused himself for hours together by lying on his
_paillasse_ tilting his head back, rolling up his eyes, and crying in a
high quavering voice--"JAW-neeeeee." After a repetition or two of his own
name in English, he would demand sharply "Who is calling me? Mexique?
_Es-ce que tu m'appelle_, Mexique?" and if Mexique happened to be asleep,
Jean would rush over and cry in his ear, shaking him thoroughly--"_Es-ce
tu m'appelle, toi?_" Or it might be Barbu, or Pete The Hollander, or B.
or myself, of whom he sternly asked the question--which was always
followed by quantities of laughter on Jean's part. He was never perfectly
happy unless exercising his inexhaustible imagination....

Of all Jean's extraordinary selves, the moral one was at once the most
rare and most unreasonable. In the matter of _les femmes_ he could hardly
have been accused by his bitterest enemy of being a Puritan. Yet the
Puritan streak came out one day, in a discussion which lasted for several
hours. Jean as in the case of France, spoke in dogma. His contention was
very simple: "The woman who smokes is not a woman." He defended it hotly
against the attacks of all the nations represented; in vain did Belgian
and Hollander, Russian and Pole, Spaniard and Alsatian, charge and
counter-charge--Jean remained unshaken. A woman could do anything but
smoke--if she smoked she ceased automatically to be a woman and became
something unspeakable. As Jean was at this time sitting alternately on
B.'s bed and mine, and as the alternations became increasingly frequent
as the discussion waxed hotter, we were not sorry when the _planton's_
shout "_A la promenade les hommes!_" scattered the opposing warriors.
Then up leaped Jean (who had almost come to blows innumerable times) and
rushed laughing to the door, having already forgotten the whole thing.

Now we come to the story of Jean's undoing, and may the gods which made
Jean le Nègre give me grace to tell it as it was.

The trouble started with Lulu. One afternoon, shortly after the
telephoning, Jean was sick at heart and couldn't be induced either to
leave his couch or to utter a word. Everyone guessed the reason--Lulu had
left for another camp that morning. The _planton_ told Jean to come down
with the rest and get _soupe_. No answer. Was Jean sick? "_Oui_, me
seek." And steadfastly he refused to eat, till the disgusted _planton_
gave it up and locked Jean in alone. When we ascended after _la soupe_ we
found Jean as we had left him, stretched on his couch, big tears on his
cheeks. I asked him if I could do anything for him; he shook his head. We
offered him cigarettes--no, he did not wish to smoke. As B. and I went
away we heard him moaning to himself "Jawnee no see LooLoo no more." With
the exception of ourselves, the inhabitants of La Ferté Macé took Jean's
desolation as a great joke. Shouts of Lulu! rent the welkin on all sides.
Jean stood it for an hour; then he leaped up, furious; and demanded
(confronting the man from whose lips the cry had last issued)--"Feeneesh
LooLoo?" The latter coolly referred him to the man next to him; he in
turn to someone else; and round and round the room Jean stalked, seeking
the offender, followed by louder and louder shouts of Lulu! and Jawnee!
the authors of which (so soon as he challenged them) denied with innocent
faces their guilt and recommended that Jean look closer next time. At
last Jean took to his couch in utter misery and disgust. The rest of _les
hommes_ descended as usual for the promenade--not so Jean. He ate nothing
for supper. That evening not a sound issued from his bed.

Next morning he awoke with a broad grin, and to the salutations of Lulu!
replied, laughing heartily at himself "FEENEESH Loo Loo." Upon which the
tormentors (finding in him no longer a victim) desisted; and things
resumed their normal course. If an occasional Lulu! upraised itself, Jean
merely laughed, and repeated (with a wave of his arm) "FEENEESH."
Finished Lulu seemed to be.

But _un jour_ I had remained upstairs during the promenade, both because
I wanted to write and because the weather was worse than usual.
Ordinarily, no matter how deep the mud in the _cour_, Jean and I would
trot back and forth, resting from time to time under the little shelter
out of the drizzle, talking of all things under the sun. I remember on
one occasion we were the only ones to brave the rain and slough--Jean in
paper-thin soled slippers (which he had recently succeeded in drawing
from the Gestionnaire) and I in my huge _sabots_--hurrying back and forth
with the rain pouring on us, and he very proud. On this day, however, I
refused the challenge of the mud.

The promenaders had been singularly noisy, I thought. Now they were
mounting to the room making a truly tremendous racket. No sooner were the
doors opened than in rushed half a dozen frenzied friends, who began
telling me all at once about a terrific thing which my friend the _noir_
had just done. It seems that The Trick Raincoat had pulled at Jean's
handkerchief (Lulu's gift in other days) which Jean wore always
conspicuously in his outside breast pocket; that Jean had taken the
Raincoat's head in his two hands, held it steady, abased his own head,
and rammed the helpless T.R. as a bull would do--the impact of Jean's
head upon the other's nose causing that well-known feature to occupy a
new position in the neighbourhood of the right ear. B. corroborated this
description, adding the Raincoat's nose was broken and that everyone was
down on Jean for fighting in an unsportsmanlike way. I found Jean still
very angry, and moreover very hurt because everyone was now shunning him.
I told him that I personally was glad of what he'd done; but nothing
would cheer him up. The T.R. now entered, very terrible to see, having
been patched up by Monsieur Richard with copious plasters. His nose was
not broken, he said thickly, but only bent. He hinted darkly of trouble
in store for _le noir_; and received the commiserations of everyone
present except Mexique, The Zulu, B. and me.

The Zulu, I remember, pointed to his own nose (which was not
unimportant), then to Jean, and made a _moue_ of excruciating anguish,
and winked audibly.

Jean's spirit was broken. The well-nigh unanimous verdict against him had
convinced his minutely sensitive soul that it had done wrong. He lay
quietly, and would say nothing to anyone.

Some time after the soup, about eight o'clock, the Fighting Sheeney and
The Trick Raincoat suddenly set upon Jean le Nègre à propos of nothing;
and began pommelling him cruelly. The conscience-stricken pillar of
beautiful muscle--who could have easily killed both his assailants at one
blow--not only offered no reciprocatory violence but refused even to
defend himself. Unresistingly, wincing with pain, his arms mechanically
raised and his head bent, he was battered frightfully to the window by
his bed, thence into the corner (upsetting the stool in the _pissoir_),
thence along the wall to the door. As the punishment increased he cried
out like a child: "_Laissez-moi tranquille!_"--again and again; and in
his voice the insane element gained rapidly. Finally, shrieking in agony,
he rushed to the nearest window; and while the Sheeneys together
pommelled him yelled for help to the _planton_ beneath.--

The unparalleled consternation and applause produced by this one-sided
battle had long since alarmed the authorities. I was still trying to
break through the five-deep ring of spectators (among whom was The
Messenger Boy, who advised me to desist and got a piece of advice in
return)--when with a tremendous crash open burst the door; and in stepped
four _plantons_ with drawn revolvers, looking frightened to death,
followed by the Surveillant who carried a sort of baton and was crying
faintly: "_Qu'est-ce que c'est!_"

At the first sound of the door the two Sheeneys had fled, and were now
playing the part of innocent spectators. Jean alone occupied the stage.
His lips were parted. His eyes were enormous. He was panting as if his
heart would break. He still kept his arms raised as if seeing everywhere
before him fresh enemies. Blood spotted here and there the wonderful
chocolate carpet of his skin, and his whole body glistened with sweat.
His shirt was in ribbons over his beautiful muscles.

Seven or eight persons at once began explaining the fight to the
Surveillant, who could make nothing out of their accounts and therefore
called aside a trusted older man in order to get his version. The two
retired from the room. The _plantons_, finding the expected wolf a lamb,
flourished their revolvers about Jean and threatened him in the
insignificant and vile language which _plantons_ use to anyone whom they
can bully. Jean kept repeating dully "_laissez-moi tranquille. Ils
voulaient me tuer._" His chest shook terribly with vast sobs.

Now the Surveillant returned and made a speech, to the effect that he had
received independently of each other the stories of four men, that by all
counts _le nègre_ was absolutely to blame, that _le nègre_ had caused an
inexcusable trouble to the authorities and to his fellow-prisoners by
this wholly unjustified conflict, and that as a punishment the _nègre_
would now suffer the consequences of his guilt in the _cabinot_.--Jean
had dropped his arms to his sides. His face was twisted with anguish. He
made a child's gesture, a pitiful hopeless movement with his slender
hands. Sobbing he protested: "It isn't my fault, _monsieur le
Surveillant!_ They attacked me! I didn't do a thing! They wanted to kill
me! Ask him"--he pointed to me desperately. Before I could utter a
syllable the Surveillant raised his hand for silence: _le nègre_ had done
wrong. He should be placed in the _cabinot_.

--Like a flash, with a horrible tearing sob, Jean leaped from the
surrounding _plantons_ and rushed for the coat which lay on his bed
screaming--"_AHHHHH--mon couteau!_"--"Look out or he'll get his knife and
kill himself!" someone yelled; and the four _plantons_ seized Jean by
both arms just as he made a grab for his jacket. Thwarted in his hope and
burning with the ignominy of his situation, Jean cast his enormous eyes
up at the nearest pillar, crying hysterically: "Everybody is putting me
in _cabinot_ because I am black."--In a second, by a single movement of
his arms, he sent the four _plantons_ reeling to a distance of ten feet:
leaped at the pillar: seized it in both hands like a Samson, and (gazing
for another second with a smile of absolute beatitude at its length)
dashed his head against it. Once, twice, thrice he smote himself, before
the _plantons_ seized him--and suddenly his whole strength wilted; he
allowed himself to be overpowered by them and stood with bowed head,
tears streaming from his eyes--while the smallest pointed a revolver at
his heart.

This was a little more than the Surveillant had counted on. Now that
Jean's might was no more, the bearer of the croix de guerre stepped
forward and in a mild placating voice endeavoured to soothe the victim of
his injustice. It was also slightly more than I could stand, and slamming
aside the spectators I shoved myself under his honour's nose. "Do you
know," I asked, "whom you are dealing with in this man? A child. There
are a lot of Jeans where I come from. You heard what he said? He is
black, is he not, and gets no justice from you. You heard that. I saw the
whole affair. He was attacked, he put up no resistance whatever, he was
beaten by two cowards. He is no more to blame than I am."--The
Surveillant was waving his wand and cooing "_Je comprends, je comprends,
c'est malheureux._"--"You're god damn right its _malheureux_" I said,
forgetting my French. "_Quand même_, he has resisted authority" The
Surveillant gently continued: "Now Jean, be quiet, you will be taken to
the _cabinot_. You may as well go quietly and behave yourself like a good
boy."

At this I am sure my eyes started out of my head. All I could think of to
say was: "_Attends, un petit moment._" To reach my own bed took but a
second. In another second I was back, bearing my great and sacred
_pélisse_. I marched up to Jean. "Jean" I remarked with a smile, "you are
going to the _cabinot_ but you're coming back right away. I know that you
are perfectly right. Put that on"--and I pushed him gently into my coat.
"Here are my cigarettes, Jean; you can smoke just as much as you like"--I
pulled out all I had, one full _paquet_ of Maryland, and a half dozen
loose ones, and deposited them carefully in the right hand pocket of the
_pélisse_. Then I patted him on the shoulder and gave him the immortal
salutation--"_Bonne chance, mon ami!_"

He straightened proudly. He stalked like a king through the doorway. The
astounded _plantons_ and the embarrassed Surveillant followed, the latter
closing the doors behind him. I was left with a cloud of angry witnesses.

An hour later the doors opened, Jean entered quietly, and the doors shut.
As I lay on my bed I could see him perfectly. He was almost naked. He
laid my _pélisse_ on his mattress, then walked calmly up to a
neighbouring bed and skillfully and unerringly extracted a brush from
under it. Back to his own bed he tiptoed, sat down on it, and began
brushing my coat. He brushed it for a half hour, speaking to no one,
spoken to by no one. Finally he put the brush back, disposed the
_pélisse_ carefully on his arm, came to my bed, and as carefully laid it
down. Then he took from the right hand outside pocket a full _paquet
jaune_ and six loose cigarettes, showed them for my approval, and
returned them to their place. "_Merci_" was his sole remark. B. got Jean
to sit down beside him on his bed and we talked for a few minutes,
avoiding the subject of the recent struggle. Then Jean went back to his
own bed and lay down.

It was not till later that we learned the climax--not till _le petit
belge avec le bras cassé, le petit balayeur_, came hurrying to our end of
the room and sat down with us. He was bursting with excitement; his well
arm jerked and his sick one stumped about and he seemed incapable of
speech. At length words came.

"_Monsieur Jean_" (now that I think of it, I believe someone had told him
that all male children in America are named Jean at their birth) "I saw
SOME SIGHT! _le nègre, vous savez?_--he is STRONG: _Monsieur Jean_, he's
_a_ GIANT, _croyez moi! C'est pas un homme, tu sais? Je l'ai vu,
moi_"--and he indicated his eyes.

We pricked up our ears.

The _balayeur_, stuffing a pipe nervously with his tiny thumb said: "You
saw the fight here? So did I. The whole of it. _Le noir avait raison._
Well, when they took him downstairs, I slipped out too--_Je suis le
balayeur, savez vous?_ and the _balayeur_ can go where other people
can't."

I gave him a match, and he thanked me. He struck it on his trousers with
a quick pompous gesture, drew heavily on his squeaky pipe, and at last
shot a minute puff of smoke into the air: then another, and another.
Satisfied, he went on; his good hand grasping the pipe between its index
and second fingers and resting on one little knee, his legs crossed, his
small body hunched forward, wee unshaven face close to mine--went on in
the confidential tone of one who relates an unbelievable miracle to a
couple of intimate friends:

"Monsieur Jean, I followed. They got him to the _cabinot_. The door stood
open. At this moment _les femmes descendaient_, it was their _corvée
d'eau, vous savez._ He saw them, _le noir_. One of them cried from the
stairs, Is a Frenchman stronger than you, Jean? The _plantons_ were
standing around him, the Surveillant was behind. He took the nearest
_planton_, and tossed him down the corridor so that he struck against the
door at the end of it. He picked up two more, one in each arm, and threw
them away. They fell on top of the first. The last tried to take hold of
Jean, and so Jean took him by the neck"--(the _balayeur_ strangled
himself for our benefit)--"and that _planton_ knocked down the other
three, who had got on their feet by this time. You should have seen the
Surveillant. He had run away and was saying, 'Capture him, capture him.'
The _plantons_ rushed Jean, all four of them. He caught them as they came
and threw them about. One knocked down the Surveillant. The women cried
'_Vive Jean_,' and clapped their hands. The Surveillant called to the
_plantons_ to take Jean, but they wouldn't go near Jean, they said he was
a black devil. The women kidded them. They were so sore. And they could
do nothing. Jean was laughing. His shirt was almost off him. He asked the
planton to come and take him, please. He asked the Surveillant, too. The
women had set down their pails and were dancing up and down and yelling.
The Directeur came down and sent them flying. The Surveillant and his
_plantons_ were as helpless as if they had been children. Monsieur
Jean--_quelque chose_."

I gave him another match. "_Merci, Monsieur Jean._" He struck it, drew on
his pipe, lowered it, and went on:

"They were helpless, and men. I am little. I have only one arm, _tu
sais_. I walked up to Jean and said, Jean, you know me, I am your friend.
He said, Yes. I said to the _plantons_, Give me that rope. They gave me
the rope that they would have bound him with. He put out his wrists for
me. I tied his hands behind his back. He was like a lamb. The _plantons_
rushed up and tied his feet together. Then they tied his hands and feet
together. They took the lacings out of his shoes for fear he would use
them to strangle himself. They stood him up in an angle between two walls
in the _cabinot_. They left him there for an hour. He was supposed to
have been in there all night; but the Surveillant knew that he would have
died, for he was almost naked, and _vous savez_, Monsieur Jean, it was
cold in there. And damp. A fully clothed man would have been dead in the
morning. And he was naked.... _Monsieur Jean--un géant!_"

--This same _petit belge_ had frequently protested to me that _Il est
fou, le noir_. He is always playing when sensible men try to sleep. The
last few hours (which had made of the _fou_ a _géant_) made of the
scoffer a worshipper. Nor did "_le bras cassé_" ever from that time forth
desert his divinity. If as _balayeur_ he could lay hands on a _morceau de
pain_ or _de viande_, he bore it as before to our beds; but Jean was
always called over to partake of the forbidden pleasure.

As for Jean, one would hardly have recognised him. It was as if the child
had fled into the deeps of his soul, never to reappear. Day after day
went by, and Jean (instead of courting excitement as before) cloistered
himself in solitude; or at most sought the company of B. and me and Le
Petit Belge for a quiet chat or a cigarette. The morning after the three
fights he did not appear in the _cour_ for early promenade along with the
rest of us (including The Sheeneys). In vain did _les femmes_ strain
their necks and eyes to find the black man who was stronger than six
Frenchmen. And B. and I noticed our bed-clothing airing upon the
window-sills. When we mounted, Jean was patting and straightening our
blankets, and looking for the first time in his life guilty of some
enormous crime. Nothing however had disappeared. Jean said, "Me feeks
_lits tous les jours."_ And every morning he aired and made our beds for
us, and we mounted to find him smoothing affectionately some final
ruffle, obliterating with enormous solemnity some microscopic crease. We
gave him cigarettes when he asked for them (which was almost never) and
offered them when we knew he had none or when we saw him borrowing from
someone else whom his spirit held in less esteem. Of us he asked no
favours. He liked us too well.

When B. went away, Jean was almost as desolate as I.

About a fortnight later, when the grey dirty snow-slush hid the black
filthy world which we saw from our windows, and when people lived in
their ill-smelling beds, it came to pass that my particular _amis_--The
Zulu, Jean, Mexique--and I and all the remaining _miserables_ of La Ferté
descended at the decree of Caesar Augustus to endure our bi-weekly bath.
I remember gazing stupidly at Jean's chocolate-coloured nakedness as it
strode to the tub, a rippling texture of muscular miracle. _Tout le
monde_ had _baigné_ (including The Zulu, who tried to escape at the last
minute and was nabbed by the _planton_ whose business it was to count
heads and see that none escaped the ordeal) and now _tout le monde_ was
shivering all together in the anteroom, begging to be allowed to go
upstairs and get into bed--when La Baigneur, Monsieur Richard's strenuous
successor that is, set up a hue and cry that one towel was lacking. The
Fencer was sent for. He entered; heard the case; and made a speech. If
the guilty party would immediately return the stolen towel, he, The
Fencer, would guarantee that party pardon; if not, everyone present
should be searched, and the man on whose person the serviette was found
_va attraper quinze jours de cabinot_. This eloquence yielding no
results, The Fencer exorted the culprit to act like a man and render to
Caesar what is Caesar's. Nothing happened. Everyone was told to get in
single file and make ready to pass out the door, one after one we were
searched; but so general was the curiosity that as fast as they were
inspected the erstwhile bed-enthusiasts, myself included, gathered on the
side-lines to watch their fellows instead of availing themselves of the
opportunity to go upstairs. One after one we came opposite The Fencer,
held up our arms, had our pockets run through and our clothing felt over
from head to heel, and were exonerated. When Caesar came to Jean Caesar's
eyes lighted, and Caesar's hitherto perfunctory proddings and pokings
became inspired and methodical. Twice he went over Jean's entire body,
while Jean, his arms raised in a bored gesture, his face completely
expressionless, suffered loftily the examination of his person. A third
time the desperate Fencer tried; his hands, starting at Jean's neck,
reached the calf of his leg--and stopped. The hands rolled up Jean's
right trouser-leg to the knee. They rolled up the underwear on his
leg--and there, placed perfectly flat to the skin, appeared the missing
serviette. As The Fencer seized it, Jean laughed--the utter laughter of
old days--and the onlookers cackled uproariously, while, with a broad
smile, the Fencer proclaimed: "I thought I knew where I should find it."
And he added, more pleased with himself than anyone had ever seen him:
"_Maintenant, vous pouvez tous montez à la chambre._" We mounted, happy
to get back to bed; but none so happy as Jean le Nègre. It was not that
the _cabinot_ threat had failed to materialize--at any minute a _planton_
might call Jean to his punishment: indeed this was what everyone
expected. It was that the incident had absolutely removed that inhibition
which (from the day when Jean _le noir_ became Jean _le géant_) had held
the child, which was Jean's soul and destiny, prisoner. From that instant
till the day I left him he was the old Jean--joking, fibbing, laughing,
and always playing--Jean L'Enfant.

And I think of Jean le Nègre ... you are something to dream over, Jean;
summer and winter (birds and darkness) you go walking into my head; you
are a sudden and chocolate-coloured thing, in your hands you have a habit
of holding six or eight _plantons_ (which you are about to throw away)
and the flesh of your body is like the flesh of a very deep cigar. Which
I am still and always quietly smoking: always and still I am inhaling its
very fragrant and remarkable muscles. But I doubt if ever I am quite
through with you, if ever I will toss you out of my heart into the
sawdust of forgetfulness. Kid, Boy, I'd like to tell you: _la guerre est
finie_.

O yes, Jean: I do not forget, I remember Plenty; the snow's coming, the
snow will throw again a very big and gentle shadow into The Enormous Room
and into the eyes of you and me walking always and wonderfully up and
down....

--Boy, Kid, Nigger, with the strutting muscles--take me up into your mind
once or twice before I die (you know why: just because the eyes of me and
you will be full of dirt some day). Quickly take me up into the bright
child of your mind, before we both go suddenly all loose and silly (you
know how it will feel). Take me up (carefully, as if I were a toy) and
play carefully with me, once or twice, before I and you go suddenly all
limp and foolish. Once or twice before you go into great Jack roses and
ivory--(once or twice, Boy, before we together go wonderfully down into
the Big Dirt laughing, bumped with the last darkness).



XII

THREE WISE MEN

It must have been late in November when _la commission_ arrived. _La
commission_, as I have said, visited La Ferté every three months. That is
to say, B. and I (by arriving when we did) had just escaped its clutches.
I consider this one of the luckiest things in my life.

_La commission_ arrived one morning, and began work immediately.

A list was made of _les hommes_ who were to pass _la commission_, another
of _les femmes_. These lists were given to the _planton_ with the Wooden
Hand. In order to avert any delay, those of the men whose names fell in
the first half of the list were not allowed to enjoy the usual
stimulating activities afforded by La Ferté's supreme environment: they
were, in fact, confined to The Enormous Room, subject to instant
call--moreover they were not called one by one, or as their respective
turns came, but in groups of three or four; the idea being that _la
commission_ should suffer no smallest annoyance which might be occasioned
by loss of time. There were always, in other words, eight or ten men
waiting in the upper corridor opposite a disagreeably crisp door, which
door belonged to that mysterious room wherein _la commission_ transacted
its inestimable affairs. Not more than a couple of yards away ten or
eight women waited their turns. Conversation between the men and the
women had been forbidden in the fiercest terms by Monsieur le Directeur:
nevertheless conversation spasmodically occurred, thanks to the indulgent
nature of the Wooden Hand. The Wooden Hand must have been cuckoo--he
looked it. If he wasn't I am totally at a loss to account for his
indulgence.

B. and I spent a morning in The Enormous Room without results, an
astonishing acquisition of nervousness excepted. _Après la soupe_ (noon)
we were conducted _en haut_, told to leave our spoons and bread (which we
did) and--in company with several others whose names were within a
furlong of the last man called--were descended to the corridor. All that
afternoon we waited. Also we waited all next morning. We spent our time
talking quietly with a buxom pink-cheeked Belgian girl who was in
attendance as translator for one of _les femmes_. This Belgian told us
that she was a permanent inhabitant of La Ferté, that she and another
_femme honnette_ occupied a room by themselves, that her brothers were at
the front in Belgium, that her ability to speak fluently several
languages (including English and German) made her invaluable to
_Messieurs la commission_, that she had committed no crime, that she was
held as a _suspecte_, that she was not entirely unhappy. She struck me
immediately as being not only intelligent but alive. She questioned us in
excellent English as to our offenses, and seemed much pleased to discover
that we were--to all appearances--innocent of wrong-doing.

From time to time our subdued conversation was interrupted by admonitions
from the amiable Wooden Hand. Twice the door SLAMMED open, and Monsieur
le Directeur bounced out, frothing at the mouth and threatening everyone
with infinite _cabinot_, on the ground that everyone's deportment or lack
of it was menacing the aplomb of the commissioners. Each time, the Black
Holster appeared in the background and carried on his master's bullying
until everyone was completely terrified--after which we were left to
ourselves and the Wooden Hand once again.

B. and I were allowed by the latter individual--he was that day, at
least, an individual not merely a _planton_--to peek over his shoulder at
the men's list. The Wooden Hand even went so far as to escort our
editious minds to the nearness of their examination by the simple yet
efficient method of placing one of his human fingers opposite the name of
him who was (even at that moment) within, submitting to the inexorable
justice of _le gouvernement français_. I cannot honestly say that the
discovery of this proximity of ourselves to our respective fates wholly
pleased us; yet we were so weary of waiting that it certainly did not
wholly terrify us. All in all, I think I have never been so utterly
un-at-ease as while waiting for the axe to fall, metaphorically speaking,
upon our squawking heads.

We were still conversing with the Belgian girl when a man came out of the
door unsteadily, looking as if he had submitted to several strenuous
fittings of a wooden leg upon a stump not quite healed. The Wooden Hand,
nodding at B., remarked hurriedly in a low voice:

"_Allez!_"

And B. (smiling at La Belge and at me) entered. He was followed by The
Wooden Hand, as I suppose for greater security.

The next twenty minutes, or whatever it was, were by far the most
nerve-racking which I had as yet experienced. La Belge said to me:

"_Il est gentil, votre ami,_"

and I agreed. And my blood was bombarding the roots of my toes and the
summits of my hair.

After (I need not say) two or three million aeons, B. emerged. I had not
time to exchange a look with him--let alone a word--for the Wooden Hand
said from the doorway:

"_Allez, l'autre américain,_"

and I entered in more confusion than can easily be imagined; entered the
torture chamber, entered the inquisition, entered the tentacles of that
sly and beaming polyp, _le gouvernement français_....

As I entered I said, half aloud: The thing is this, to look 'em in the
eyes and keep cool whatever happens, not for the fraction of a moment
forgetting that they are made of _merde_, that they are all of them
composed entirely of _merde_--I don't know how many inquisitors I
expected to see; but I guess I was ready for at least fifteen, among them
President Poincaré Lui-même. I hummed noiselessly:

  "_si vous passez par ma vil-le
  n'oubliez pas ma maison;
  on y mang-e de bonne sou-pe Ton Ton Tay-ne;
  faite de merde et les onions, Ton Ton Tayne Ton Ton Ton,_"

remembering the fine _forgeron_ of Chevancourt who used to sing this, or
something very like it, upon a table--entirely for the benefit of _les
deux américains_, who would subsequently render "Eats uh lonje wae to
Tee-pear-raer-ee," wholly for the gratification of a roomful of what Mr.
Anderson liked to call "them bastards," alias "dirty" Frenchmen, alias
_les poilus, les poilus divins_....

A little room. The Directeur's office? Or The Surveillant's? Comfort. O
yes, very, very comfortable. On my right a table. At the table three
persons. Reminds me of Noyon a bit, not unpleasantly of course. Three
persons: reading from left to right as I face them--a soggy, sleepy,
slumpy lump in a _gendarme's_ cape and cap, quite old, captain of
_gendarmes_, not at all interested, wrinkled coarse face, only
semi-_méchant_, large hard clumsy hands, floppingly disposed on table;
wily tidy man in civilian clothes, pen in hand, obviously lawyer,
_avocat_ type, little bald on top, sneaky civility, smells of bad perfume
or, at any rate, sweetish soap; tiny red-headed person, also civilian,
creased worrying excited face, amusing little body and hands, brief and
jumpy, must be a Dickens character, ought to spend his time sailing kites
of his own construction over other people's houses in gusty weather.
Behind the Three, all tied up with deference and inferiority, mild and
spineless, Apollyon.

Would the reader like to know what I was asked?

Ah, would I could say! Only dimly do I remember those moments--only dimly
do I remember looking through the lawyer at Apollyon's clean collar--only
dimly do I remember the gradual collapse of the captain of _gendarmes_,
his slow but sure assumption of sleepfulness, the drooping of his soggy
_tête de cochon_ lower and lower till it encountered one hand whose
elbow, braced firmly upon the table, sustained its insensate
limpness--only dimly do I remember the enthusiastic antics of the little
red-head when I spoke with patriotic fervour of the wrongs which La
France was doing _mon ami et moi_--only dimly do I remember, to my right,
the immobility of The Wooden Hand, reminding one of a clothing dummy, or
a life-size doll which might be made to move only by him who knew the
proper combination.... At the outset I was asked: Did I want a
translator? I looked and saw the _sécrétaire_, weak-eyed and lemon-pale,
and I said "_Non._" I was questioned mostly by the _avocat_, somewhat by
the Dickens, never by either the captain (who was asleep) or the
Directeur (who was timid in the presence of these great and good
delegates of hope, faith and charity per the French Government). I recall
that, for some reason, I was perfectly cool. I put over six or eight hot
shots without losing in the least this composure, which surprised myself
and pleased myself and altogether increased myself. As the questions came
for me I met them half-way, spouting my best or worst French in a manner
which positively astonished the tiny red-headed demigod. I challenged
with my eyes and with my voice and with my manner Apollyon Himself, and
Apollyon Himself merely cuddled together, depressing his hairy body
between its limbs as a spider sometimes does in the presence of danger. I
expressed immense gratitude to my captors and to _le gouvernement
français_ for allowing me to see and hear and taste and smell and touch
the things which inhabited La Ferté Macé, Orne, France. I do not think
that _la commission_ enjoyed me much. It told me, through its
sweetish-soap leader, that my friend was a criminal--this immediately
upon my entering--and I told it with a great deal of well-chosen
politeness that I disagreed. In telling how and why I disagreed I think I
managed to shove my shovel-shaped imagination under the refuse of their
intellects. At least once or twice.

Rather fatiguing--to stand up and be told: Your friend is no good; have
you anything to say for yourself?--And to say a great deal for yourself
and for your friend and for _les hommes_--or try your best to--and be
contradicted, and be told "Never mind that, what we wish to know is," and
instructed to keep to the subject, et cetera, ad infinitum. At last they
asked each other if each other wanted to ask the man before each other
anything more, and each other not wanting to do so, they said:

"_C'est fini_."

As at Noyon, I had made an indisputably favourable impression upon
exactly one of my three examiners. I refer, in the present case, to the
red-headed little gentleman who was rather decent to me. I do not exactly
salute him in recognition of this decency; I bow to him, as I might bow
to somebody who said he was sorry he couldn't give me a match, but there
was a cigar store just around the corner, you know.

At "_C'est fini_" the Directeur leaped into the limelight with a savage
admonition to the Wooden Hand--who saluted, opened the door suddenly, and
looked at me with (dare I say it?) admiration. Instead of availing myself
of this means of escape I turned to the little kite-flying gentleman and
said:

"If you please, sir, will you be so good as to tell me what will become
of my friend?"

The little kite-flying gentleman did not have time to reply, for the
perfumed presence stated dryly and distinctly:

"We cannot say anything to you upon that point."

I gave him a pleasant smile, which said, If I could see your intestines
very slowly embracing a large wooden drum rotated by means of a small
iron crank turned gently and softly by myself, I should be
extraordinarily happy--and I bowed softly and gently to Monsieur le
Directeur, and I went through the door using all the perpendicular inches
which God had given me.

Once outside I began to tremble like a _peuplier_ in _l'automne_....
"_L'automne humide et monotone._"

--"_Allez en bas, pour la soupe_" the Wooden Hand said not unkindly. I
looked about me. "There will be no more men before the commission until
to-morrow," the Wooden Hand said. "Go get your dinner in the kitchen."

I descended.

Afrique was all curiosity--what did they say? what did I say?--as he
placed before me a huge, a perfectly huge, an inexcusably huge plate of
something more than lukewarm grease.... B. and I ate at a very little
table in _la cuisine_, excitedly comparing notes as we swallowed the
red-hot stuff.... "_Du pain; prenez, mes amis_," Afrique said. "_Mangez
comme vous voulez_" the Cook quoth benignantly, with a glance at us over
his placid shoulder.... Eat we most surely did. We could have eaten the
French Government.

The morning of the following day we went on promenade once more. It was
neither pleasant nor unpleasant to promenade in the _cour_ while somebody
else was suffering in the Room of Sorrow. It was, in fact, rather
thrilling.

The afternoon of this day we were all up in The Enormous Room when _la
commission_ suddenly entered with Apollyon strutting and lisping behind
it, explaining, and poo-poohing, and graciously waving his thick wicked
arms.

Everyone in The Enormous Room leaped to his feet, removing as he did so
his hat--with the exception of _les deux américains_, who kept theirs on,
and The Zulu, who couldn't find his hat and had been trying for some time
to stalk it to its lair. _La commission_ reacted interestingly to the
Enormous Room: the captain of _gendarmes_ looked soggily around and saw
nothing with a good deal of contempt; the scented soap squinted up his
face and said, "Faugh!" or whatever a French bourgeois _avocat_ says in
the presence of a bad smell (_la commission_ was standing by the door and
consequently close to the _cabinet_); but the little red-head kite-flying
gentleman looked actually horrified.

"Is there in the room anyone of Austrian nationality?"

The Silent Man stepped forward quietly.

"Why are you here?"

"I don't know," The Silent Man said, with tears in his eyes.

"NONSENSE! You're here for a very good reason and you know what it is and
you could tell it if you wished, you imbecile, you incorrigible, you
criminal," Apollyon shouted; then, turning to the _avocat_ and the
red-headed little gentleman, "He is a dangerous alien, he admits it, he
has admitted it--DON'T YOU ADMIT IT, EH? EH?" he roared at The Silent
Man, who fingered his black cap without raising his eyes or changing in
the least the simple and supreme dignity of his poise. "He is
incorrigible," said (in a low snarl) The Directeur. "Let us go,
gentlemen, when you have seen enough." But the red-headed man, as I
recollect, was contemplating the floor by the door, where six pails of
urine solemnly stood, three of them having overflowed slightly from time
to time upon the reeking planks.... And The Directeur was told that _les
hommes_ should have a tin trough to urinate into, for the sake of
sanitation; and that this trough should be immediately installed,
installed without delay--"O yes, indeed, sirs," Apollyon simpered, "a
very good suggestion; it shall be done immediately: yes, indeed. Do let
me show you the--it's just outside--" and he bowed them out with no
little skill. And the door SLAMMED behind Apollyon and the Three Wise
Men.

This, as I say, must have occurred toward the last of November.

For a week we waited.

Fritz, having waited months for a letter from the Danish consul in reply
to the letters which he, Fritz, wrote every so often and sent through _le
bureau_--meaning the _sécrétaire_--had managed to get news of his
whereabouts to said consul by unlawful means; and was immediately, upon
reception of this news by the consul, set free and invited to join a ship
at the nearest port. His departure (than which a more joyous I have never
witnessed) has been already mentioned in connection with the third
Delectable Mountain, as has been the departure for Précigne of Pom Pom
and Harree ensemble. Bill the Hollander, Monsieur Pet-airs, Mexique, The
Wanderer, the little Machine-Fixer, Pete, Jean le Nègre, The Zulu and
Monsieur Auguste (second time) were some of our remaining friends who
passed the commission with us. Along with ourselves and these fine people
were judged gentlemen like the Trick Raincoat and the Fighting Sheeney.
One would think, possibly, that Justice--in the guise of the Three Wise
Men--would have decreed different fates, to (say) The Wanderer and The
Fighting Sheeney. _Au contraire_. As I have previously remarked, the ways
of God and of the good and great French Government are alike inscrutable.

Bill the Hollander, whom we had grown to like, whereas at first we were
inclined to fear him, Bill the Hollander who washed some towels and
handkerchiefs and what-nots for us and turned them a bright pink, Bill
the Hollander who had tried so hard to teach The Young Pole the lesson
which he could only learn from The Fighting Sheeney, left us about a week
after _la commission_. As I understand it, they decided to send him back
to Holland under guard in order that he might be jailed in his native
land as a deserter. It is beautiful to consider the unselfishness of _le
gouvernement français_ in this case. Much as _le gouvernement français_
would have liked to have punished Bill on its own account and for its own
enjoyment, it gave him up--with a Christian smile--to the punishing
clutches of a sister or brother government: without a murmur denying
itself the incense of his sufferings and the music of his sorrows. Then
too it is really inspiring to note the perfect collaboration of _la
justice française_ and _la justice hollandaise_ in a critical moment of
the world's history. Bill certainly should feel that it was a great
honour to be allowed to exemplify this wonderful accord, this exquisite
mutual understanding, between the punitive departments of two nations
superficially somewhat unrelated--that is, as regards customs and
language. I fear Bill didn't appreciate the intrinsic usefulness of his
destiny. I seem to remember that he left in a rather _Gottverdummerish_
condition. Such is ignorance.

Poor Monsieur Pet-airs came out of the commission looking extraordinarily
_épaté_. Questioned, he averred that his penchant for inventing
forcepumps had prejudiced _ces messieurs_ in his disfavour; and shook his
poor old head and sniffed hopelessly. Mexique exited in a placidly
cheerful condition, shrugging his shoulders and remarking:

"I no do nut'ing. Dese fellers tell me wait few days, after you go free,"
whereas Pete looked white and determined and said little--except in Dutch
to the Young Skipper and his mate; which pair took _la commission_ more
or less as a healthy bull calf takes nourishment: there was little doubt
that they would refind _la liberté_ in a short while, judging from the
inability of the Three Wise Men to prove them even suspicious characters.
The Zulu uttered a few inscrutable gestures made entirely of silence and
said he would like us to celebrate the accomplishment of this ordeal by
buying ourselves and himself a good fat cheese apiece--his friend The
Young Pole looked as if the ordeal had scared the life out of him
temporarily; he was unable to say whether or no he and "_mon ami_" would
leave us: _la commission_ had adopted, in the case of these twain, an
awe-inspiring taciturnity. Jean Le Nègre, who was one of the last to
pass, had had a tremendously exciting time, due to the fact that _le
gouvernement français's_ polished tools had failed to scratch his mystery
either in French or English--he came dancing and singing toward us; then,
suddenly suppressing every vestige of emotion, solemnly extended for our
approval a small scrap of paper on which was written:

    CALAIS,

remarking: "_Qu-est-ce que ça veut dire?_"--and when we read the word for
him, "_m'en vais à Calais, moi, travailler à Calais, très bon!_"--with a
jump and a shout of laughter pocketing the scrap and beginning the Song
of Songs:

"_apres la guerre finit...._"

A trio which had been hit and hard hit by the Three Wise Men were, or
was, The Wanderer and the Machine-Fixer and Monsieur Auguste--the former
having been insulted in respect to Chocolat's mother (who also occupied
the witness-stand) and having retaliated, as nearly as we could discover,
with a few remarks straight from the shoulder à propos Justice (O
Wanderer, did you expect honour among the honourable?); the Machine-Fixer
having been told to shut up in the midst of a passionate plea for mercy,
or at least fair-play, if not in his own case in the case of the wife who
was crazed by his absence; Monsieur Auguste having been asked (as he had
been asked three months before by the honorable commissioners), Why did
you not return to Russia with your wife and your child at the outbreak of
the war?--and having replied, with tears in his eyes and that gentle
ferocity of which he was occasionally capable:

"Be-cause I didn't have the means. I am not a mil-lion-aire, Sirs."

The Baby-Snatcher, the Trick Raincoat, the Messenger Boy, the Fighting
Sheeney and similar gentry passed the commission without the slightest
apparent effect upon their disagreeable personalities.

It was not long after Bill the Hollander's departure that we lost two
Delectable Mountains in The Wanderer and Surplice. Remained The Zulu and
Jean le Nègre.... B. and I spent most of our time when on promenade
collecting rather beautifully hued leaves in _la cour_. These leaves we
inserted in one of my notebooks, along with all the colours which we
could find on cigarette boxes, chocolate wrappers, labels of various
sorts and even postage stamps. (We got a very brilliant red from a
certain piece of cloth.) Our efforts puzzled everyone (including the
_plantons_) more than considerably; which was natural, considering that
everyone did not know that by this exceedingly simple means we were
effecting a study of colour itself, in relation to what is popularly
called "abstract" and sometimes "non-representative" painting. Despite
their natural puzzlement everyone (_plantons_ excepted) was
extraordinarily kind and brought us often valuable additions to our
chromatic collection. Had I, at this moment and in the city of New York,
the complete confidence of one-twentieth as many human beings I should
not be so inclined to consider The Great American Public as the most
aesthetically incapable organization ever created for the purpose of
perpetuating defunct ideals and ideas. But of course The Great American
Public has a handicap which my friends at La Ferté did not as a rule
have--education. Let no one sound his indignant yawp at this. I refer to
the fact that, for an educated gent or lady, to create is first of all to
destroy--that there is and can be no such thing as authentic art until
the _bons trucs_ (whereby we are taught to see and imitate on canvas and
in stone and by words this so-called world) are entirely and thoroughly
and perfectly annihilated by that vast and painful process of Unthinking
which may result in a minute bit of purely personal Feeling. Which minute
bit is Art.

Ah well, the revolution--I refer of course to the intelligent
revolution--is on the way; is perhaps nearer than some think, is possibly
knocking at the front doors of The Great Mister Harold Bell Wright and
The Great Little Miss Pollyanna. In the course of the next ten thousand
years it may be possible to find Delectable Mountains without going to
prison--captivity, I mean, Monsieur le Surveillant--it may be possible, I
daresay, to encounter Delectable Mountains who are not in prison....

The Autumn wore on.

Rain did, from time to time, not fall: from time to time a sort of
unhealthy almost-light leaked from the large uncrisp corpse of the sky,
returning for a moment to our view the ruined landscape. From time to
time the eye, travelling carefully with a certain disagreeable suddenly
fear no longer distances of air, coldish and sweet, stopped upon the
incredible clearness of the desolate, without-motion, Autumn. Awkward and
solemn clearness, making louder the unnecessary cries, the hoarse
laughter of the invisible harlots in their muddy yard, pointing a cool
actual finger at the silly and ferocious group of man-shaped beings
huddled in the mud under four or five little trees, came strangely in my
own mind pleasantly to suggest the ludicrous and hideous and beautiful
antics of the insane. Frequently I would discover so perfect a command
over myself as to reduce _la promenade_ easily to a recently invented
mechanism; or to the demonstration of a collection of vivid and unlovely
toys around and around which, guarding them with impossible heroism,
funnily moved purely unreal _plantons_ always absurdly marching, the
maimed and stupid dolls of my imagination. Once I was sitting alone on
the long beam of silent iron and suddenly had the gradual complete unique
experience of death....

It became amazingly cold.

One evening B. and myself and, I think it was the Machine-Fixer, were
partaking of the warmth of a _bougie_ hard by and, in fact, between our
ambulance beds, when the door opened, a _planton_ entered, and a list of
names (none of which we recognized) was hurriedly read off with (as in
the case of the last _partis_, including The Wanderer and Surplice) the
admonition:

"Be ready to leave early to-morrow morning."

--and the door shut loudly and quickly. Now one of the names which had
been called sounded somewhat like "Broom," and a strange inquietude
seized us on this account. Could it possibly have been "B."? We made
inquiries of certain of our friends who had been nearer the _planton_
than ourselves. We were told that Pete and The Trick Raincoat and The
Fighting Sheeney and Rockyfeller were leaving--about "B." nobody was able
to enlighten us. Not that opinions in this matter were lacking. There was
plenty of opinions--but they contradicted each other to a painful extent.
_Les hommes_ were in fact about equally divided; half considering that
the occult sound had been intended for "B.," half that the somewhat
asthmatic _planton_ had unwittingly uttered a spontaneous grunt or sigh,
which sigh or grunt we had mistaken for a proper noun. Our uncertainty
was augmented by the confusion emanating from a particular corner of The
Enormous Room, in which corner The Fighting Sheeney was haranguing a
group of spectators on the pregnant topic: What I won't do to Précigne
when I get there. In deep converse with Bathhouse John we beheld the very
same youth who, some time since, had drifted to a place beside me at _la
soupe_--Pete The Ghost, white and determined, blond and fragile: Pete the
Shadow....

I forget who, but someone--I think it was the little
Machine-Fixer--established the truth that an American was to leave the
next morning. That, moreover, said American's name was B.

Whereupon B. and I became extraordinarily busy.

The Zulu and Jean le Nègre, upon learning that B. was among the _partis_,
came over to our beds and sat down without uttering a word. The former,
through a certain shy orchestration of silence, conveyed effortlessly and
perfectly his sorrow at the departure; the latter, by his bowed head and
a certain very delicate restraint manifested in the wholly exquisite
poise of his firm alert body, uttered at least a universe of grief.

The little Machine-Fixer was extremely indignant; not only that his
friend was going to a den of thieves and ruffians, but that his friend
was leaving in such company as that of _ce crapule_ (meaning Rockyfeller)
and _les deux mangeurs de blanc_ (to wit, The Trick Raincoat and The
Fighting Sheeney). "_c'est malheureux_," he repeated over and over,
wagging his poor little head in rage and despair--"it's no place for a
young man who has done no wrong, to be shut up with pimps and cutthroats,
_pour la durée de la guerre; le gouvernement français a bien fait!_" and
he brushed a tear out of his eye with a desperate rapid brittle
gesture.... But what angered the Machine-Fixer most was that B. and I
were about to be separated--"_M'sieu' Jean_" (touching me gently on the
knee) "they have no hearts, _la commission_; they are not simply unjust,
they are cruel, _savez-vous_? Men are not like these; they are not men,
they are Name of God I don't know what, they are worse than the animals;
and they pretend to Justice" (shivering from top to toe with an
indescribable sneer) "Justice! My God, Justice!"

All of which, somehow or other, did not exactly cheer us.

And, the packing completed, we drank together for The Last Time. The Zulu
and Jean Le Nègre and the Machine-Fixer and B. and I--and Pete The Shadow
drifted over, whiter than I think I ever saw him, and said simply to me:

"I'll take care o' your friend, Johnny."

... and then at last it was _lumières éteintes_; and _les deux
américains_ lay in their beds in the cold rotten darkness, talking in low
voices of the past, of Petroushka, of Paris, of that brilliant and
extraordinary and impossible something: Life.

Morning. Whitish. Inevitable. Deathly cold.

There was a great deal of hurry and bustle in The Enormous Room. People
were rushing hither and thither in the heavy half-darkness. People were
saying good-bye to people. Saying good-bye to friends. Saying good-bye to
themselves. We lay and sipped the black evil dull certainly not coffee;
lay on our beds, dressed, shuddering with cold, waiting. Waiting. Several
of _les hommes_ whom we scarcely knew came up to B. and shook hands with
him and said good luck and good-bye. The darkness was going rapidly out
of the dull black evil stinking air. B. suddenly realized that he had no
gift for The Zulu; he asked a fine Norwegian to whom he had given his
leather belt if he, the Norwegian, would mind giving it back, because
there was a very dear friend who had been forgotten. The Norwegian, with
a pleasant smile, took off the belt and said "Certainly" ... he had been
arrested at Bordeaux, where he came ashore from his ship, for stealing
three cans of sardines when he was drunk ... a very great and dangerous
criminal ... he said "Certainly," and gave B. a pleasant smile, the
pleasantest smile in the world. B. wrote his own address and name in the
inside of the belt, explained in French to The Young Pole that any time
The Zulu wanted to reach him all he had to do was to consult the belt;
The Young Pole translated; The Zulu nodded; The Norwegian smiled
appreciatively; The Zulu received the belt with a gesture to which words
cannot do the faintest justice--

A _planton_ was standing in The Enormous Room, a _planton_ roaring and
cursing and crying, "Hurry, those who are going to go."--B. shook hands
with Jean and Mexique and the Machine-Fixer and the Young Skipper, and
Bathhouse John (to whom he had given his ambulance tunic, and who was
crazy-proud in consequence) and the Norwegian and the Washing Machine Man
and The Hat and many of _les hommes_ whom we scarcely knew.--The Black
Holster was roaring:

"_Allez, nom de Dieu, l'américain!_"

I went down the room with B. and Pete, and shook hands with both at the
door. The other _partis_, alias The Trick Raincoat and The Fighting
Sheeney, were already on the way downstairs. The Black Holster cursed us
and me in particular and slammed the door angrily in my face--

Through the little peephole I caught a glimpse of them, entering the
street. I went to my bed and lay down quietly in my great _pélisse_. The
clamour and filth of the room brightened and became distant and faded. I
heard the voice of the jolly Alsatian saying:

"_Courage, mon ami_, your comrade is not dead; you will see him later,"
and after that, nothing. In front of and on and within my eyes lived
suddenly a violent and gentle and dark silence.

The Three Wise Men had done their work. But wisdom cannot rest....

Probably at that very moment they were holding their court in another La
Ferté committing to incomparable anguish some few merely perfectly
wretched criminals: little and tall, tremulous and brave--all of them
white and speechless, all of them with tight bluish lips and large
whispering eyes, all of them with fingers weary and mutilated and
extraordinarily old ... desperate fingers; closing, to feel the final
luke-warm fragment of life glide neatly and softly into forgetfulness.



XIII

I SAY GOOD-BYE TO LA MISÈRE

To convince the reader that this history is mere fiction (and rather
vulgarly violent fiction at that) nothing perhaps is needed save that
ancient standby of sob-story writers and thrill-artists alike--the Happy
Ending. As a matter of fact, it makes not the smallest difference to me
whether anyone who has thus far participated in my travels does or does
not believe that they and I are (as that mysterious animal, "the public"
would say) "real." I do, however, very strenuously object to the
assumption, on the part of anyone, that the heading of this, my final,
chapter stands for anything in the nature of happiness. In the course of
recalling (in God knows a rather clumsy and perfectly inadequate way)
what happened to me between the latter part of August, 1917, and the
first of January, 1918, I have proved to my own satisfaction (if not to
anyone else's) that I was happier in La Ferté Macé, with The Delectable
Mountains about me, than the very keenest words can pretend to express. I
daresay it all comes down to a definition of happiness. And a definition
of happiness I most certainly do not intend to attempt; but I can and
will say this: to leave La Misère with the knowledge, and worse than that
the feeling, that some of the finest people in the world are doomed to
remain prisoners thereof for no one knows how long--are doomed to
continue, possibly for years and tens of years and all the years which
terribly are between them and their deaths, the grey and indivisible
Non-existence which without apology you are quitting for Reality--cannot
by any stretch of the imagination be conceived as constituting a Happy
Ending to a great and personal adventure. That I write this chapter at
all is due, purely and simply, to the, I daresay, unjustified hope on my
part that--by recording certain events--it may hurl a little additional
light into a very tremendous darkness....

At the outset let me state that what occurred subsequent to the departure
for Précigne of B. and Pete and The Sheeneys and Rockyfeller is shrouded
in a rather ridiculous indistinctness; due, I have to admit, to the
depression which this departure inflicted upon my altogether too human
nature. The judgment of the Three Wise Men had--to use a peculiarly
vigorous (not to say vital) expression of my own day and time--knocked me
for a loop. I spent the days intervening between the separation from
"_votre camarade_" and my somewhat supernatural departure for freedom in
attempting to partially straighten myself. When finally I made my exit,
the part of me popularly referred to as "mind" was still in a slightly
bent if not twisted condition. Not until some weeks of American diet had
revolutionized my exterior did my interior completely resume the contours
of normality. I am particularly neither ashamed nor proud of this (one
might nearly say) mental catastrophe. No more ashamed or proud, in fact,
than of the infection of three fingers which I carried to America as a
little token of La Ferté's good-will. In the latter case I certainly have
no right to boast, even should I find myself so inclined; for B. took
with him to Précigne a case of what his father, upon B.'s arrival in The
Home of The Brave, diagnosed as scurvy--which scurvy made my mutilations
look like thirty cents or even less. One of my vividest memories of La
Ferté consists in a succession of crackling noises associated with the
disrobing of my friend. I recall that we appealed to Monsieur Ree-chard
together, B. in behalf of his scurvy and I in behalf of my hand plus a
queer little row of sores, the latter having proceeded to adorn that part
of my face which was trying hard to be graced with a moustache. I recall
that Monsieur Ree-chard decreed a _bain_ for B., which _bain_ meant
immersion in a large tin tub partially filled with not quite luke-warm
water. I, on the contrary, obtained a speck of zinc ointment on a minute
piece of cotton, and considered myself peculiarly fortunate. Which
details cannot possibly offend the reader's aesthetic sense to a greater
degree than have already certain minutiae connected with the sanitary
arrangements of The Directeur's little home for homeless boys and
girls--therefore I will not trouble to beg the reader's pardon; but will
proceed with my story proper or improper.

"_Mais qu'est-ce que vous avez_," Monsieur le Surveillant demanded, in a
tone of profound if kindly astonishment, as I wended my lonely way to _la
soupe_ some days after the disappearance of _les partis_.

I stood and stared at him very stupidly without answering, having indeed
nothing at all to say.

"But why are you so sad?" he asked.

"I suppose I miss my friend," I ventured.

"_Mais--mais--_" he puffed and panted like a very old and fat person
trying to persuade a bicycle to climb a hill--"_mais--vous avez de la
chance!_"

"I suppose I have," I said without enthusiasm.

"_Mais--mais--parfaitement--vous avez de la
chance--uh-ah--uh-ah--parceque--comprenez-vous--votre camarade--ah-ah--a
attrapé prison!_"

"Uh-ah!" I said wearily.

"Whereas," continued Monsieur, "you haven't. You ought to be
extraordinarily thankful and particularly happy!"

"I should rather have gone to prison with my friend," I stated briefly;
and went into the dining-room, leaving the Surveillant uh-ahing in
nothing short of complete amazement.

I really believe that my condition worried him, incredible as this may
seem. At the time I gave neither an extraordinary nor a particular damn
about Monsieur le Surveillant, nor indeed about "_l'autre américain_"
alias myself. Dimly, through a fog of disinterested inapprehension, I
realized that--with the exception of the _plantons_ and, of course,
Apollyon--everyone was trying very hard to help me; that The Zulu, Jean,
The Machine-Fixer, Mexique, The Young Skipper, even The Washing Machine
Man (with whom I promenaded frequently when no one else felt like taking
the completely unagreeable air) were kind, very kind, kinder than I can
possibly say. As for Afrique and The Cook--there was nothing too good for
me at this time. I asked the latter's permission to cut wood, and was not
only accepted as a sawyer, but encouraged with assurances of the best
coffee there was, with real sugar _dedans_. In the little space outside
the _cuisine_, between the building and _la cour_, I sawed away of a
morning to my great satisfaction; from time to time clumping my _saboted_
way into the _chef's_ domain in answer to a subdued signal from Afrique.
Of an afternoon I sat with Jean or Mexique or The Zulu on the long beam
of silent iron, pondering very carefully nothing at all, replying to
their questions or responding to their observations in a highly
mechanical manner. I felt myself to be, at last, a doll--taken out
occasionally and played with and put back into its house and told to go
to sleep....

One afternoon I was lying on my couch, thinking of the usual Nothing,
when a sharp cry sung through The Enormous Room:

"_Il tombe de la neige--Noël! Noël!_"

I sat up. The Guard Champêtre was at the nearest window, dancing a little
horribly and crying:

"_Noël! Noël!_"

I went to another window and looked out. Sure enough. Snow was falling,
gradually and wonderfully falling, silently falling through the thick
soundless Autumn.... It seemed to me supremely beautiful, the snow. There
was about it something unspeakably crisp and exquisite, something perfect
and minute and gentle and fatal.... The Guard Champêtre's cry began a
poem in the back of my head, a poem about the snow, a poem in French,
beginning _Il tombe de la neige, Noël, Noël._ I watched the snow. After a
long time I returned to my bunk and I lay down, closing my eyes; feeling
the snow's minute and crisp touch falling gently and exquisitely, falling
perfectly and suddenly, through the thick soundless autumn of my
imagination....

"_L'américain! L'américain!_"

Someone is speaking to me.

"_Le petit belge avec le bras cassé est là-bas, à la porte, il veut
parler...._"

I marched the length of the room. The Enormous Room is filled with a new
and beautiful darkness, the darkness of the snow outside, falling and
falling and falling with the silent and actual gesture which has touched
the soundless country of my mind as a child touches a toy it loves....

Through the locked door I heard a nervous whisper: "_Dis à l'américain
que je veux parler avec lui._"--"_Me voici_" I said.

"Put your ear to the key-hole, _M'sieu' Jean_," said the Machine-Fixer's
voice. The voice of the little Machine-Fixer, tremendously excited. I
obey--"_Alors. Qu'est-ce que c'est, mon ami?_"

"_M'sieu' Jean! Le Directeur va vous appeler tout de suite!_ You must get
ready instantly! Wash and shave, eh? He's going to call you right away.
And don't forget! Oloron! You will ask to go to Oloron Sainte Marie,
where you can paint! Oloron Sainte Marie, Basse Pyrenées! _N'oubliez pas,
M'sieu' Jean! Et dépêchez-vous!_"

"_Merci bien, mon ami!_"--I remember now. The little Machine-Fixer and I
had talked. It seemed that _la commission_ had decided that I was not a
criminal, but only a suspect. As a suspect I would be sent to some place
in France, any place I wanted to go, provided it was not on or near the
sea coast. That was in order that I should not perhaps try to escape from
France. The Machine-Fixer had advised me to ask to go to Oloron Sainte
Marie. I should say that, as a painter, the Pyrenees particularly
appealed to me. "_Et qu'il fait beau, là-bas!_ The snow on the mountains!
And it's not cold. And what mountains! You can live there very cheaply.
As a suspect you will merely have to report once a month to the chief of
police of Oloron Sainte Marie; he's an old friend of mine! He's a fine,
fat, red-cheeked man, very kindly. He will make it easy for you, _M'sieu'
Jean_, and will help you out in every way, when you tell him you are a
friend of the little Belgian with the broken arm. Tell him I sent you.
You will have a very fine time, and you can paint: such scenery to paint!
My God--not like what you see from these windows. I advise you by all
means to ask to go to Oloron."

So thinking I lathered my face, standing before Judas' mirror.

"You don't rub enough," the Alsatian advised, "_il faut frotter bien!_" A
number of fellow-captives were regarding my toilet with surprise and
satisfaction. I discovered in the mirror an astounding beard and a good
layer of dirt. I worked busily, counselled by several voices, censured by
the Alsatian, encouraged by Judas himself. The shave and the wash
completed I felt considerably refreshed.

WHANG!

"_L'américain en bas!_" It was the Black Holster. I carefully adjusted my
tunic and obeyed him.

The Directeur and the Surveillant were in consultation when I entered the
latter's office. Apollyon, seated at a desk, surveyed me very fiercely.
His subordinate swayed to and fro, clasping and unclasping his hands
behind his back, and regarded me with an expression of almost
benevolence. The Black Holster guarded the doorway.

Turning on me ferociously: "Your friend is wicked, very wicked,
SAVEZ-VOUS?" Le Directeur shouted.

I answered quietly: "Oui? Je ne le savait pas."

"He is a bad fellow, a criminal, a traitor, an insult to civilization,"
Apollyon roared into my face.

"Yes?" I said again.

"You'd better be careful!" the Directeur shouted. "Do you know what's
happened to your friend?"

"_Sais pas_," I said.

"He's gone to prison where he belongs!" Apollyon roared. "Do you
understand what that means?"

"Perhaps," I answered, somewhat insolently I fear.

"You're lucky not to be there with him! Do you understand?" Monsieur Le
Directeur thundered, "and next time pick your friends better, take more
care, I tell you, or you'll go where he is--TO PRISON FOR THE REST OF THE
WAR!"

"With my friend I should be well content in prison!" I said evenly,
trying to keep looking through him and into the wall behind his black,
big, spidery body.

"In God's Name, what a fool!" the Directeur bellowed furiously--and the
Surveillant remarked pacifyingly: "He loves his comrade too much, that's
all."--"But his comrade is a traitor and a villain!" objected the Fiend,
at the top of his harsh voice--"_Comprenez-vous; votre ami est UN
SALOP!_" he snarled at me.

He seems afraid that I don't get his idea, I said to myself. "I
understand what you say," I assured him.

"And you don't believe it?" he screamed, showing his fangs and otherwise
looking like an exceedingly dangerous maniac.

"_Je ne le crois fas, Monsieur_."

"O God's name!" he shouted. "What a fool, _quel idiot_, what a beastly
fool!" And he did something through his froth-covered lips, something
remotely suggesting laughter.

Hereupon the Surveillant again intervened. I was mistaken. It was
lamentable. I could not be made to understand. Very true. But I had been
sent for--"Do you know, you have been decided to be a suspect?" Monsieur
le Surveillant turned to me, "and now you may choose where you wish to be
sent." Apollyon was blowing and wheezing and muttering ... clenching his
huge pinkish hands.

I addressed the Surveillant, ignoring Apollyon. "I should like, if I may,
to go to Oloron Sainte Marie."

"What do you want to go there for?" the Directeur exploded threateningly.

I explained that I was by profession an artist, and had always wanted to
view the Pyrenees. "The environment of Oloron would be most stimulating
to an artist--"

"Do you know it's near Spain?" he snapped, looking straight at me.

I knew it was, and therefore replied with a carefully childish ignorance:
"Spain? Indeed! Very interesting."

"You want to escape from France, that's it?" the Directeur snarled.

"Oh, I hardly should say that!" the Surveillant interposed soothingly;
"he is an artist, and Oloron is a very pleasant place for an artist. A
very nice place, I hardly think his choice of Oloron a cause for
suspicion. I should think it a very natural desire on his part."--His
superior subsided snarling.

After a few more questions I signed some papers which lay on the desk,
and was told by Apollyon to get out.

"When can I expect to leave?" I asked the Surveillant.

"Oh, it's only a matter of days, of weeks perhaps," he assured me
benignantly.

"You'll leave when it's proper for you to leave!" Apollyon burst out. "Do
you understand?"

"Yes, indeed. Thank you very much," I replied with a bow, and exited. On
the way to The Enormous Room the Black Holster said to me sharply:

"_Vous allez partir?_"

"_Oui._"

He gave me such a look as would have turned a mahogany piano leg into a
mound of smoking ashes, and slammed the key into the lock.

--Everyone gathered about me. "What news?"

"I have asked to go to Oloron as a suspect," I answered.

"You should have taken my advice and asked to go to Cannes," the fat
Alsatian reproached me. He had indeed spent a great while advising me;
but I trusted the little Machine-Fixer.

"_Parti?_" Jean le Nègre said with huge eyes, touching me gently.

"No, no. Later, perhaps; not now," I assured him. And he patted my
shoulder and smiled, "_Bon!_" And we smoked a cigarette in honour of the
snow, of which Jean--in contrast to the majority of _les hommes_--highly
and unutterably approved. "_C'est jolie!_" he would say, laughing
wonderfully. And next morning he and I went on an exclusive promenade, I
in my _sabots_, Jean in a new pair of slippers which he had received
(after many requests) from the _bureau_. And we strode to and fro in the
muddy _cour_ admiring _la neige_, not speaking.

One day, after the snowfall, I received from Paris a complete set of
Shakespeare in the Everyman edition. I had forgotten completely that B.
and I--after trying and failing to get William Blake--had ordered and
paid for the better-known William; the ordering and communicating in
general being done with the collaboration of Monsieur Pet-airs. It was a
curious and interesting feeling which I experienced upon first opening to
"As You Like It" ... the volumes had been carefully inspected, I learned,
by the _sécrétaire_, in order to eliminate the possibility of their
concealing something valuable or dangerous. And in this connection let me
add that the _sécrétaire_ or (if not he) his superiors, were a good judge
of what is valuable--if not what is dangerous. I know this because,
whereas my family several times sent me socks in every case enclosing
cigarettes, I received invariably the former sans the latter. Perhaps it
is not fair to suspect the officials of La Ferté of this peculiarly mean
theft; I should, possibly, doubt the honesty of that very same French
censor whose intercepting of B.'s correspondence had motivated our
removal from the Section Sanitaire. Heaven knows I wish (like the Three
Wise Men) to give justice where justice is due.

Somehow or other, reading Shakespeare did not appeal to my disordered
mind. I tried Hamlet and Julius Caesar once or twice, and gave it up,
after telling a man who asked "Shah-kay-spare, who is Shah-kay-spare?"
that Mr. S. was the Homer of the English-speaking peoples--which remark,
to my surprise, appeared to convey a very definite idea to the questioner
and sent him away perfectly satisfied. Most of the timeless time I spent
promenading in the rain and sleet with Jean le Nègre, or talking with
Mexique, or exchanging big gifts of silence with The Zulu. For Oloron--I
did not believe in it, and I did not particularly care. If I went away,
good; if I stayed, so long as Jean and The Zulu and Mexique were with me,
good. "_M'en fou pas mal_," pretty nearly summed up my philosophy.

At least the Surveillant let me alone on the Soi-Même topic. After my
brief visit to Satan I wallowed in a perfect luxury of dirt. And no one
objected. On the contrary everyone (realizing that the enjoyment of dirt
may be made the basis of a fine art) beheld with something like
admiration my more and more uncouth appearance. Moreover, by being
dirtier than usual I was protesting in a (to me) very satisfactory way
against all that was neat and tidy and bigoted and solemn and founded
upon the anguish of my fine friends. And my fine friends, being my fine
friends, understood. Simultaneously with my arrival at the summit of
dirtiness--by the calendar, as I guess, December the twenty-first--came
the Black Holster into The Enormous Room and with an excited and angry
mien proclaimed loudly:

"_L'américain! Allez chez le Directeur. De suite._"

I protested mildly that I was dirty.

"_N'importe. Allez avec moi_," and down I went to the amazement of
everyone and the great amazement of myself. "By Jove! wait till he sees
me this time," I remarked half-audibly....

The Directeur said nothing when I entered.

The Directeur extended a piece of paper, which I read.

The Directeur said, with an attempt at amiability: "_Alors, vous allez
sortir._"

I looked at him in eleven-tenths of amazement. I was standing in the
bureau de Monsieur le Directeur du Camp de Triage de la Ferté Macé, Orne,
France, and holding in my hand a slip of paper which said that if there
was a man named Edward E. Cummings he should report immediately to the
American Embassy, Paris, and I had just heard the words:

"Well, you are going to leave."

Which words were pronounced in a voice so subdued, so constrained, so
mild, so altogether ingratiating, that I could not imagine to whom it
belonged. Surely not to the Fiend, to Apollyon, to the Prince of Hell, to
Satan, to Monsieur le Directeur du Camp de Triage de la Ferté Macé--

"Get ready. You will leave immediately."

Then I noticed the Surveillant. Upon his face I saw an almost smile. He
returned my gaze and remarked:

"_Uh-ah, uh-ah, Oui._"

"That's all," the Directeur said. "You will call for your money at the
_bureau_ of the Gestionnaire before leaving."

"Go and get ready," the Fencer said, and I certainly saw a smile....

"I? Am? Going? To? Paris?" somebody who certainly wasn't myself remarked
in a kind of whisper.

"_Parfaitement._"--Pettish. Apollyon. But how changed. Who the devil is
myself? Where in Hell am I? What is Paris--a place, a somewhere, a city,
life; (to live: infinitive. Present first singular: I live. Thou livest).
The Directeur. The Surveillant. La Ferté Macé, Orne, France. "Edward E.
Cummings will report immediately." Edward E. Cummings. The Surveillant. A
piece of yellow paper. The Directeur. A necktie. Paris. Life. _Liberté_.
_La liberté_. "_La Liberté!_" I almost shouted in agony.

"_Dépêchez-vous. Savez-vous, vous allez partir de suite. Cet après-midi.
Pour Paris._"

I turned, I turned so suddenly as almost to bowl over the Black Holster,
Black Holster and all; I turned toward the door, I turned upon the Black
Holster, I turned into Edward E. Cummings, I turned into what was dead
and is now alive, I turned into a city, I turned into a dream--

I am standing in The Enormous Room for the last time. I am saying
good-bye. No, it is not I who am saying good-bye. It is in fact somebody
else, possibly myself. Perhaps myself has shaken hands with a little
creature with a wizened arm, a little creature in whose eyes tears for
some reason are; with a placid youth (Mexique?) who smiles and says
shakily:

"Good-bye, Johnny; I no for-get you,"

with a crazy old fellow who somehow or other has got inside B.'s tunic
and is gesticulating and crying out and laughing; with a frank-eyed boy
who claps me on the back and says:

"Good-bye and good luck t'you"

(is he The Young Skipper, by any chance?); with a lot of hungry wretched
beautiful people--I have given my bed to The Zulu, by Jove! and The Zulu
is even now standing guard over it, and his friend The Young Pole has
given me the address of "_mon ami_," and there are tears in The Young
Pole's eyes, and I seem to be amazingly tall and altogether tearless--and
this is the nice Norwegian, who got drunk at Bordeaux and stole three (or
four was it?) cans of sardines ... and now I feel before me someone who
also has tears in his eyes, someone who is in fact crying, someone whom I
feel to be very strong and young as he hugs me quietly in his firm, alert
arms, kissing me on both cheeks and on the lips....

"Goo-bye, boy!"

--O good-bye, good-bye, I am going away, Jean; have a good time, laugh
wonderfully when _la neige_ comes....

And I am standing somewhere with arms lifted up. "_Si vous avez une
lettre, sais-tu, il faut dire._ For if I find a letter on you it will go
hard with the man that gave it to you to take out." Black. The Black
Holster even. Does not examine my baggage. Wonder why? "_Allez!_" Jean's
letter to his gonzesse in Paris still safe in my little pocket under my
belt. Ha, ha, by God, that's a good one on you, you Black Holster, you
Very Black Holster. That's a good one. Glad I said good-bye to the cook.
Why didn't I give Monsieur Auguste's little friend, the _cordonnier_,
more than six francs for mending my shoes? He looked so injured. I am a
fool, and I am going into the street, and I am going by myself with no
_planton_ into the little street of the little city of La Ferté Macé
which is a little, a very little city in France, where once upon a time I
used to catch water for an old man....

I have already shaken hands with the Cook, and with the _cordonnier_ who
has beautifully mended my shoes. I am saying good-bye to _les deux
balayeurs_. I am shaking hands with the little (the very little)
Machine-Fixer again. I have again given him a franc and I have given
Garibaldi a franc. We had a drink a moment ago on me. The tavern is just
opposite the gare, where there will soon be a train. I will get upon the
soonness of the train and ride into the now of Paris. No, I must change
at a station called Briouse did you say, Good-bye, _mes amis, et bonne
chance!_ They disappear, pulling and pushing a cart _les deux balayeurs
... de mes couilles ..._ by Jove what a tin noise is coming, see the
wooden engineer, he makes a funny gesture utterly composed (composed
silently and entirely) of _merde_. _Merde!_ _Merde._ A wee tiny absurd
whistle coming from nowhere, from outside of me. Two men opposite. Jolt.
A few houses, a fence, a wall, a bit of _neige_ float foolishly by and
through a window. These gentlemen in my compartment do not seem to know
that La Misère exists. They are talking politics. Thinking that I don't
understand. By Jesus, that's a good one. "Pardon me, gentlemen, but does
one change at the next station for Paris?" Surprised. I thought so. "Yes,
Monsieur, the next station." By Hell I surprised somebody....

Who are a million, a trillion, a nonillion young men? All are standing. I
am standing. We are wedged in and on and over and under each other.
Sardines. Knew a man once who was arrested for stealing sardines. I,
sardine, look at three sardines, at three million sardines, at a carful
of sardines. How did I get here? Oh yes of course. Briouse. Horrible name
"Briouse." Made a bluff at riding _deuxième classe_ on a _troisième
classe_ ticket bought for me by _les deux balayeurs_. Gentleman in the
compartment talked French with me till conductor appeared. "Tickets,
gentlemen?" I extended mine dumbly. He gave me a look. "How? This is
third class!" I looked intelligently ignorant. "_Il ne comprend pas
français_" says the gentleman. "Ah!" says the conductor, "tease ease
eye-ee thoorde claz tea-keat. You air een tea say-coend claz. You weel go
ean-too tea thoorde claz weal you yes pleace at once?" So I got stung
after all. Third is more amusing certainly, though god-damn hot with
these sardines, including myself of course. O yes of course. _Poilus en
permission._ Very old some. Others mere kids. Once saw a _planton_ who
never saw a razor. Yet he was _reformé. C'est la guerre._ Several of us
get off and stretch at a little tank-town-station. Engine thumping up
front somewhere in the darkness. Wait. They get their _bidons_ filled.
Wish I had a _bidon_, a _dis-donc bidon n'est-ce pas. Faut pas t'en
faire_, who sang or said that?

PEE-p....

We're off.

I am almost asleep. Or myself. What's the matter here? Sardines writhing
about, cut it out, no room for that sort of thing. Jolt.

"Paris."

Morning. Morning in Paris. I found my bed full of fleas this morning, and
I couldn't catch the fleas, though I tried hard because I was ashamed
that anyone should find fleas in my bed which is at the Hotel des Saints
Pères whither I went in a fiacre and the driver didn't know where it was.
Wonderful. This is the American embassy. I must look funny in my
_pélisse_. Thank God for the breakfast I ate somewhere ... good-looking
girl, Parisienne, at the switch-board upstairs. "Go right in, sir." A-I
English by God. So this is the person to whom Edward E. Cummings is
immediately to report.

"Is this Mr. Cummings?"

"Yes." Rather a young man, very young in fact. Jove I must look queer.

"Sit down! We've been looking all over creation for you."

"Yes?"

"Have some cigarettes?"

"Yes."

By God he gives me a sac of Bull. Extravagant they are at the American
Embassy. Can I roll one? I can. I do.

Conversation. Pleased to see me. Thought I was lost for good. Tried every
means to locate me. Just discovered where I was. What was it like? No,
really? You don't mean it! Well I'll be damned! Look here; this man B.,
what sort of a fellow is he? Well I'm interested to hear you say that.
Look at this correspondence. It seemed to me that a fellow who could
write like that wasn't dangerous. Must be a little queer. Tell me, isn't
he a trifle foolish? That's what I thought. Now I'd advise you to leave
France as soon as you can. They're picking up ambulance men left and
right, men who've got no business to be in Paris. Do you want to leave by
the next boat? I'd advise it. Good. Got money? If you haven't we'll pay
your fare. Or half of it. Plenty, eh? Norton-Harjes, I see. Mind going
second class? Good. Not much difference on this line. Now you can take
these papers and go to.... No time to lose, as she sails to-morrow.
That's it. Grab a taxi, and hustle. When you've got those signatures
bring them to me and I'll fix you all up. Get your ticket first, here's a
letter to the manager of the Compagnie Générale. Then go through the
police department. You can do it if you hurry. See you later. Make it
quick, eh? Good-bye!

The streets. _Les rues de Paris._ I walked past Notre Dame. I bought
tobacco. Jews are peddling things with American trade-marks on them,
because in a day or two it's Christmas I suppose. Jesus it is cold. Dirty
snow. Huddling people. _La guerre._ Always _la guerre_. And chill. Goes
through these big mittens. To-morrow I shall be on the ocean. Pretty neat
the way that passport was put through. Rode all day in a taxi, two
cylinders, running on one. Everywhere waiting lines. I stepped to the
head and was attended to by the officials of the great and good French
Government. Gad that's a good one. A good one on _le gouvernement
français_. Pretty good. _Les rues sont tristes._ Perhaps there's no
Christmas, perhaps the French Government has forbidden Christmas. Clerk
at Norton-Harjes seemed astonished to see me. O God it is cold in Paris.
Everyone looks hard under lamplight, because it's winter I suppose.
Everyone hurried. Everyone hard. Everyone cold. Everyone huddling.
Everyone alive; alive: alive.

Shall I give this man five francs for dressing my hand? He said "anything
you like, monsieur." Ship's doctor's probably well-paid. Probably not.
Better hurry before I put my lunch. Awe-inspiring stink, because it's in
the bow. Little member of the crew immersing his guess-what in a can of
some liquid or other, groaning from time to time, staggers when the boat
tilts. "_Merci bien, Monsieur!_" That was the proper thing. Now for
the--never can reach it--here's the _première classe_ one--any port in a
storm.... Feel better now. Narrowly missed American officer but just
managed to make it. Was it yesterday or day before saw the Vaterland, I
mean the what deuce is it--the biggest afloat in the world boat. Damned
rough. Snow falling. Almost slid through the railing that time. Snow. The
snow is falling into the sea; which quietly receives it: into which it
utterly and peacefully disappears. Man with a college degree returning
from Spain, not disagreeable sort, talks Spanish with that fat man who's
an Argentinian.--Tinian?--Tinish, perhaps. All the same. In other words
Tin. Nobody at the table knows I speak English or am American. Hell,
that's a good one on nobody. That's a pretty fat kind of a joke on
nobody. Think I'm French. Talk mostly with those three or four Frenchmen
going on permission to somewhere via New York. One has an accordion. Like
second class. Wait till you see the _gratte-ciels_, I tell 'em. They say
"_Oui?_" and don't believe. I'll show them. America. The land of the flea
and the home of the dag'--short for dago of course. My spirits are
constantly improving. Funny Christmas, second day out. Wonder if we'll
dock New Year's Day. My God what a list to starboard. They say a waiter
broke his arm when it happened, ballast shifted. Don't believe it.
Something wrong. I know I nearly fell downstairs....

My God what an ugly island. Hope we don't stay here long. All the
red-bloods first-class much excited about land. Damned ugly, I think.

Hullo.

The tall, impossibly tall, incomparably tall, city shoulderingly upward
into hard sunlight leaned a little through the octaves of its parallel
edges, leaningly strode upward into firm hard snowy sunlight; the noises
of America nearingly throbbed with smokes and hurrying dots which are men
and which are women and which are things new and curious and hard and
strange and vibrant and immense, lifting with a great ondulous stride
firmly into immortal sunlight....





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Enormous Room" ***

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