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 no 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 ate with the prisoners. I will

mention him again à propos 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 Übermensch; 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

emmerdant._” “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 im-pos-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 of 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 môme. 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 francs, deux cent

francs, trois cent francs, 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 pesant_’; I don’t think there’s anything in

English for it; _il avait l’air pesant_, 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 flourishing 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

colique, that, the other, it’s colique—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 emmerdant_,” 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 Pet-airs 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, ’plucher 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 résistance_ (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, had 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 Curé—“_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 _seau_

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.