Bold might the _planton_ be; we were no _fainéants_. We made a little

speech to everyone in general desiring them to lend us their belts. The

Zulu, the immensity of whose pleasure in this venture cannot be even

indicated, stripped off his belt with unearthly agility—Monsieur

Auguste gave his, which we tongue-holed to The Zulu’s—somebody else

contributed a necktie—another a shoe-string—The Young Pole his scarf,

of which he was impossibly proud—etc. The extraordinary rope so

constructed was now tried out in The Enormous Room, and found to be

about thirty-eight feet long; or in other words of ample length,

considering that the window itself was only three stories above terra

firma. Margherite was put on her guard by signs, executed when the

_planton’s_ back was turned (which it was exactly half the time, as his

patrol stretched at right angles to the wing of the building whose

third story we occupied). Having attached the minute bucket to one end

(the stronger looking end, the end which had more belts and less

neckties and handkerchiefs) of our improvised rope, B., Harree, myself

and The Zulu bided our time at the window—then seizing a favourable

opportunity, in enormous haste began paying out the infernal

contrivance. Down went the sinful tin-pail, safely past the

window-ledge just below us, straight and true to the waiting hands of

the faithful Margherite—who had just received it and was on the point

of undoing the bucket from the first belt when, lo! who should come in

sight around the corner but the pimply-faced brilliantly-uniformed

glitteringly-putteed _sergeant de plantons lui-même_. Such amazement as

dominated his puny features I have rarely seen equalled. He stopped

dead in his tracks; for one second stupidly contemplated the window,

ourselves, the wall, seven neckties, five belts, three handkerchiefs, a

scarf, two shoe-strings, the jam pail, and Margherite—then, wheeling,

noticed the _planton_ (who peacefully and with dignity was pursuing a

course which carried him further and further from the zone of

operations) and finally, spinning around again, cried shrilly

“_Qu’est-ce que vous avez foutu avec cette machine-là?_”

At which cry the _planton_ staggered, rotated, brought his gun clumsily

off his shoulder, and stared, trembling all over with emotion, at his

superior.

“_Là-bas!_” screamed the pimply _sergeant de plantons_, pointing

fiercely in our direction.

Margherite, at his first command, had let go the jam-pail and sought

shelter in the building. Simultaneously with her flight we all began

pulling on the rope for dear life, making the bucket bound against the

wall.

Upon hearing the dreadful exclamation “_Là-bas!_” the _planton_ almost

fell down. The sight which greeted his eyes caused him to excrete a

single mouthful of vivid profanity, made him grip his gun like a hero,

set every nerve in his noble and faithful body tingling. Apparently

however he had forgotten completely his gun, which lay faithfully and

expectingly in his two noble hands.

“Attention!” screamed the sergeant.

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

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

The _planton_, cool as steel, raised his gun.

“_NOM DE DIEU TIREZ!_”

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

below us.

The _planton_ took aim, falling fearlessly on one knee, and closing

both eyes. I confess that my blood stood on tip-toe; but what was death

to the loss of that jam-bucket, let alone everyone’s apparel which

everyone had so generously loaned? We kept on hauling silently. Out of

the corner of my eye I beheld the _planton_—now on both knees, musket

held to his shoulder by his left arm and pointing unflinchingly at us

one and all—hunting with his right arm and hand in his belt for

cartridges! A few seconds after this fleeting glimpse of heroic

devotion had penetrated my considerably heightened sensitivity—UP

suddenly came the bucket and over backwards we all went together on the

floor of The Enormous Room. And as we fell I heard a cry like the cry

of a boiler announcing noon—

“Too late!”

I recollect that I lay on the floor for some minutes, half on top of

The Zulu and three-quarters smothered by Monsieur Auguste, shaking with

laughter….

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

I believe no one (curiously enough) got punished for this atrocious

misdemeanour—except the _planton_; who was punished for not shooting

us, although God knows he had done his very best.

And now I must chronicle the famous duel which took place between The

Zulu’s compatriot, The Young Pole, and that herebefore introduced pimp,

The Fighting Sheeney; a duel which came as a climax to a vast deal of

teasing on the part of The Young Pole—who, as previously remarked, had

not learned his lesson from Bill The Hollander with the thoroughness

which one might have expected of him.

In addition to a bit of French and considerable Spanish, Rockyfeller’s

valet spoke Russian very (I did not have to be told) badly. The Young

Pole, perhaps sore at being rolled on the floor of The Enormous Room by

the worthy Sheeney, set about nagging him just as he had done in the

case of neighbour Bill. His favourite epithet for the conqueror was

“_moshki_” or “_moski_” I never was sure which. Whatever it meant (The

Young Pole and Monsieur Auguste informed me that it meant “Jew” in a

highly derogatory sense) its effect upon the noble Sheeney was

definitely unpleasant. But when coupled with the word “_moskosi_,”

accent on the second syllable or long o, its effect was more than

unpleasant—it was really disagreeable. At intervals throughout the day,

on promenade, of an evening, the ugly phrase

“_MOS-ki mosKOsi_”

resounded through The Enormous Room. The Fighting Sheeney, then rapidly

convalescing from syphilis, bided his time. The Young Pole moreover had

a way of jesting upon the subject of The Sheeney’s infirmity. He would,

particularly during the afternoon promenade, shout various none too

subtle allusions to Moshki’s physical condition for the benefit of _les

femmes_. And in response would come peals of laughter from the girls’

windows, shrill peals and deep guttural peals intersecting and breaking

joints like overlapping shingles on the roof of Craziness. So hearty

did these responses become one afternoon that, in answer to loud pleas

from the injured Moshki, the pimply _sergeant de plantons_ himself came

to the gate in the barbed wire fence and delivered a lecture upon the

seriousness of venereal ailments (heart-felt, I should judge by the

looks of him), as follows:

“_Il ne faut pas rigoler de ça. Savez-vous? C’est une maladie, ça,_”

which little sermon contrasted agreeably with his usual remarks

concerning, and in the presence of, _les femmes_, whereof the essence

lay in a single phrase of prepositional significance—

“_bon pour coucher avec_”

he would say shrilly, his puny eyes assuming an expression of amorous

wisdom which was most becoming….

One day we were all upon afternoon promenade, (it being _beau temps_

for that part of the world), under the auspices of by all odds one of

the littlest and mildest and most delicate specimens of mankind that

ever donned the high and dangerous duties of a _planton_. As B. says:

“He always looked like a June bride.” This mannikin could not have been

five feet high, was perfectly proportioned (unless we except the musket

upon his shoulder and the bayonet at his belt), and minced to and fro

with a feminine grace which suggested—at least to _les deux citoyens_

of These United States—the extremely authentic epithet “fairy.” He had

such a pretty face! and so cute a moustache! and such darling legs! and

such a wonderful smile! For plantonic purposes the smile—which brought

two little dimples into his pink cheeks—was for the most part

suppressed. However it was impossible for this little thing to look

stern: the best he could do was to look poignantly sad. Which he did

with great success, standing like a tragic last piece of uneaten candy

in his big box at the end of the _cour_, and eyeing the sinful _hommes_

with sad pretty eyes. Won’t anyone eat me?—he seemed to ask.—I’m really

delicious, you know, perfectly delicious, really I am.

To resume: everyone being in the _cour_, it was well filled, not only

from the point of view of space but of sound. A barnyard crammed with

pigs, cows, horses, ducks, geese, hens, cats and dogs could not

possibly have produced one-fifth of the racket that emanated,

spontaneously and inevitably, from the _cour_. Above which racket I

heard _tout à coup_ a roar of pain and surprise; and looking up with

some interest and also in some alarm, beheld The Young Pole backing and

filling and slipping in the deep ooze under the strenuous jolts, jabs

and even haymakers of The Fighting Sheeney, who, with his coat off and

his cap off and his shirt open at the neck, was swatting luxuriously

and for all he was worth that round helpless face and that

peaches-and-cream complexion. From where I stood, at a distance of six

or eight yards, the impact of the Sheeney’s fist on The Young Pole’s

jaw and cheeks was disconcertingly audible. The latter made not the

slightest attempt to defend himself, let alone retaliate; he merely

skidded about, roaring and clutching desperately out of harm’s way his

long white scarf, of which (as I have mentioned) he was extremely

proud. But for the sheer brutality of the scene it would have been

highly ludicrous. The Sheeney was swinging like a windmill and

hammering like a blacksmith. His ugly head lowered, the chin

protruding, lips drawn back in a snarl, teeth sticking forth like a

gorilla’s, he banged and smote that moon-shaped physiognomy as if his

life depended upon utterly annihilating it. And annihilate it he

doubtless would have, but for the prompt (not to say punctual) heroism

of The June Bride—who, lowering his huge gun, made a rush for the

fight; stopped at a safe distance; and began squeaking at the very top

and even summit of his faint girlish voice:

“_Aux armes! Aux armes!_”

which plaintive and intrepid utterance by virtue of its very fragility

penetrated the building and released The Black Holster, who bounded

through the gate, roaring a salutation as he bounded, and in a jiffy

had cuffed the participants apart. “All right, whose fault is this?” he

roared. And a number of highly reputable spectators, such as Judas and

The Fighting Sheeney himself, said it was The Young Pole’s fault.

“_Allez! Au cabinot! De suite!_” And off trickled the sobbing Young

Pole, winding his great scarf comfortingly about him, to the dungeon.

Some few minutes later we encountered The Zulu speaking with Monsieur

Auguste. Monsieur Auguste was very sorry. He admitted that The Young

Pole had brought his punishment upon himself. But he was only a boy.

The Zulu’s reaction to the affair was absolutely profound: he indicated

_les femmes_ with one eye, his trousers with another, and converted his

utterly plastic personality into an amorous machine for several

seconds, thereby vividly indicating the root of the difficulty. That

the stupidity of his friend, The Young Pole, hurt The Zulu deeply I

discovered by looking at him as he lay in bed the next morning, limply

and sorrowfully prone; beside him the empty _paillasse_, which meant

_cabinot_… his perfectly extraordinary face (a face perfectly at once

fluent and angular, expressionless and sensitive) told me many things

whereof even The Zulu might not speak, things which in order entirely

to suffer he kept carefully and thoroughly ensconced behind his rigid

and mobile eyes.

From the day that The Young Pole emerged from _cabinot_ he was our

friend. The _blague_ had been at last knocked out of him, thanks to Un

Mangeur de Blanc, as the little Machine-Fixer expressively called The

Fighting Sheeney. Which _mangeur_, by the way (having been exonerated

from all blame by the more enlightened spectators of the unequal

battle) strode immediately and ferociously over to B. and me, a hideous

grin crackling upon the coarse surface of his mug, and demanded—hiking

at the front of his trousers—

“_Bon, eh? Bien fait, eh?_”

and a few days later asked us for money, even hinting that he would be

pleased to become our special protector. I think, as a matter of fact,

we “lent” him one-eighth of what he wanted (perhaps we lent him five

cents) in order to avoid trouble and get rid of him. At any rate, he

didn’t bother us particularly afterwards; and if a nickel could

accomplish that a nickel should be proud of itself.

And always, through the falling greyness of the desolate Autumn, The

Zulu was beside us, or wrapped around a tree in the _cour_, or melting

in a post after tapping Mexique in a game of hide-and-seek, or

suffering from toothache—God, I wish I could see him expressing for us

the wickedness of toothache—or losing his shoes and finding them under

Garibaldi’s bed (with a huge perpendicular wink which told tomes about

Garibaldi’s fatal propensities for ownership), or marvelling silently

at the power of _les femmes à propos_ his young friend—who,

occasionally resuming his former bravado, would stand in the black evil

rain with his white farm scarf twined about him, singing as of old:

“_Je suis content pour mettre dedans suis pas pressé pour tirer

ah-la-la-la …_”

… And the Zulu came out of _la commission_ with identically the

expressionless expression which he had carried into it; and God knows

what The Three Wise Men found out about him, but (whatever it was) they

never found and never will find that Something whose discovery was

worth to me more than all the round and powerless money of the

world—limbs’ tin grace, wooden wink, shoulderless, unhurried body,

velocity of a grasshopper, soul up under his arm-pits, mysteriously

falling over the ownness of two feet, floating fish of his slimness

half a bird….

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

indivisible things.

X.

SURPLICE

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

I will admit, in the beginning, that I never knew Surplice. This for

the simple reason that I am unwilling to know except as a last

resource. And it is by contrast with Harree The Hollander, whom I knew,

and Judas, whom I knew, that I shall be able to give you (perhaps) a

little of Surplice, whom I did not know. For that matter, I think

Monsieur Auguste was the only person who might possibly have known him;

and I doubt whether Monsieur Auguste was capable of descending to such

depths in the case of so fine a person as Surplice.

Take a sheer animal of a man. Take the incredible Hollander with

cobalt-blue breeches, shock of orange hair pasted over forehead, pink

long face, twenty-six years old, had been in all the countries of all

the world: “Australia girl fine girl—Japanese girl cleanest girl of the

world—Spanish girl all right—English girl no good, no face—everywhere

these things: Norway sailors German girls Sweedisher matches Holland

candles” … had been to Philadelphia; worked on a yacht for a

millionaire; knew and had worked in the Krupp factories; was on two

boats torpedoed and one which struck a mine when in sight of shore

through the “looking-glass”: “Holland almost no soldier—India” (the

Dutch Indies) “nice place, always warm there, I was in cavalry; if you

kill a man or steal one hundred franc or anything, in prison

twenty-four hours; every week black girl sleep with you because

government want white children, black girl fine girl, always doing

something, your fingernails or clean your ears or make wind because

it’s hot…. No one can beat German people; if Kaiser tell man to kill

his father and mother he do it quick!”—the tall, strong, coarse, vital

youth who remarked:

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

Take this animal. You hear him, you are afraid of him, you smell and

you see him and you know him—but you do not touch him.

Or a man who makes us thank God for animals, Judas, as we called him:

who keeps his moustaches in press during the night (by means of a kind

of transparent frame which is held in place by a band over his head);

who grows the nails of his two little fingers with infinite care; has

two girls with both of whom he flirts carefully and wisely, without

ever once getting into trouble; talks in French; converses in Belgian;

can speak eight languages and is therefore always useful to Monsieur le

Surveillant—Judas with his shining horrible forehead, pecked with

little indentures; with his Reynard full-face—Judas with his pale

almost putrescent fatty body in the _douche_—Judas with whom I talked

one night about Russia, he wearing my _pelisse_—the frightful and

impeccable Judas: take this man. You see him, you smell the hot stale

odour of Judas’ body; you are not afraid of him, in fact, you hate him;

you hear him and you know him. But you do not touch him.

And now take Surplice, whom I see and hear and smell and touch and even

taste, and whom I do not know.

Take him in dawn’s soft squareness, gently stooping to pick chewed

cigarette ends from the spitty floor … hear him, all night: retchings

which light into the dark … see him all day and all days, collecting

his soaked ends and stuffing them gently into his round pipe (when he

can find none he smokes tranquilly little splinters of wood) … watch

him scratching his back (exactly like a bear) on the wall … or in the

_cour_, speaking to no one, sunning his soul….

He is, we think, Polish. Monsieur Auguste is very kind to him, Monsieur

Auguste can understand a few words of his language and thinks they mean

to be Polish. That they are trying hard to be and never can be Polish.

Everyone else roars at him, Judas refers to him before his face as a

dirty pig, Monsieur Peters cries angrily: “_Il ne faut pas cracher par

terre_” eliciting a humble not to stay abject apology; the Belgians

spit on him; the Hollanders chaff him and bulldoze him now and then,

crying “Syph’lis”—at which he corrects them with offended majesty

“_pas syph’lis, Surplice_”

causing shouts of laughter from everyone—of nobody can he say My

Friend, of no one has he ever or will he ever say My Enemy.

When there is labour to do he works like a dog … the day we had

_nettoyage de chambre_, for instance, and Surplice and The Hat did most

of the work; and B. and I were caught by the _planton_ trying to stroll

out into the _cour_… every morning he takes the pail of solid excrement

down, without anyone’s suggesting that he take it; takes it as if it

were his, empties it in the sewer just beyond the _cour des femmes_ or

pours a little (just a little) very delicately on the garden where

Monsieur le Directeur is growing a flower for his daughter—he has, in

fact, an unobstreperous affinity for excrement; he lives in it; he is

shaggy and spotted and blotched with it; he sleeps in it; he puts it in

his pipe and says it is delicious….

And he is intensely religious, religious with a terrible and

exceedingly beautiful and absurd intensity … every Friday he will be

found sitting on a little kind of stool by his _paillasse_ reading his

prayer-book upside down; turning with enormous delicacy the thin

difficult leaves, smiling to himself as he sees and does not read.

Surplice is actually religious, and so are Garibaldi and I think The

Woodchuck (a little dark sad man who spits blood with regularity); by

which I mean they go to _la messe_ for _la messe_, whereas everyone

else goes _pour voir les femmes_. And I don’t know for certain why The

Woodchuck goes, but I think it’s because he feels entirely sure he will

die. And Garibaldi is afraid, immensely afraid. And Surplice goes in

order to be surprised, surprised by the amazing gentleness and delicacy

of God—Who put him, Surplice, upon his knees in La Ferté Macé, knowing

that Surplice would appreciate His so doing.

He is utterly ignorant. He thinks America is out of a particular window

on your left as you enter The Enormous Room. He cannot understand the

submarine. He does now know that there is a war. On being informed upon

these subjects he is unutterably surprised, he is inexpressibly

astonished. He derives huge pleasure from this astonishment. His filthy

rather proudly noble face radiates the pleasure he receives upon being

informed that people are killing people for nobody knows what reason,

that boats go under water and fire six-foot long bullets at ships, that

America is not really outside this window close to which we are

talking, that America is, in fact, over the sea. The sea: is that

water?—“_c’est de l’eau, monsieur?_” Ah: a great quantity of water;

enormous amounts of water, water and then water; water and water and

water and water and water. “Ah! You cannot see the other side of this

water, monsieur? Wonderful, monsieur!”—He meditates it, smiling

quietly; its wonder, how wonderful it is, no other side, and yet—the

sea. In which fish swim. Wonderful.

He is utterly curious. He is utterly hungry. We have bought cheese with

The Zulu’s money. Surplice comes up, bows timidly and ingratiatingly

with the demeanour of a million-times whipped but somewhat proud dog.

He smiles. He says nothing, being terribly embarrassed. To help his

embarrassment, we pretend we do not see him. That makes things better:

“_Fromage, monsieur?_”

“_Oui, c’est du fromage._”

“_Ah-h-h-h-h-h-h…._”

his astonishment is supreme. _C’est du fromage._ He ponders this. After

a little

“_Monsieur, c’est bon, monsieur?_”

asking the question as if his very life depended on the answer: “Yes,

it is good,” we tell him reassuringly.

“_Ah-h-h. Ah-h._”

He is once more superlatively happy. It is good, _le fromage_. Could

anything be more superbly amazing? After perhaps a minute

“_monsieur—monsieur—c’est chèr le fromage?_”

“Very,” we tell him truthfully. He smiles, blissfully astonished. Then,

with extreme delicacy and the utmost timidity conceivable

“_monsieur, combien ça coute, monsieur?_”

We tell him. He totters with astonishment and happiness. Only now, as

if we had just conceived the idea, we say carelessly

“_en voulez-vous?_”

He straightens, thrilled from the top of his rather beautiful filthy

head to the soleless slippers with which he promenades in rain and

frost:

“_Merci, Monsieur!_”

We cut him a piece. He takes it quiveringly, holds it a second as a

king might hold and contemplate the best and biggest jewel of his

realm, turns with profuse thanks to us—and disappears….

He is perhaps most curious of this pleasantly sounding thing which

everyone around him, everyone who curses and spits upon and bullies

him, desires with a terrible desire— _Liberté_. Whenever anyone departs

Surplice is in an ecstasy of quiet excitement. The lucky man may be

Fritz; for whom Bathhouse John is taking up a collection as if he,

Fritz, were a Hollander and not a Dane—for whom Bathhouse John is

striding hither and thither, shaking a hat into which we drop coins for

Fritz; Bathhouse John, chipmunk-cheeked, who talks Belgian, French,

English and Dutch in his dreams, who has been two years in La Ferté

(and they say he declined to leave, once, when given the chance), who

cries “_baigneur de femmes moi,_” and every night hoists himself into

his wooden bunk crying “goo-d ni-te”; whose favourite joke is “_une

section pour les femmes_,” which he shouts occasionally in the _cour_

as he lifts his paper-soled slippers and stamps in the freezing mud,

chuckling and blowing his nose on the Union Jack … and now Fritz,

beaming with joy, shakes hands and thanks us all and says to me

“Good-bye, Johnny,” and waves and is gone forever—and behind me I hear

a timid voice

“_monsieur, Liberté?_”

and I say Yes, feeling that Yes in my belly and in my head at the same

instant; and Surplice stands beside me, quietly marvelling, extremely

happy, uncaring that _le parti_ did not think to say good-bye to him.

Or it may be Harree and Pompom who are running to and fro shaking hands

with everybody in the wildest state of excitement, and I hear a voice

behind me:

“_Liberté, monsieur? Liberté?_”

and I say, No, Précigne, feeling weirdly depressed, and Surplice is

standing to my left, contemplating the departure of the incorrigibles

with interested disappointment—Surplice of whom no man takes any notice

when that man leaves, be it for Hell or Paradise….

And once a week the _maître de chambre_ throws soap on the mattresses,

and I hear a voice

“_monsieur, voulez pas?_”

and Surplice is asking that we give him our soap to wash with.

Sometimes, when he has made _quelques sous_ by washing for others, he

stalks quietly to the Butcher’s chair (everyone else who wants a shave

having been served) and receives with shut eyes and a patient

expression the blade of The Butcher’s dullest razor—for The Butcher is

not a man to waste a good razor on Surplice; he, The Butcher, as we

call him, the successor of The Frog (who one day somehow managed to

disappear like his predecessor The Barber), being a thug and a burglar

fond of telling us pleasantly about German towns and prisons, prisons

where men are not allowed to smoke, clean prisons where there is a

daily medical inspection, where anyone who thinks he has a grievance of

any sort has the right of immediate and direct appeal; he, The Butcher,

being perhaps happiest when he can spend an evening showing us little

parlour tricks fit for children of four and three years old; quite at

his best when he remarks:

“Sickness doesn’t exist in France,”

meaning that one is either well or dead; or

“If they (the French) get an inventor they put him in prison.”

—So The Butcher is stooping heavily upon Surplice and slicing and

gashing busily and carelessly, his thick lips stuck a little pursewise,

his buried pig’s eyes glistening—and in a moment he cries “_Fini!_” and

poor Surplice rises unsteadily, horribly slashed, bleeding from at

least three two-inch cuts and a dozen large scratches; totters over to

his couch holding on to his face as if he were afraid it would fall off

any moment; and lies down gently at full length, sighing with

pleasurable surprise, cogitating the inestimable delights of

cleanness….

It struck me at the time as intensely interesting that, in the case of

a certain type of human being, the more cruel are the miseries

inflicted upon him the more cruel does he become toward anyone who is

so unfortunate as to be weaker or more miserable than himself. Or

perhaps I should say that nearly every human being, given sufficiently

miserable circumstances, will from time to time react to those very

circumstances (whereby his own personality is mutilated) through a

deliberate mutilation on his own part of a weaker or already more

mutilated personality. I daresay that this is perfectly obvious. I do

not pretend to have made a discovery. On the contrary, I merely state

what interested me peculiarly in the course of my sojourn at La Ferté:

I mention that I was extremely moved to find that, however busy sixty

men may be kept suffering in common, there is always one man or two or

three men who can always find time to make certain that their comrades

enjoy a little extra suffering. In the case of Surplice, to be the butt

of everyone’s ridicule could not be called precisely suffering;

inasmuch as Surplice, being unspeakably lonely, enjoyed any and all

insults for the simple reason that they constituted or at least implied

a recognition of his existence. To be made a fool of was, to this

otherwise completely neglected individual, a mark of distinction;

something to take pleasure in; to be proud of. The inhabitants of The

Enormous Room had given to Surplice a small but essential part in the

drama of La Misère: he would play that part to the utmost of his

ability; the cap-and-bells should not grace a head unworthy of their

high significance. He would be a great fool, since that was his

function; a supreme entertainer, since his duty was to amuse. After

all, men in La Misère as well as anywhere else rightly demand a certain

amount of amusement; amusement is, indeed, peculiarly essential to

suffering; in proportion as we are able to be amused we are able to

suffer; I, Surplice, am a very necessary creature after all.

I recall one day when Surplice beautifully demonstrated his ability to

play the fool. Someone had crept up behind him as he was stalking to

and fro, head in air proudly, hands in pockets, pipe in teeth, and had

(after several heart-breaking failures) succeeded in attaching to the

back of his jacket by means of a pin a huge placard carefully prepared

beforehand, bearing the numerical inscription

606

in vast writing. The attacher, having accomplished his difficult feat,

crept away. So soon as he reached his _paillasse_ a volley of shouts

went up from all directions, shouts in which all nationalities joined,

shouts or rather jeers which made the pillars tremble and the windows

rattle—

“_SIX CENT SIX! SYPH’LIS!_”

Surplice started from his reverie, removed his pipe from his lips, drew

himself up proudly, and—facing one after another the sides of The

Enormous Room—blustered in his bad and rapid French accent:

“_Pas syph’lis! Pas syph’lis!_”

at which, rocking with mirth, everyone responded at the top of his

voice:

“_SIX CENT SIX!_”

Whereat, enraged, Surplice made a dash at Pete The Shadow and was

greeted by

“Get away, you bloody Polak, or I’ll give you something you’ll be sorry

for”—this from the lips of America Lakes. Cowed, but as majestic as

ever, Surplice attempted to resume his promenade and his composure

together. The din bulged:

“_Six cent six! Syph’lis! Six cent Six!_”

—increasing in volume with every instant. Surplice, beside himself with

rage, rushed another of his fellow-captives (a little old man, who fled

under the table) and elicited threats of:

“Come on now, you Polak hoor, and quit that business or I’ll kill you,”

upon which he dug his hands into the pockets of his almost transparent

pantaloons and marched away in a fury, literally frothing at the

mouth.—

“_Six Cent Six!_”

everyone cried. Surplice stamped with wrath and mortification. “_C’est

dommage,_” Monsieur Auguste said gently beside me. “_C’est un

bon-homme, le pauvre, il ne faut pas l’em-merd-er._”

“Look behind you!”

somebody yelled. Surplice wheeled, exactly like a kitten trying to

catch its own tail, and provoked thunders of laughter. Nor could

anything at once more pitiful and ridiculous, more ludicrous and

horrible, be imagined.

“On your coat! Look on your jacket!”

Surplice bent backward, staring over his left, then his right,

shoulder, pulled at his jacket first one way then the other—thereby

making his improvised tail to wag, which sent The Enormous Room into

spasms of merriment—finally caught sight of the incriminating

appendage, pulled his coat to the left, seized the paper, tore it off,

threw it fiercely down, and stamped madly on the crumpled 606;

spluttering and blustering and waving his arms; slavering like a mad

dog. Then he faced the most prominently vociferous corner and muttered

thickly and crazily:

“_Wuhwuhwuhwuhwuh…._”

Then he strode rapidly to his _paillasse_ and lay down; in which

position I caught him, a few minutes later, smiling and even chuckling

… very happy … as only an actor is happy whose efforts have been

greeted with universal applause….

In addition to being called “Syph’lis” he was popularly known as

“Chaude Pisse, the Pole.” If there is anything particularly terrifying

about prisons, or at least imitations of prisons such as La Ferté, it

is possibly the utter obviousness with which (quite unknown to

themselves) the prisoners demonstrate willy-nilly certain fundamental

psychological laws. The case of Surplice is a very exquisite example:

everyone, of course, is afraid of _les maladies

vénériennes_—accordingly all pick an individual (of whose inner life

they know and desire to know nothing, whose external appearance

satisfies the requirements of the mind _à propos_ what is foul and

disgusting) and, having tacitly agreed upon this individual as a Symbol

of all that is evil, proceed to heap insults upon him and enjoy his

very natural discomfiture … but I shall remember Surplice on his both

knees sweeping sacredly together the spilled sawdust from a

spittoon-box knocked over by the heel of the omnipotent _planton_; and

smiling as he smiled at _la messe_ when Monsieur le Curé told him that

there was always Hell….

He told us one day a great and huge story of an important incident in

his life, as follows:

“_Monsieur_, disabled me—yes, _monsieur_—disabled—I work, many people,

house, very high, third floor, everybody, planks up there—planks no

good—all shake…” (here he began to stagger and rotate before us)

“begins to fall … falls, falls, all, all twenty-seven men—bricks—

planks—wheelbarrows—all—ten metres … _zuhzuhzuhzuhzuhPOOM_!… everybody

hurt, everybody killed, not me, injured … _oui monsieur_”—and he

smiled, rubbing his head foolishly. Twenty-seven men, bricks, planks

and wheelbarrows. Ten metres. Bricks and planks. Men and wheelbarrows….

Also he told us, one night, in his gentle, crazy, shrugging voice, that

once upon a time he played the fiddle with a big woman in

Alsace-Lorraine for fifty francs a night; “_c’est la misère_”—adding

quietly, “I can play well, I can play anything, I can play _n’importe

quoi_.”

Which I suppose and guess I scarcely believed—until one afternoon a man

brought up a harmonica which he had purchased _en ville_; and the man

tried it; and everyone tried it; and it was perhaps the cheapest

instrument and the poorest that money can buy, even in the fair country

of France; and everyone was disgusted—but, about six o’clock in the

evening, a voice came from behind the last experimenter; a timid hasty

voice:

“_monsieur, monsieur, permettez?_”

the last experimenter turned and to his amazement saw Chaude Pisse the

Pole, whom everyone had (of course) forgotten.

The man tossed the harmonica on the table with a scornful look (a

menacingly scornful look) at the object of universal execration; and

turned his back. Surplice, trembling from the summit of his filthy and

beautiful head to the naked soles of his filthy and beautiful feet,

covered the harmonica delicately and surely with one shaking paw;

seated himself with a surprisingly deliberate and graceful gesture;

closed his eyes, upon whose lashes there were big filthy tears … and

played….

… and suddenly:

He put the harmonica softly upon the table. He rose. He went quickly to

his _paillasse_. He neither moved nor spoke nor responded to the calls

for more music, to the cries of “_Bis!_”—“_Bien

joué!_”—“_Allez!_”—“_Va-z-y!_” He was crying, quietly and carefully, to

himself … quietly and carefully crying, not wishing to annoy anyone …

hoping that people could not see that Their Fool had temporarily failed

in his part.

The following day he was up as usual before anyone else, hunting for

chewed cigarette ends on the spitty slippery floor of The Enormous

Room; ready for insult, ready for ridicule, for buffets, for curses.

_Alors_—

One evening, some days after everyone who was fit for _la commission_

had enjoyed the privilege of examination by that inexorable and

delightful body—one evening very late, in fact, just before _lumières

éteintes_, a strange _planton_ arrived in The Enormous Room and

hurriedly read a list of five names, adding:

“_partir demain de bonne heure_”

and shut the door behind him. Surplice was, as usual, very interested,

enormously interested. So were we: for the names respectively belonged

to Monsieur Auguste, Monsieur Pet-airs, The Wanderer, Surplice and The

Spoonman. These men had been judged. These men were going to Précigne.

These men would be _prisonniers pour la durée de la guerre_.

I have already told how Monsieur Pet-airs sat with the frantically

weeping Wanderer writing letters, and sniffing with his big red nose,

and saying from time to time: “Be a man, Demestre, don’t cry, crying

does no good.”—Monsieur Auguste was broken-hearted. We did our best to

cheer him; we gave him a sort of Last Supper at our bedside, we heated

some red wine in the tin cup and he drank with us. We presented him

with certain tokens of our love and friendship, including—I remember—a

huge cheese … and then, before us, trembling with excitement, stood

Surplice—

We asked him to sit down. The onlookers (there were always onlookers at

every function, however personal, which involved Food or Drink) scowled

and laughed. _Le con_, Surplice, _chaude pisse_—how could he sit with

men and gentlemen? Surplice sat down gracefully and lightly on one of

our beds, taking extreme care not to strain the somewhat capricious

mechanism thereof; sat very proudly; erect; modest but unfearful. We

offered him a cup of wine. A kind of huge convulsion gripped, for an

instant, fiercely his entire face: then he said in a whisper of sheer

and unspeakable wonderment, leaning a little toward us without in any

way suggesting that the question might have an affirmative answer,

“_pour moi, monsieur?_”

We smiled at him and said “_Prenez, monsieur._” His eyes opened. I have

never seen eyes since. He remarked quietly, extending one hand with

majestic delicacy:

“_Merci, monsieur._”

… Before he left, B. gave him some socks and I presented him with a

flannel shirt, which he took softly and slowly and simply and otherwise

not as an American would take a million dollars.

“I will not forget you,” he said to us, as if in his own country he

were a more than very great king … and I think I know where that

country is, I think I know this; I, who never knew Surplice, know.

* * * * *

For he has the territory of harmonicas, the acres of flutes, the

meadows of clarinets, the domain of violins. And God says: Why did they

put you in prison? What did you do to the people? “I made them dance

and they put me in prison. The soot-people hopped; and to twinkle like

sparks on a chimney-back and I made eighty francs every _dimanche_, and

beer and wine, and to eat well. _Maintenant … c’est fini … Et tout de

suite_ (gesture of cutting himself in two) _la tête_.” And He says: “O

you who put the jerk into joys, come up hither. There’s a man up here

called Christ who likes the violin.”

XI.

JEAN LE NÈGRE

On a certain day the ringing of the bell and accompanying rush of men

to the window facing the entrance gate was supplemented by an

unparalleled volley of enthusiastic exclamations in all the languages

of La Ferté Macé—provoking in me a certainty that the queen of fair

women had arrived. This certainty thrillingly withered when I heard the

cry: “_Il y a un noir!_” Fritz was at the best peep-hole, resisting

successfully the onslaught of a dozen fellow prisoners, and of him I

demanded in English, “Who’s come?”—“Oh, a lot of girls,” he yelled,

“and there’s a NIGGER too”—hereupon writhing with laughter.

I attempted to get a look, but in vain; for by this at least two dozen

men were at the peep-hole, fighting and gesticulating and slapping each

other’s back with joy. However, my curiosity was not long in being

answered. I heard on the stairs the sound of mounting feet, and knew

that a couple of _plantons_ would before many minutes arrive at the

door with their new prey. So did everyone else—and from the farthest

beds uncouth figures sprang and rushed to the door, eager for the first

glimpse of the _nouveau_; which was very significant, as the ordinary

procedure on arrival of prisoners was for everybody to rush to his own

bed and stand guard over it.

Even as the _plantons_ fumbled with the locks I heard the inimitable,

unmistakable divine laugh of a negro. The door opened at last. Entered

a beautiful pillar of black strutting muscle topped with a tremendous

display of the whitest teeth on earth. The muscle bowed politely in our

direction, the grin remarked musically: “_Bo’jour, tou’l’monde_”; then

came a cascade of laughter. Its effect on the spectators was

instantaneous: they roared and danced with joy. “_Comment vous

appelez-vous?_” was fired from the hubbub.—“_J’m’appelle Jean, moi_,”

the muscle rapidly answered with sudden solemnity, proudly gazing to

left and right as if expecting a challenge to this statement: but when

none appeared, it relapsed as suddenly into laughter—as if hugely

amused at itself and everyone else including a little and tough boy,

whom I had not previously noted, although his entrance had coincided

with the muscle’s.

Thus into the _misère_ of La Ferté Macé stepped lightly and proudly

Jean le Nègre.

Of all the fine people in La Ferté, Monsieur Jean (“_le noir_” as he

was entitled by his enemies) swaggers in my memory as the finest.

Jean’s first act was to complete the distribution (begun, he announced,

among the _plantons_ who had escorted him upstairs) of two pockets full

of Cubebs. Right and left he gave them up to the last, remarking

carelessly, “_J’ne veux, moi._”

_Après la soupe_ (which occurred a few minutes after _le noir’s_ entry)

B. and I and the greater number of prisoners descended to the _cour_

for our afternoon promenade. The cook spotted us immediately and

desired us to “catch water”; which we did, three cartfuls of it,

earning our usual _café sucré_. On quitting the kitchen after this

delicious repast (which as usual mitigated somewhat the effects of the

swill that was our official nutriment) we entered the _cour_. And we

noticed at once a well-made figure standing conspicuously by itself,

and poring with extraordinary intentness over the pages of a London

Daily Mail which it was holding upside-down. The reader was culling

choice bits of news of a highly sensational nature, and exclaiming from

time to time: “You don’t say! Look, the King of England is sick. Some

news!… What? The queen too? Good God! What’s this?—My father is dead!

Oh, well. The war is over. Good.”—It was Jean le Nègre, playing a

little game with himself to beguile the time.

When we had mounted _à la chambre_, two or three tried to talk with

this extraordinary personage in French; at which he became very

superior and announced: “_J’suis anglais, moi. Parlez anglais.

Comprends pas français, moi._” At this a crowd escorted him over to B.

and me—anticipating great deeds in the English language. Jean looked at

us critically and said: “_Vous parlez anglais? Moi parlez

anglais._”—“We are Americans, and speak English,” I answered.—“_Moi

anglais_,” Jean said. “_Mon père, capitaine de gendarmes, Londres.

Comprends pas français, moi._ SPEE-Kingliss”—he laughed all over

himself.

At this display of English on Jean’s part the English-speaking

Hollanders began laughing. “The son of a bitch is crazy,” one said.

And from that moment B. and I got on famously with Jean.

His mind was a child’s. His use of language was sometimes exalted

fibbing, sometimes the purely picturesque. He courted above all the

sound of words, more or less disdaining their meaning. He told us

immediately (in pidgeon French) that he was born without a mother

because his mother died when he was born, that his father was (first)

sixteen (then) sixty years old, that his father _gagnait cinq cent

franc par jour_ (later, par _année_), that he was born in London and

not in England, that he was in the French army and had never been in

any army.

He did not, however, contradict himself in one statement: “_Les

français sont des cochons_”—to which we heartily agreed, and which won

him the approval of the Hollanders.

The next day I had my hands full acting as interpreter for “_le noir

qui comprends pas français_.” I was summoned from the _cour_ to

elucidate a great grief which Jean had been unable to explain to the

Gestionnaire. I mounted with a _planton_ to find Jean in hysterics,

speechless, his eyes starting out of his head. As nearly as I could

make out, Jean had had sixty francs when he arrived, which money he had

given to a _planton_ upon his arrival, the _planton_ having told Jean

that he would deposit the money with the Gestionnaire in Jean’s name

(Jean could not write). The _planton_ in question who looked

particularly innocent denied this charge upon my explaining Jean’s

version; while the Gestionnaire puffed and grumbled, disclaiming any

connection with the alleged theft and protesting sonorously that he was

hearing about Jean’s sixty francs for the first time. The Gestionnaire

shook his thick piggish finger at the book wherein all financial

transactions were to be found—from the year one to the present year,

month, day, hour and minute (or words to that effect). “_Mais c’est pas

là_” he kept repeating stupidly. The Surveillant was uh-ahing at a

great rate and attempting to pacify Jean in French. I myself was

somewhat fearful for Jean’s sanity and highly indignant at the

_planton_. The matter ended with the _planton’s_ being sent about his

business; simultaneously with Jean’s dismissal to the _cour_, whither I

accompanied him. My best efforts to comfort Jean in this matter were

quite futile. Like a child who has been unjustly punished he was

inconsolable. Great tears welled in his eyes. He kept repeating

“_sees-tee franc—planton voleur_,” and—absolutely like a child who in

anguish calls itself by the name which has been given itself by

grown-ups—“steel Jean munee.” To no avail I called the _planton_ a

_menteur_, a _voleur_, a _fils d’un chien_, and various other names.

Jean felt the wrong itself too keenly to be interested in my

denunciation of the mere agent through whom injustice had (as it

happened) been consummated.

But—again like an inconsolable child who weeps his heart out when no

human comfort avails and wakes the next day without an apparent trace

of the recent grief—Jean le Nègre, in the course of the next

twenty-four hours, had completely recovered his normal buoyancy of

spirit. The _sees-tee franc_ were gone. A wrong had been done. But that

was yesterday. To-day—

And he wandered up and down, joking, laughing, singing:

“_après la guerre finit_.” …

In the _cour_ Jean was the target of all female eyes. Handkerchiefs

were waved to him; phrases of the most amorous nature greeted his every

appearance. To all these demonstrations he by no means turned a deaf

ear; on the contrary. Jean was irrevocably vain. He boasted of having

been enormously popular with the girls wherever he went and of having

never disdained their admiration. In Paris one day—(and thus it

happened that we discovered why _le gouvernement français_ had arrested

Jean)—

One afternoon, having _rien à faire_, and being flush (owing to his

success as a thief, of which vocation he made a great deal, adding as

many ciphers to the amounts as fancy dictated) Jean happened to cast

his eyes in a store window where were displayed all possible

appurtenances for the _militaire_. Vanity was rooted deeply in Jean’s

soul. The uniform of an English captain met his eyes. Without a

moment’s hesitation he entered the store, bought the entire uniform,

including leather puttees and belt (of the latter purchase he was

especially proud), and departed. The next store contained a display of

medals of all descriptions. It struck Jean at once that a uniform would

be incomplete without medals. He entered this store, bought one of

every decoration—not forgetting the Colonial, nor yet the Belgian Cross

(which on account of its size and colour particularly appealed to

him)—and went to his room. There he adjusted the decorations on the

chest of his blouse, donned the uniform, and sallied importantly forth

to capture Paris.

Everywhere he met with success. He was frantically pursued by women of

all stations from _les putains_ to _les princesses._ The police

salaamed to him. His arm was wearied with the returning of innumerable

salutes. So far did his medals carry him that, although on one occasion

a _gendarme_ dared to arrest him for beating-in the head of a fellow

English officer (who being a mere lieutenant, should not have objected

to Captain Jean’s stealing the affections of his lady), the sergeant of

police before whom Jean was arraigned on a charge of attempting to kill

refused to even hear the evidence, and dismissed the case with profuse

apologies to the heroic Captain. “‘_Le gouvernement français,

Monsieur_, extends to you, through me, its profound apology for the

insult which your honour has received.’ _Ils sont des cochons, les

français_,” said Jean, and laughed throughout his entire body.

Having had the most blue-blooded ladies of the capital cooing upon his

heroic chest, having completely beaten up, with the full support of the

law, whosoever of lesser rank attempted to cross his path or refused

him the salute—having had “great fun” saluting generals on _les grands

boulevards_ and being in turn saluted (“_tous les générals, tous_,

salute me, Jean have more medals”), and this state of affairs having

lasted for about three months—Jean began to be very bored (me _très

ennuyé_). A fit of temper (“me _très faché_”) arising from this _ennui_

led to a _rixe_ with the police, in consequence of which (Jean, though

outnumbered three to one, having almost killed one of his assailants),

our hero was a second time arrested. This time the authorities went so

far as to ask the heroic captain to what branch of the English army he

was at present attached; to which Jean first replied “_parle pas

français, moi_,” and immediately after announced that he was a Lord of

the Admiralty, that he had committed robberies in Paris to the tune of

_sees meel-i-own franc_, that he was a son of the Lord Mayor of London

by the Queen, that he had lost a leg in Algeria, and that the French

were _cochons_. All of which assertions being duly disproved, Jean was

remanded to La Ferté for psychopathic observation and safe keeping on

the technical charge of wearing an English officer’s uniform.

Jean’s particular girl at La Ferté was “LOO-Loo.” With Lulu it was the

same as with _les princesses_ in Paris—“me no _travaille, jam-MAIS. Les

femmes travaillent_, geev Jean mun-ee, _sees, sees-tee, see-cent

francs. Jamais travaille, moi._” Lulu smuggled Jean money; and not for

some time did the woman who slept next Lulu miss it. Lulu also sent

Jean a lace embroidered handkerchief, which Jean would squeeze and

press to his lips with a beatific smile of perfect contentment. The

affair with Lulu kept Mexique and Pete The Hollander busy writing

letters; which Jean dictated, rolling his eyes and scratching his head

for words.

At this time Jean was immensely happy. He was continually playing

practical jokes on one of the Hollanders, or Mexique, or the Wanderer,

or, in fact, anyone of whom he was particularly fond. At intervals

between these demonstrations of irrepressibility (which kept everyone

in a state of laughter) he would stride up and down the filth-sprinkled

floor with his hands in the pockets of his stylish jacket, singing at

the top of his lungs his own version of the famous song of songs:

_après la guerre finit,

soldat anglais parti,

mademoiselle que je laissais en France

avec des pickaninee._ PLENTY!

and laughing till he shook and had to lean against a wall.

B. and Mexique made some dominoes. Jean had not the least idea of how

to play, but when we three had gathered for a game he was always to be

found leaning over our shoulders, completely absorbed, once in a while

offered us sage advice, laughing utterly when someone made a _cinque_

or a multiple thereof.

One afternoon, in the interval between _la soupe_ and _promenade_, Jean

was in especially high spirits. I was lying down on my collapsible bed

when he came up to my end of the room and began showing off exactly

like a child. This time it was the game of _l’armée française_ which

Jean was playing.—“_Jamais soldat, moi. Connais tous l’armée

française._” John The Bathman, stretched comfortably in his bunk near

me, grunted. “_Tous_,” Jean repeated.—And he stood in front of us;

stiff as a stick in imitation of a French lieutenant with an imaginary

company in front of him. First he would be the lieutenant giving

commands, then he would be the Army executing them. He began with the

manual of arms. “_Com-pag-nie …_” then, as he went through the manual,

holding his imaginary gun—“_htt, htt, htt_.”—Then as the officer

commending his troops: “_Bon. Très bon. Très bien fait_”—laughing with

head thrown back and teeth aglitter at his own success. John le

Baigneur was so tremendously amused that he gave up sleeping to watch.

_L’armée_ drew a crowd of admirers from every side. For at least

three-quarters of an hour this game went on….

Another day Jean, being angry at the weather and having eaten a huge

amount of _soupe_, began yelling at the top of his voice: “_MERDE à la

France_,” and laughing heartily. No one paying especial attention to

him, he continued (happy in this new game with himself) for about

fifteen minutes. Then The Trick Raincoat (that undersized specimen,

clad in feminine-fitting raiment with flashy shoes, who was by trade a

pimp, being about half Jean’s height and a tenth of his physique,)

strolled up to Jean—who had by this time got as far as my bed—and,

sticking his sallow face as near Jean’s as the neck could reach, said

in a solemn voice: “_Il ne faut pas dire ça._” Jean astounded, gazed at

the intruder for a moment; then demanded: “_Qui dit ça? Moi? Jean?

Jamais, ja-MAIS. MERDE à la France!_” nor would he yield a point,

backed up as he was by the moral support of everyone present except the

Raincoat—who found discretion the better part of valour and retired

with a few dark threats; leaving Jean master of the situation and

yelling for the Raincoat’s particular delectation: “_MAY-RRR-DE à la

France!_” more loudly than ever.

A little after the epic battle with stovepipes between The Young Pole

and Bill The Hollander, the wrecked _poêle_ (which was patiently

waiting to be repaired) furnished Jean with perhaps his most brilliant

inspiration. The final section of pipe (which conducted the smoke

through a hole in the wall to the outer air) remained in place all by

itself, projecting about six feet into the room at a height of seven or

eight feet from the floor. Jean noticed this; got a chair; mounted on

it, and by applying alternately his ear and his mouth to the end of the

pipe created for himself a telephone, with the aid of which he carried

on a conversation with The Wanderer (at that moment visiting his family

on the floor below) to this effect:

—Jean, grasping the pipe and speaking angrily into it, being evidently

nettled at the poor connection—“Heh-loh, hello, hello, hello”—surveying

the pipe in consternation—“_Merde. Ça marche pas_”—trying again with a

deep frown—“heh-LOH!”—tremendously agitated—“HEHLOH!”—a beautiful smile

supplanting the frown—“hello Barbu. Are you there? _Oui?

Bon!_”—evincing tremendous pleasure at having succeeded in establishing

the connection satisfactorily—“Barbu? Are you listening to me? _Oui?_

What’s the matter Barbu? _Comment? Moi? Oui, MOI? JEAN? jaMAIS! jamais,

jaMAIS_, Barbu. I have never said you have fleas. _C’était pas moi, tu

sais. JaMAIS, c’était un autre. Peut-être c’était Mexique_”—turning his

head in Mexique’s direction and roaring with laughter—“Hello, HEH-LOH.

Barbu? _Tu sais_, Barbu, _j’ai jamais dit ça. Au contraire_, Barbu.

_J’ai dit que vous avez des totos_”—another roar of laughter—“What? It

isn’t true? Good. Then. What have you got, Barbu? Barbu? Lice—OHHHH. I

understand. It’s better”—shaking with laughter, then suddenly

tremendously serious—“hellohellohellohello HEHLOH!”—addressing the

stove-pipe—“_C’est une mauvaise machine, ça_”—speaking into it with the

greatest distinctness—“HEL-L-LOH. Barbu? _Liberté_, Barbu. _Oui.

Comment? C’est ça. Liberté pour tou’l’monde. Quand? Après la soupe.

Oui. Liberté pour tou’l’monde après la soupe!_”—to which jest

astonishingly reacted a certain old man known as the West Indian Negro

(a stocky credulous creature with whom Jean would have nothing to do,

and whose tales of Brooklyn were indeed outclassed by Jean’s _histoires

d’amour_) who leaped rheumatically from his _paillasse_ at the word

“_Liberté_” and rushed limpingly hither and thither inquiring Was it

true? to the enormous and excruciating amusement of The Enormous Room

in general.

After which Jean, exhausted with laughter, descended from the chair and

lay down on his bed to read a letter from Lulu (not knowing a syllable

of it). A little later he came rushing up to my bed in the most

terrific state of excitement, the whites of his eyes gleaming, his

teeth bared, his kinky hair fairly standing on end, and cried:

“You—me, me—you? _Pas bon._ You—you, me—me: _bon_. Me—me, you—you!” and

went away capering and shouting with laughter, dancing with great grace

and as great agility and with an imaginary partner the entire length of

the room.

There was another game—a pure child’s game—which Jean played. It was

the name game. He amused himself for hours together by lying on his

_paillasse_ tilting his head back, rolling up his eyes, and crying in a

high quavering voice—“JAW-neeeeee.” After a repetition or two of his

own name in English, he would demand sharply “Who is calling me?

Mexique? _Es-ce que tu m’appelle_, Mexique?” and if Mexique happened to

be asleep, Jean would rush over and cry in his ear, shaking him

thoroughly—“_Es-ce tu m’appelle, toi?_” Or it might be Barbu, or Pete

The Hollander, or B. or myself, of whom he sternly asked the

question—which was always followed by quantities of laughter on Jean’s

part. He was never perfectly happy unless exercising his inexhaustible

imagination….

Of all Jean’s extraordinary selves, the moral one was at once the most

rare and most unreasonable. In the matter of _les femmes_ he could

hardly have been accused by his bitterest enemy of being a Puritan. Yet

the Puritan streak came out one day, in a discussion which lasted for

several hours. Jean as in the case of France, spoke in dogma. His

contention was very simple: “The woman who smokes is not a woman.” He

defended it hotly against the attacks of all the nations represented;

in vain did Belgian and Hollander, Russian and Pole, Spaniard and

Alsatian, charge and counter-charge—Jean remained unshaken. A woman

could do anything but smoke—if she smoked she ceased automatically to

be a woman and became something unspeakable. As Jean was at this time

sitting alternately on B.’s bed and mine, and as the alternations

became increasingly frequent as the discussion waxed hotter, we were

not sorry when the _planton’s_ shout “_A la promenade les hommes!_”

scattered the opposing warriors. Then up leaped Jean (who had almost

come to blows innumerable times) and rushed laughing to the door,

having already forgotten the whole thing.

Now we come to the story of Jean’s undoing, and may the gods which made

Jean le Nègre give me grace to tell it as it was.

The trouble started with Lulu. One afternoon, shortly after the

telephoning, Jean was sick at heart and couldn’t be induced either to

leave his couch or to utter a word. Everyone guessed the reason—Lulu

had left for another camp that morning. The _planton_ told Jean to come

down with the rest and get _soupe_. No answer. Was Jean sick? “_Oui_,

me seek.” And steadfastly he refused to eat, till the disgusted

_planton_ gave it up and locked Jean in alone. When we ascended after

_la soupe_ we found Jean as we had left him, stretched on his couch,

big tears on his cheeks. I asked him if I could do anything for him; he

shook his head. We offered him cigarettes—no, he did not wish to smoke.

As B. and I went away we heard him moaning to himself “Jawnee no see

LooLoo no more.” With the exception of ourselves, the inhabitants of La

Ferté Macé took Jean’s desolation as a great joke. Shouts of Lulu! rent

the welkin on all sides. Jean stood it for an hour; then he leaped up,

furious; and demanded (confronting the man from whose lips the cry had

last issued)—“Feeneesh LooLoo?” The latter coolly referred him to the

man next to him; he in turn to someone else; and round and round the

room Jean stalked, seeking the offender, followed by louder and louder

shouts of Lulu! and Jawnee! the authors of which (so soon as he

challenged them) denied with innocent faces their guilt and recommended

that Jean look closer next time. At last Jean took to his couch in

utter misery and disgust. The rest of _les hommes_ descended as usual

for the promenade—not so Jean. He ate nothing for supper. That evening

not a sound issued from his bed.

Next morning he awoke with a broad grin, and to the salutations of

Lulu! replied, laughing heartily at himself “FEENEESH Loo Loo.” Upon

which the tormentors (finding in him no longer a victim) desisted; and

things resumed their normal course. If an occasional Lulu! upraised

itself, Jean merely laughed, and repeated (with a wave of his arm)

“FEENEESH.” Finished Lulu seemed to be.

But _un jour_ I had remained upstairs during the promenade, both

because I wanted to write and because the weather was worse than usual.

Ordinarily, no matter how deep the mud in the _cour_, Jean and I would

trot back and forth, resting from time to time under the little shelter

out of the drizzle, talking of all things under the sun. I remember on

one occasion we were the only ones to brave the rain and slough—Jean in

paper-thin soled slippers (which he had recently succeeded in drawing

from the Gestionnaire) and I in my huge _sabots_—hurrying back and

forth with the rain pouring on us, and he very proud. On this day,

however, I refused the challenge of the mud.

The promenaders had been singularly noisy, I thought. Now they were

mounting to the room making a truly tremendous racket. No sooner were

the doors opened than in rushed half a dozen frenzied friends, who

began telling me all at once about a terrific thing which my friend the

_noir_ had just done. It seems that The Trick Raincoat had pulled at

Jean’s handkerchief (Lulu’s gift in other days) which Jean wore always

conspicuously in his outside breast pocket; that Jean had taken the

Raincoat’s head in his two hands, held it steady, abased his own head,

and rammed the helpless T.R. as a bull would do—the impact of Jean’s

head upon the other’s nose causing that well-known feature to occupy a

new position in the neighbourhood of the right ear. B. corroborated

this description, adding the Raincoat’s nose was broken and that

everyone was down on Jean for fighting in an unsportsmanlike way. I

found Jean still very angry, and moreover very hurt because everyone

was now shunning him. I told him that I personally was glad of what

he’d done; but nothing would cheer him up. The T.R. now entered, very

terrible to see, having been patched up by Monsieur Richard with

copious plasters. His nose was not broken, he said thickly, but only

bent. He hinted darkly of trouble in store for _le noir_; and received

the commiserations of everyone present except Mexique, The Zulu, B. and

me.

The Zulu, I remember, pointed to his own nose (which was not

unimportant), then to Jean, and made a _moue_ of excruciating anguish,

and winked audibly.

Jean’s spirit was broken. The well-nigh unanimous verdict against him

had convinced his minutely sensitive soul that it had done wrong. He

lay quietly, and would say nothing to anyone.

Some time after the soup, about eight o’clock, the Fighting Sheeney and

The Trick Raincoat suddenly set upon Jean le Nègre à propos of nothing;

and began pommelling him cruelly. The conscience-stricken pillar of

beautiful muscle—who could have easily killed both his assailants at

one blow—not only offered no reciprocatory violence but refused even to

defend himself. Unresistingly, wincing with pain, his arms mechanically

raised and his head bent, he was battered frightfully to the window by

his bed, thence into the corner (upsetting the stool in the _pissoir_),

thence along the wall to the door. As the punishment increased he cried

out like a child: “_Laissez-moi tranquille!_”—again and again; and in

his voice the insane element gained rapidly. Finally, shrieking in

agony, he rushed to the nearest window; and while the Sheeneys together

pommelled him yelled for help to the _planton_ beneath.—

The unparalleled consternation and applause produced by this one-sided

battle had long since alarmed the authorities. I was still trying to

break through the five-deep ring of spectators (among whom was The

Messenger Boy, who advised me to desist and got a piece of advice in

return)—when with a tremendous crash open burst the door; and in

stepped four _plantons_ with drawn revolvers, looking frightened to

death, followed by the Surveillant who carried a sort of baton and was

crying faintly: “_Qu’est-ce que c’est!_”

At the first sound of the door the two Sheeneys had fled, and were now

playing the part of innocent spectators. Jean alone occupied the stage.

His lips were parted. His eyes were enormous. He was panting as if his

heart would break. He still kept his arms raised as if seeing

everywhere before him fresh enemies. Blood spotted here and there the

wonderful chocolate carpet of his skin, and his whole body glistened

with sweat. His shirt was in ribbons over his beautiful muscles.

Seven or eight persons at once began explaining the fight to the

Surveillant, who could make nothing out of their accounts and therefore

called aside a trusted older man in order to get his version. The two

retired from the room. The _plantons_, finding the expected wolf a

lamb, flourished their revolvers about Jean and threatened him in the

insignificant and vile language which _plantons_ use to anyone whom

they can bully. Jean kept repeating dully “_laissez-moi tranquille. Ils

voulaient me tuer._” His chest shook terribly with vast sobs.

Now the Surveillant returned and made a speech, to the effect that he

had received independently of each other the stories of four men, that

by all counts _le nègre_ was absolutely to blame, that _le nègre_ had

caused an inexcusable trouble to the authorities and to his

fellow-prisoners by this wholly unjustified conflict, and that as a

punishment the _nègre_ would now suffer the consequences of his guilt

in the _cabinot_.—Jean had dropped his arms to his sides. His face was

twisted with anguish. He made a child’s gesture, a pitiful hopeless

movement with his slender hands. Sobbing he protested: “It isn’t my

fault, _monsieur le Surveillant!_ They attacked me! I didn’t do a

thing! They wanted to kill me! Ask him”—he pointed to me desperately.

Before I could utter a syllable the Surveillant raised his hand for

silence: _le nègre_ had done wrong. He should be placed in the

_cabinot_.

—Like a flash, with a horrible tearing sob, Jean leaped from the

surrounding _plantons_ and rushed for the coat which lay on his bed

screaming—“_AHHHHH—mon couteau!_”—“Look out or he’ll get his knife and

kill himself!” someone yelled; and the four _plantons_ seized Jean by

both arms just as he made a grab for his jacket. Thwarted in his hope

and burning with the ignominy of his situation, Jean cast his enormous

eyes up at the nearest pillar, crying hysterically: “Everybody is

putting me in _cabinot_ because I am black.”—In a second, by a single

movement of his arms, he sent the four _plantons_ reeling to a distance

of ten feet: leaped at the pillar: seized it in both hands like a

Samson, and (gazing for another second with a smile of absolute

beatitude at its length) dashed his head against it. Once, twice,

thrice he smote himself, before the _plantons_ seized him—and suddenly

his whole strength wilted; he allowed himself to be overpowered by them

and stood with bowed head, tears streaming from his eyes—while the

smallest pointed a revolver at his heart.

This was a little more than the Surveillant had counted on. Now that

Jean’s might was no more, the bearer of the croix de guerre stepped

forward and in a mild placating voice endeavoured to soothe the victim

of his injustice. It was also slightly more than I could stand, and

slamming aside the spectators I shoved myself under his honour’s nose.

“Do you know,” I asked, “whom you are dealing with in this man? A

child. There are a lot of Jeans where I come from. You heard what he

said? He is black, is he not, and gets no justice from you. You heard

that. I saw the whole affair. He was attacked, he put up no resistance

whatever, he was beaten by two cowards. He is no more to blame than I

am.”—The Surveillant was waving his wand and cooing “_Je comprends, je

comprends, c’est malheureux._”—“You’re god damn right its _malheureux_”

I said, forgetting my French. “_Quand même_, he has resisted authority”

The Surveillant gently continued: “Now Jean, be quiet, you will be

taken to the _cabinot_. You may as well go quietly and behave yourself

like a good boy.”

At this I am sure my eyes started out of my head. All I could think of

to say was: “_Attends, un petit moment._” To reach my own bed took but

a second. In another second I was back, bearing my great and sacred

_pelisse_. I marched up to Jean. “Jean” I remarked with a smile, “you

are going to the _cabinot_ but you’re coming back right away. I know

that you are perfectly right. Put that on”—and I pushed him gently into

my coat. “Here are my cigarettes, Jean; you can smoke just as much as

you like”—I pulled out all I had, one full _paquet_ of Maryland, and a

half dozen loose ones, and deposited them carefully in the right hand

pocket of the _pelisse_. Then I patted him on the shoulder and gave him

the immortal salutation—“_Bonne chance, mon ami!_”

He straightened proudly. He stalked like a king through the doorway.

The astounded _plantons_ and the embarrassed Surveillant followed, the

latter closing the doors behind him. I was left with a cloud of angry

witnesses.

An hour later the doors opened, Jean entered quietly, and the doors

shut. As I lay on my bed I could see him perfectly. He was almost

naked. He laid my _pelisse_ on his mattress, then walked calmly up to a

neighbouring bed and skillfully and unerringly extracted a brush from

under it. Back to his own bed he tiptoed, sat down on it, and began

brushing my coat. He brushed it for a half hour, speaking to no one,

spoken to by no one. Finally he put the brush back, disposed the

_pelisse_ carefully on his arm, came to my bed, and as carefully laid

it down. Then he took from the right hand outside pocket a full _paquet

jaune_ and six loose cigarettes, showed them for my approval, and

returned them to their place. “_Merci_” was his sole remark. B. got

Jean to sit down beside him on his bed and we talked for a few minutes,

avoiding the subject of the recent struggle. Then Jean went back to his

own bed and lay down.

It was not till later that we learned the climax—not till _le petit

belge avec le bras cassé, le petit balayeur_, came hurrying to our end

of the room and sat down with us. He was bursting with excitement; his

well arm jerked and his sick one stumped about and he seemed incapable

of speech. At length words came.

“_Monsieur Jean_” (now that I think of it, I believe someone had told

him that all male children in America are named Jean at their birth) “I

saw SOME SIGHT! _le nègre, vous savez?_—he is STRONG: _Monsieur Jean_,

he’s _a_GIANT, _croyez moi! C’est pas un homme, tu sais? Je l’ai vu,

moi_”—and he indicated his eyes.

We pricked up our ears.

The _balayeur_, stuffing a pipe nervously with his tiny thumb said:

“You saw the fight here? So did I. The whole of it. _Le noir avait

raison._ Well, when they took him downstairs, I slipped out too— _Je

suis le balayeur, savez vous?_ and the _balayeur_ can go where other

people can’t.”

I gave him a match, and he thanked me. He struck it on his trousers

with a quick pompous gesture, drew heavily on his squeaky pipe, and at

last shot a minute puff of smoke into the air: then another, and

another. Satisfied, he went on; his good hand grasping the pipe between

its index and second fingers and resting on one little knee, his legs

crossed, his small body hunched forward, wee unshaven face close to

mine—went on in the confidential tone of one who relates an

unbelievable miracle to a couple of intimate friends:

“Monsieur Jean, I followed. They got him to the _cabinot_. The door

stood open. At this moment _les femmes descendaient_, it was their

_corvée d’eau, vous savez._ He saw them, _le noir_. One of them cried

from the stairs, Is a Frenchman stronger than you, Jean? The _plantons_

were standing around him, the Surveillant was behind. He took the

nearest _planton_, and tossed him down the corridor so that he struck

against the door at the end of it. He picked up two more, one in each

arm, and threw them away. They fell on top of the first. The last tried

to take hold of Jean, and so Jean took him by the neck”—(the _balayeur_

strangled himself for our benefit)—“and that _planton_ knocked down the

other three, who had got on their feet by this time. You should have

seen the Surveillant. He had run away and was saying, ‘Capture him,

capture him.’ The _plantons_ rushed Jean, all four of them. He caught

them as they came and threw them about. One knocked down the

Surveillant. The women cried ‘_Vive Jean_,’ and clapped their hands.

The Surveillant called to the _plantons_ to take Jean, but they

wouldn’t go near Jean, they said he was a black devil. The women kidded

them. They were so sore. And they could do nothing. Jean was laughing.

His shirt was almost off him. He asked the planton to come and take

him, please. He asked the Surveillant, too. The women had set down

their pails and were dancing up and down and yelling. The Directeur

came down and sent them flying. The Surveillant and his _plantons_ were

as helpless as if they had been children. Monsieur Jean— _quelque

chose_.”

I gave him another match. “_Merci, Monsieur Jean._” He struck it, drew

on his pipe, lowered it, and went on:

“They were helpless, and men. I am little. I have only one arm, _tu

sais_. I walked up to Jean and said, Jean, you know me, I am your

friend. He said, Yes. I said to the _plantons_, Give me that rope. They

gave me the rope that they would have bound him with. He put out his

wrists for me. I tied his hands behind his back. He was like a lamb.

The _plantons_ rushed up and tied his feet together. Then they tied his

hands and feet together. They took the lacings out of his shoes for

fear he would use them to strangle himself. They stood him up in an

angle between two walls in the _cabinot_. They left him there for an

hour. He was supposed to have been in there all night; but the

Surveillant knew that he would have died, for he was almost naked, and

_vous savez_, Monsieur Jean, it was cold in there. And damp. A fully

clothed man would have been dead in the morning. And he was naked….

_Monsieur Jean—un géant!_”

—This same _petit belge_ had frequently protested to me that _Il est

fou, le noir_. He is always playing when sensible men try to sleep. The

last few hours (which had made of the _fou_ a _géant_) made of the

scoffer a worshipper. Nor did “_le bras cassé_” ever from that time

forth desert his divinity. If as _balayeur_ he could lay hands on a

_morceau de pain_ or _de viande_, he bore it as before to our beds; but

Jean was always called over to partake of the forbidden pleasure.

As for Jean, one would hardly have recognised him. It was as if the

child had fled into the deeps of his soul, never to reappear. Day after

day went by, and Jean (instead of courting excitement as before)

cloistered himself in solitude; or at most sought the company of B. and

me and Le Petit Belge for a quiet chat or a cigarette. The morning

after the three fights he did not appear in the _cour_ for early

promenade along with the rest of us (including The Sheeneys). In vain

did _les femmes_ strain their necks and eyes to find the black man who

was stronger than six Frenchmen. And B. and I noticed our bed-clothing

airing upon the window-sills. When we mounted, Jean was patting and

straightening our blankets, and looking for the first time in his life

guilty of some enormous crime. Nothing however had disappeared. Jean

said, “Me feeks _lits tous les jours.”_ And every morning he aired and

made our beds for us, and we mounted to find him smoothing

affectionately some final ruffle, obliterating with enormous solemnity

some microscopic crease. We gave him cigarettes when he asked for them

(which was almost never) and offered them when we knew he had none or

when we saw him borrowing from someone else whom his spirit held in

less esteem. Of us he asked no favours. He liked us too well.

When B. went away, Jean was almost as desolate as I.

About a fortnight later, when the grey dirty snow-slush hid the black

filthy world which we saw from our windows, and when people lived in

their ill-smelling beds, it came to pass that my particular _amis_—The

Zulu, Jean, Mexique—and I and all the remaining _miserables_ of La

Ferté descended at the decree of Caesar Augustus to endure our

bi-weekly bath. I remember gazing stupidly at Jean’s chocolate-coloured

nakedness as it strode to the tub, a rippling texture of muscular

miracle. _Tout le monde_ had _baigné_ (including The Zulu, who tried to

escape at the last minute and was nabbed by the _planton_ whose

business it was to count heads and see that none escaped the ordeal)

and now _tout le monde_ was shivering all together in the anteroom,

begging to be allowed to go upstairs and get into bed—when Le Baigneur,

Monsieur Richard’s strenuous successor that is, set up a hue and cry

that one towel was lacking. The Fencer was sent for. He entered; heard

the case; and made a speech. If the guilty party would immediately

return the stolen towel, he, The Fencer, would guarantee that party

pardon; if not, everyone present should be searched, and the man on

whose person the serviette was found _va attraper quinze jours de

cabinot_. This eloquence yielding no results, The Fencer exorted the

culprit to act like a man and render to Caesar what is Caesar’s.

Nothing happened. Everyone was told to get in single file and make

ready to pass out the door, one after one we were searched; but so

general was the curiosity that as fast as they were inspected the

erstwhile bed-enthusiasts, myself included, gathered on the side-lines

to watch their fellows instead of availing themselves of the

opportunity to go upstairs. One after one we came opposite The Fencer,

held up our arms, had our pockets run through and our clothing felt

over from head to heel, and were exonerated. When Caesar came to Jean

Caesar’s eyes lighted, and Caesar’s hitherto perfunctory proddings and

pokings became inspired and methodical. Twice he went over Jean’s

entire body, while Jean, his arms raised in a bored gesture, his face

completely expressionless, suffered loftily the examination of his

person. A third time the desperate Fencer tried; his hands, starting at

Jean’s neck, reached the calf of his leg—and stopped. The hands rolled

up Jean’s right trouser-leg to the knee. They rolled up the underwear

on his leg—and there, placed perfectly flat to the skin, appeared the

missing serviette. As The Fencer seized it, Jean laughed—the utter

laughter of old days—and the onlookers cackled uproariously, while,

with a broad smile, the Fencer proclaimed: “I thought I knew where I

should find it.” And he added, more pleased with himself than anyone

had ever seen him: “_Maintenant, vous pouvez tous monter à la

chambre._” We mounted, happy to get back to bed; but none so happy as

Jean le Nègre. It was not that the _cabinot_ threat had failed to

materialize—at any minute a _planton_ might call Jean to his

punishment: indeed this was what everyone expected. It was that the

incident had absolutely removed that inhibition which (from the day

when Jean _le noir_ became Jean _le géant_) had held the child, which

was Jean’s soul and destiny, prisoner. From that instant till the day I

left him he was the old Jean—joking, fibbing, laughing, and always

playing—Jean L’Enfant.

And I think of Jean le Nègre … you are something to dream over, Jean;

summer and winter (birds and darkness) you go walking into my head; you

are a sudden and chocolate-coloured thing, in your hands you have a

habit of holding six or eight _plantons_ (which you are about to throw

away) and the flesh of your body is like the flesh of a very deep

cigar. Which I am still and always quietly smoking: always and still I

am inhaling its very fragrant and remarkable muscles. But I doubt if

ever I am quite through with you, if ever I will toss you out of my

heart into the sawdust of forgetfulness. Kid, Boy, I’d like to tell

you: _la guerre est finie_.

O yes, Jean: I do not forget, I remember Plenty; the snow’s coming, the

snow will throw again a very big and gentle shadow into The Enormous

Room and into the eyes of you and me walking always and wonderfully up

and down….

—Boy, Kid, Nigger, with the strutting muscles—take me up into your mind

once or twice before I die (you know why: just because the eyes of me

and you will be full of dirt some day). Quickly take me up into the

bright child of your mind, before we both go suddenly all loose and

silly (you know how it will feel). Take me up (carefully, as if I were

a toy) and play carefully with me, once or twice, before I and you go

suddenly all limp and foolish. Once or twice before you go into great

Jack roses and ivory—(once or twice, Boy, before we together go

wonderfully down into the Big Dirt laughing, bumped with the last

darkness).

XII.

THREE WISE MEN

It must have been late in November when _la commission_ arrived. _La

commission_, as I have said, visited La Ferté every three months. That

is to say, B. and I (by arriving when we did) had just escaped its

clutches. I consider this one of the luckiest things in my life.

_La commission_ arrived one morning, and began work immediately.

A list was made of _les hommes_ who were to pass _la commission_,

another of _les femmes_. These lists were given to the _planton_ with

the Wooden Hand. In order to avert any delay, those of the men whose

names fell in the first half of the list were not allowed to enjoy the

usual stimulating activities afforded by La Ferté’s supreme

environment: they were, in fact, confined to The Enormous Room, subject

to instant call—moreover they were not called one by one, or as their

respective turns came, but in groups of three or four; the idea being

that _la commission_ should suffer no smallest annoyance which might be

occasioned by loss of time. There were always, in other words, eight or

ten men waiting in the upper corridor opposite a disagreeably crisp

door, which door belonged to that mysterious room wherein _la

commission_ transacted its inestimable affairs. Not more than a couple

of yards away ten or eight women waited their turns. Conversation

between the men and the women had been forbidden in the fiercest terms

by Monsieur le Directeur: nevertheless conversation spasmodically

occurred, thanks to the indulgent nature of the Wooden Hand. The Wooden

Hand must have been cuckoo—he looked it. If he wasn’t I am totally at a

loss to account for his indulgence.

B. and I spent a morning in The Enormous Room without results, an

astonishing acquisition of nervousness excepted. _Après la soupe_

(noon) we were conducted _en haut_, told to leave our spoons and bread

(which we did) and—in company with several others whose names were

within a furlong of the last man called—were descended to the corridor.

All that afternoon we waited. Also we waited all next morning. We spent

our time talking quietly with a buxom pink-cheeked Belgian girl who was

in attendance as translator for one of _les femmes_. This Belgian told

us that she was a permanent inhabitant of La Ferté, that she and

another _femme honnête_ occupied a room by themselves, that her

brothers were at the front in Belgium, that her ability to speak

fluently several languages (including English and German) made her

invaluable to _Messieurs la commission_, that she had committed no

crime, that she was held as a _suspecte_, that she was not entirely

unhappy. She struck me immediately as being not only intelligent but

alive. She questioned us in excellent English as to our offenses, and

seemed much pleased to discover that we were—to all

appearances—innocent of wrong-doing.

From time to time our subdued conversation was interrupted by

admonitions from the amiable Wooden Hand. Twice the door SLAMMED open,

and Monsieur le Directeur bounced out, frothing at the mouth and

threatening everyone with infinite _cabinot_, on the ground that

everyone’s deportment or lack of it was menacing the aplomb of the

commissioners. Each time, the Black Holster appeared in the background

and carried on his master’s bullying until everyone was completely

terrified—after which we were left to ourselves and the Wooden Hand

once again.

B. and I were allowed by the latter individual—he was that day, at

least, an individual not merely a _planton_—to peek over his shoulder

at the men’s list. The Wooden Hand even went so far as to escort our

seditious minds to the nearness of their examination by the simple yet

efficient method of placing one of his human fingers opposite the name

of him who was (even at that moment) within, submitting to the

inexorable justice of _le gouvernement français_. I cannot honestly say

that the discovery of this proximity of ourselves to our respective

fates wholly pleased us; yet we were so weary of waiting that it

certainly did not wholly terrify us. All in all, I think I have never

been so utterly un-at-ease as while waiting for the axe to fall,

metaphorically speaking, upon our squawking heads.

We were still conversing with the Belgian girl when a man came out of

the door unsteadily, looking as if he had submitted to several

strenuous fittings of a wooden leg upon a stump not quite healed. The

Wooden Hand, nodding at B., remarked hurriedly in a low voice:

“_Allez!_”

And B. (smiling at La Belge and at me) entered. He was followed by The

Wooden Hand, as I suppose for greater security.

The next twenty minutes, or whatever it was, were by far the most

nerve-racking which I had as yet experienced. La Belge said to me:

“_Il est gentil, votre ami,_”

and I agreed. And my blood was bombarding the roots of my toes and the

summits of my hair.

After (I need not say) two or three million aeons, B. emerged. I had

not time to exchange a look with him—let alone a word—for the Wooden

Hand said from the doorway:

“_Allez, l’autre américain,_”

and I entered in more confusion than can easily be imagined; entered

the torture chamber, entered the inquisition, entered the tentacles of

that sly and beaming polyp, _le gouvernement français_….

As I entered I said, half aloud: The thing is this, to look ’em in the

eyes and keep cool whatever happens, not for the fraction of a moment

forgetting that they are made of _merde_, that they are all of them

composed entirely of _merde_—I don’t know how many inquisitors I

expected to see; but I guess I was ready for at least fifteen, among

them President Poincaré Lui-même. I hummed noiselessly:

“_si vous passez par ma vil-le

n’oubliez pas ma maison;

on y mang-e de bonne sou-pe Ton Ton Tay-ne;

faite de merde et les onions, Ton Ton Tayne Ton Ton Ton,_”

remembering the fine _forgeron_ of Chevancourt who used to sing this,

or something very like it, upon a table—entirely for the benefit of

_les deux américains_, who would subsequently render “Eats uh lonje wae

to Tee-pear-raer-ee,” wholly for the gratification of a roomful of what

Mr. Anderson liked to call “them bastards,” alias “dirty” Frenchmen,

alias _les poilus, les poilus divins_….

A little room. The Directeur’s office? Or The Surveillant’s? Comfort. O

yes, very, very comfortable. On my right a table. At the table three

persons. Reminds me of Noyon a bit, not unpleasantly of course. Three

persons: reading from left to right as I face them—a soggy, sleepy,

slumpy lump in a _gendarme’s_ cape and cap, quite old, captain of

_gendarmes_, not at all interested, wrinkled coarse face, only semi-

_méchant_, large hard clumsy hands, floppingly disposed on table; wily

tidy man in civilian clothes, pen in hand, obviously lawyer, _avocat_

type, little bald on top, sneaky civility, smells of bad perfume or, at

any rate, sweetish soap; tiny red-headed person, also civilian, creased

worrying excited face, amusing little body and hands, brief and jumpy,

must be a Dickens character, ought to spend his time sailing kites of

his own construction over other people’s houses in gusty weather.

Behind the Three, all tied up with deference and inferiority, mild and

spineless, Apollyon.

Would the reader like to know what I was asked?

Ah, would I could say! Only dimly do I remember those moments—only

dimly do I remember looking through the lawyer at Apollyon’s clean

collar—only dimly do I remember the gradual collapse of the captain of

_gendarmes_, his slow but sure assumption of sleepfulness, the drooping

of his soggy _tête de cochon_ lower and lower till it encountered one

hand whose elbow, braced firmly upon the table, sustained its insensate

limpness—only dimly do I remember the enthusiastic antics of the little

red-head when I spoke with patriotic fervour of the wrongs which La

France was doing _mon ami et moi_—only dimly do I remember, to my

right, the immobility of The Wooden Hand, reminding one of a clothing

dummy, or a life-size doll which might be made to move only by him who

knew the proper combination…. At the outset I was asked: Did I want a

translator? I looked and saw the _secrétaire_, weak-eyed and

lemon-pale, and I said “_Non._” I was questioned mostly by the

_avocat_, somewhat by the Dickens, never by either the captain (who was

asleep) or the Directeur (who was timid in the presence of these great

and good delegates of hope, faith and charity per the French

Government). I recall that, for some reason, I was perfectly cool. I

put over six or eight hot shots without losing in the least this

composure, which surprised myself and pleased myself and altogether

increased myself. As the questions came for me I met them half-way,

spouting my best or worst French in a manner which positively

astonished the tiny red-headed demigod. I challenged with my eyes and

with my voice and with my manner Apollyon Himself, and Apollyon Himself

merely cuddled together, depressing his hairy body between its limbs as

a spider sometimes does in the presence of danger. I expressed immense

gratitude to my captors and to _le gouvernement français_ for allowing

me to see and hear and taste and smell and touch the things which

inhabited La Ferté Macé, Orne, France. I do not think that _la

commission_ enjoyed me much. It told me, through its sweetish-soap

leader, that my friend was a criminal—this immediately upon my

entering—and I told it with a great deal of well-chosen politeness that

I disagreed. In telling how and why I disagreed I think I managed to

shove my shovel-shaped imagination under the refuse of their

intellects. At least once or twice.

Rather fatiguing—to stand up and be told: Your friend is no good; have

you anything to say for yourself?—And to say a great deal for yourself

and for your friend and for _les hommes_—or try your best to—and be

contradicted, and be told “Never mind that, what we wish to know is,”

and instructed to keep to the subject, et cetera, ad infinitum. At last

they asked each other if each other wanted to ask the man before each

other anything more, and each other not wanting to do so, they said:

“_C’est fini_.”

As at Noyon, I had made an indisputably favourable impression upon

exactly one of my three examiners. I refer, in the present case, to the

red-headed little gentleman who was rather decent to me. I do not

exactly salute him in recognition of this decency; I bow to him, as I

might bow to somebody who said he was sorry he couldn’t give me a

match, but there was a cigar store just around the corner, you know.

At “_C’est fini_” the Directeur leaped into the limelight with a savage

admonition to the Wooden Hand—who saluted, opened the door suddenly,

and looked at me with (dare I say it?) admiration. Instead of availing

myself of this means of escape I turned to the little kite-flying

gentleman and said:

“If you please, sir, will you be so good as to tell me what will become

of my friend?”

The little kite-flying gentleman did not have time to reply, for the

perfumed presence stated dryly and distinctly:

“We cannot say anything to you upon that point.”

I gave him a pleasant smile, which said, If I could see your intestines

very slowly embracing a large wooden drum rotated by means of a small

iron crank turned gently and softly by myself, I should be

extraordinarily happy—and I bowed softly and gently to Monsieur le

Directeur, and I went through the door using all the perpendicular

inches which God had given me.

Once outside I began to tremble like a _peuplier_ in _l’automne_….

“_L’automne humide et monotone._”

—“_Allez en bas, pour la soupe_” the Wooden Hand said not unkindly. I

looked about me. “There will be no more men before the commission until

to-morrow,” the Wooden Hand said. “Go get your dinner in the kitchen.”