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 sûr._”—“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 _permissionnaires_ 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 Algériens,
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. “_Laquelle?_”
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_ 150-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: “_Ça 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 down 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, n’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?_”