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 pas comme moi, un pet-it
homme laid, 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 ses ailes
(Quackquackquack)
Il disait à sa canarde fidèle
(Quackquackquack)
Il disait (Quackquackquack)
Il faisait (Quackquackquack)
Quand_” (spelling mine)
“_finirons nos desseins,
Quack.
Quack.
Quack.
Qua-
ck._”
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 tintinnabulous. 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,