remarking: “_Qu-est-ce que ça veut dire?_”—and when we read the word
for him, “_m’en vais à Calais, moi, travailler à Calais, très
bon!_”—with a jump and a shout of laughter pocketing the scrap and
beginning the Song of Songs:
“_après la guerre finit…._”
A trio which had been hit and hard hit by the Three Wise Men were, or
was, The Wanderer and the Machine-Fixer and Monsieur Auguste—the former
having been insulted in respect to Chocolat’s mother (who also occupied
the witness-stand) and having retaliated, as nearly as we could
discover, with a few remarks straight from the shoulder à propos
Justice (O Wanderer, did you expect honour among the honourable?); the
Machine-Fixer having been told to shut up in the midst of a passionate
plea for mercy, or at least fair-play, if not in his own case in the
case of the wife who was crazed by his absence; Monsieur Auguste having
been asked (as he had been asked three months before by the honorable
commissioners), Why did you not return to Russia with your wife and
your child at the outbreak of the war?—and having replied, with tears
in his eyes and that gentle ferocity of which he was occasionally
capable:
“Be-cause I didn’t have the means. I am not a mil-lion-aire, Sirs.”
The Baby-Snatcher, the Trick Raincoat, the Messenger Boy, the Fighting
Sheeney and similar gentry passed the commission without the slightest
apparent effect upon their disagreeable personalities.
It was not long after Bill the Hollander’s departure that we lost two
Delectable Mountains in The Wanderer and Surplice. Remained The Zulu
and Jean le Nègre…. B. and I spent most of our time when on promenade
collecting rather beautifully hued leaves in _la cour_. These leaves we
inserted in one of my notebooks, along with all the colours which we
could find on cigarette boxes, chocolate wrappers, labels of various
sorts and even postage stamps. (We got a very brilliant red from a
certain piece of cloth.) Our efforts puzzled everyone (including the
_plantons_) more than considerably; which was natural, considering that
everyone did not know that by this exceedingly simple means we were
effecting a study of colour itself, in relation to what is popularly
called “abstract” and sometimes “non-representative” painting. Despite
their natural puzzlement everyone (_plantons_ excepted) was
extraordinarily kind and brought us often valuable additions to our
chromatic collection. Had I, at this moment and in the city of New
York, the complete confidence of one-twentieth as many human beings I
should not be so inclined to consider The Great American Public as the
most aesthetically incapable organization ever created for the purpose
of perpetuating defunct ideals and ideas. But of course The Great
American Public has a handicap which my friends at La Ferté did not as
a rule have—education. Let no one sound his indignant yawp at this. I
refer to the fact that, for an educated gent or lady, to create is
first of all to destroy—that there is and can be no such thing as
authentic art until the _bons trucs_ (whereby we are taught to see and
imitate on canvas and in stone and by words this so-called world) are
entirely and thoroughly and perfectly annihilated by that vast and
painful process of Unthinking which may result in a minute bit of
purely personal Feeling. Which minute bit is Art.
Ah well, the revolution—I refer of course to the intelligent
revolution—is on the way; is perhaps nearer than some think, is
possibly knocking at the front doors of The Great Mister Harold Bell
Wright and The Great Little Miss Pollyanna. In the course of the next
ten thousand years it may be possible to find Delectable Mountains
without going to prison—captivity, I mean, Monsieur le Surveillant—it
may be possible, I daresay, to encounter Delectable Mountains who are
not in prison….
The Autumn wore on.
Rain did, from time to time, not fall: from time to time a sort of
unhealthy almost-light leaked from the large uncrisp corpse of the sky,
returning for a moment to our view the ruined landscape. From time to
time the eye, travelling carefully with a certain disagreeable suddenly
fear no longer distances of air, coldish and sweet, stopped upon the
incredible clearness of the desolate, without-motion, Autumn. Awkward
and solemn clearness, making louder the unnecessary cries, the hoarse
laughter of the invisible harlots in their muddy yard, pointing a cool
actual finger at the silly and ferocious group of man-shaped beings
huddled in the mud under four or five little trees, came strangely in
my own mind pleasantly to suggest the ludicrous and hideous and
beautiful antics of the insane. Frequently I would discover so perfect
a command over myself as to reduce _la promenade_ easily to a recently
invented mechanism; or to the demonstration of a collection of vivid
and unlovely toys around and around which, guarding them with
impossible heroism, funnily moved purely unreal _plantons_ always
absurdly marching, the maimed and stupid dolls of my imagination. Once
I was sitting alone on the long beam of silent iron and suddenly had
the gradual complete unique experience of death….
It became amazingly cold.
One evening B. and myself and, I think it was the Machine-Fixer, were
partaking of the warmth of a _bougie_ hard by and, in fact, between our
ambulance beds, when the door opened, a _planton_ entered, and a list
of names (none of which we recognized) was hurriedly read off with (as
in the case of the last _partis_, including The Wanderer and Surplice)
the admonition:
“Be ready to leave early to-morrow morning.”
—and the door shut loudly and quickly. Now one of the names which had
been called sounded somewhat like “Broom,” and a strange inquietude
seized us on this account. Could it possibly have been “B.”? We made
inquiries of certain of our friends who had been nearer the _planton_
than ourselves. We were told that Pete and The Trick Raincoat and The
Fighting Sheeney and Rockyfeller were leaving—about “B.” nobody was
able to enlighten us. Not that opinions in this matter were lacking.
There were plenty of opinions—but they contradicted each other to a
painful extent. _Les hommes_ were in fact about equally divided; half
considering that the occult sound had been intended for “B.,” half that
the somewhat asthmatic _planton_ had unwittingly uttered a spontaneous
grunt or sigh, which sigh or grunt we had mistaken for a proper noun.
Our uncertainty was augmented by the confusion emanating from a
particular corner of The Enormous Room, in which corner The Fighting
Sheeney was haranguing a group of spectators on the pregnant topic:
What I won’t do to Précigne when I get there. In deep converse with
Bathhouse John we beheld the very same youth who, some time since, had
drifted to a place beside me at _la soupe_—Pete The Ghost, white and
determined, blond and fragile: Pete the Shadow….
I forget who, but someone—I think it was the little
Machine-Fixer—established the truth that an American was to leave the
next morning. That, moreover, said American’s name was B.
Whereupon B. and I became extraordinarily busy.
The Zulu and Jean le Nègre, upon learning that B. was among the
_partis_, came over to our beds and sat down without uttering a word.
The former, through a certain shy orchestration of silence, conveyed
effortlessly and perfectly his sorrow at the departure; the latter, by
his bowed head and a certain very delicate restraint manifested in the
wholly exquisite poise of his firm alert body, uttered at least a
universe of grief.
The little Machine-Fixer was extremely indignant; not only that his
friend was going to a den of thieves and ruffians, but that his friend
was leaving in such company as that of _cette crapule_ (meaning
Rockyfeller) and _les deux mangeurs de blanc_ (to wit, The Trick
Raincoat and The Fighting Sheeney). “_c’est malheureux_,” he repeated
over and over, wagging his poor little head in rage and despair—“it’s
no place for a young man who has done no wrong, to be shut up with
pimps and cutthroats, _pour la durée de la guerre; le gouvernement
français a bien fait!_” and he brushed a tear out of his eye with a
desperate rapid brittle gesture…. But what angered the Machine-Fixer
most was that B. and I were about to be separated—“_M’sieu’ Jean_”
(touching me gently on the knee) “they have no hearts, _la commission_;
they are not simply unjust, they are cruel, _savez-vous_? Men are not
like these; they are not men, they are Name of God I don’t know what,
they are worse than the animals; and they pretend to Justice”
(shivering from top to toe with an indescribable sneer) “Justice! My
God, Justice!”
All of which, somehow or other, did not exactly cheer us.
And, the packing completed, we drank together for The Last Time. The
Zulu and Jean Le Nègre and the Machine-Fixer and B. and I—and Pete The
Shadow drifted over, whiter than I think I ever saw him, and said
simply to me:
“I’ll take care o’ your friend, Johnny.”
… and then at last it was _lumières éteintes_; and _les deux
américains_ lay in their beds in the cold rotten darkness, talking in
low voices of the past, of Petroushka, of Paris, of that brilliant and
extraordinary and impossible something: Life.
Morning. Whitish. Inevitable. Deathly cold.
There was a great deal of hurry and bustle in The Enormous Room. People
were rushing hither and thither in the heavy half-darkness. People were
saying good-bye to people. Saying good-bye to friends. Saying good-bye
to themselves. We lay and sipped the black evil dull certainly not
coffee; lay on our beds, dressed, shuddering with cold, waiting.
Waiting. Several of _les hommes_ whom we scarcely knew came up to B.
and shook hands with him and said good luck and good-bye. The darkness
was going rapidly out of the dull black evil stinking air. B. suddenly
realized that he had no gift for The Zulu; he asked a fine Norwegian to
whom he had given his leather belt if he, the Norwegian, would mind
giving it back, because there was a very dear friend who had been
forgotten. The Norwegian, with a pleasant smile, took off the belt and
said “Certainly” … he had been arrested at Bordeaux, where he came
ashore from his ship, for stealing three cans of sardines when he was
drunk … a very great and dangerous criminal … he said “Certainly,” and
gave B. a pleasant smile, the pleasantest smile in the world. B. wrote
his own address and name in the inside of the belt, explained in French
to The Young Pole that any time The Zulu wanted to reach him all he had
to do was to consult the belt; The Young Pole translated; The Zulu
nodded; The Norwegian smiled appreciatively; The Zulu received the belt
with a gesture to which words cannot do the faintest justice—
A _planton_ was standing in The Enormous Room, a _planton_ roaring and
cursing and crying, “Hurry, those who are going to go.”—B. shook hands
with Jean and Mexique and the Machine-Fixer and the Young Skipper, and
Bathhouse John (to whom he had given his ambulance tunic, and who was
crazy-proud in consequence) and the Norwegian and the Washing Machine
Man and The Hat and many of _les hommes_ whom we scarcely knew.—The
Black Holster was roaring:
“_Allez, nom de Dieu, l’américain!_”
I went down the room with B. and Pete, and shook hands with both at the
door. The other _partis_, alias The Trick Raincoat and The Fighting
Sheeney, were already on the way downstairs. The Black Holster cursed
us and me in particular and slammed the door angrily in my face—
Through the little peephole I caught a glimpse of them, entering the
street. I went to my bed and lay down quietly in my great _pelisse_.
The clamour and filth of the room brightened and became distant and
faded. I heard the voice of the jolly Alsatian saying:
“_Courage, mon ami_, your comrade is not dead; you will see him later,”
and after that, nothing. In front of and on and within my eyes lived
suddenly a violent and gentle and dark silence.
The Three Wise Men had done their work. But wisdom cannot rest….
Probably at that very moment they were holding their court in another
La Ferté committing to incomparable anguish some few merely perfectly
wretched criminals: little and tall, tremulous and brave—all of them
white and speechless, all of them with tight bluish lips and large
whispering eyes, all of them with fingers weary and mutilated and
extraordinarily old … desperate fingers; closing, to feel the final
luke-warm fragment of life glide neatly and softly into forgetfulness.
XIII.
I SAY GOOD-BYE TO LA MISÈRE
To convince the reader that this history is mere fiction (and rather
vulgarly violent fiction at that) nothing perhaps is needed save that
ancient standby of sob-story writers and thrill-artists alike—the Happy
Ending. As a matter of fact, it makes not the smallest difference to me
whether anyone who has thus far participated in my travels does or does
not believe that they and I are (as that mysterious animal, “the
public” would say) “real.” I do, however, very strenuously object to
the assumption, on the part of anyone, that the heading of this, my
final, chapter stands for anything in the nature of happiness. In the
course of recalling (in God knows a rather clumsy and perfectly
inadequate way) what happened to me between the latter part of August,
1917, and the first of January, 1918, I have proved to my own
satisfaction (if not to anyone else’s) that I was happier in La Ferté
Macé, with The Delectable Mountains about me, than the very keenest
words can pretend to express. I daresay it all comes down to a
definition of happiness. And a definition of happiness I most certainly
do not intend to attempt; but I can and will say this: to leave La
Misère with the knowledge, and worse than that the feeling, that some
of the finest people in the world are doomed to remain prisoners
thereof for no one knows how long—are doomed to continue, possibly for
years and tens of years and all the years which terribly are between
them and their deaths, the grey and indivisible Non-existence which
without apology you are quitting for Reality—cannot by any stretch of
the imagination be conceived as constituting a Happy Ending to a great
and personal adventure. That I write this chapter at all is due, purely
and simply, to the, I daresay, unjustified hope on my part that—by
recording certain events—it may hurl a little additional light into a
very tremendous darkness….
At the outset let me state that what occurred subsequent to the
departure for Précigne of B. and Pete and The Sheeneys and Rockyfeller
is shrouded in a rather ridiculous indistinctness; due, I have to
admit, to the depression which this departure inflicted upon my
altogether too human nature. The judgment of the Three Wise Men had—to
use a peculiarly vigorous (not to say vital) expression of my own day
and time—knocked me for a loop. I spent the days intervening between
the separation from “_votre camarade_” and my somewhat supernatural
departure for freedom in attempting to partially straighten myself.
When finally I made my exit, the part of me popularly referred to as
“mind” was still in a slightly bent if not twisted condition. Not until
some weeks of American diet had revolutionized my exterior did my
interior completely resume the contours of normality. I am particularly
neither ashamed nor proud of this (one might nearly say) mental
catastrophe. No more ashamed or proud, in fact, than of the infection
of three fingers which I carried to America as a little token of La
Ferté’s good-will. In the latter case I certainly have no right to
boast, even should I find myself so inclined; for B. took with him to
Précigne a case of what his father, upon B.’s arrival in The Home of
The Brave, diagnosed as scurvy—which scurvy made my mutilations look
like thirty cents or even less. One of my vividest memories of La Ferté
consists in a succession of crackling noises associated with the
disrobing of my friend. I recall that we appealed to Monsieur Ree-chard
together, B. in behalf of his scurvy and I in behalf of my hand plus a
queer little row of sores, the latter having proceeded to adorn that
part of my face which was trying hard to be graced with a moustache. I
recall that Monsieur Ree-chard decreed a _bain_ for B., which _bain_
meant immersion in a large tin tub partially filled with not quite
luke-warm water. I, on the contrary, obtained a speck of zinc ointment
on a minute piece of cotton, and considered myself peculiarly
fortunate. Which details cannot possibly offend the reader’s aesthetic
sense to a greater degree than have already certain minutiae connected
with the sanitary arrangements of The Directeur’s little home for
homeless boys and girls—therefore I will not trouble to beg the
reader’s pardon; but will proceed with my story proper or improper.
“_Mais qu’est-ce que vous avez_,” Monsieur le Surveillant demanded, in
a tone of profound if kindly astonishment, as I wended my lonely way to
_la soupe_ some days after the disappearance of _les partis_.
I stood and stared at him very stupidly without answering, having
indeed nothing at all to say.
“But why are you so sad?” he asked.
“I suppose I miss my friend,” I ventured.
“_Mais—mais—_” he puffed and panted like a very old and fat person
trying to persuade a bicycle to climb a hill—“_mais—vous avez de la
chance!_”
“I suppose I have,” I said without enthusiasm.
“_Mais—mais—parfaitement—vous avez de la chance—uh-ah—uh-ah—parce
que—comprenez-vous—votre camarade—ah-ah—a attrapé prison!_”
“Uh-ah!” I said wearily.
“Whereas,” continued Monsieur, “you haven’t. You ought to be
extraordinarily thankful and particularly happy!”
“I should rather have gone to prison with my friend,” I stated briefly;
and went into the dining-room, leaving the Surveillant uh-ahing in
nothing short of complete amazement.
I really believe that my condition worried him, incredible as this may
seem. At the time I gave neither an extraordinary nor a particular damn
about Monsieur le Surveillant, nor indeed about “_l’autre américain_”
alias myself. Dimly, through a fog of disinterested inapprehension, I
realized that—with the exception of the _plantons_ and, of course,
Apollyon—everyone was trying very hard to help me; that The Zulu, Jean,
The Machine-Fixer, Mexique, The Young Skipper, even The Washing Machine
Man (with whom I promenaded frequently when no one else felt like
taking the completely unagreeable air) were kind, very kind, kinder
than I can possibly say. As for Afrique and The Cook—there was nothing
too good for me at this time. I asked the latter’s permission to cut
wood, and was not only accepted as a sawyer, but encouraged with
assurances of the best coffee there was, with real sugar _dedans_. In
the little space outside the _cuisine_, between the building and _la
cour_, I sawed away of a morning to my great satisfaction; from time to
time clumping my _saboted_ way into the _chef’s_ domain in answer to a
subdued signal from Afrique. Of an afternoon I sat with Jean or Mexique
or The Zulu on the long beam of silent iron, pondering very carefully
nothing at all, replying to their questions or responding to their
observations in a highly mechanical manner. I felt myself to be, at
last, a doll—taken out occasionally and played with and put back into
its house and told to go to sleep….
One afternoon I was lying on my couch, thinking of the usual Nothing,
when a sharp cry sung through The Enormous Room:
“_Il tombe de la neige—Noël! Noël!_”
I sat up. The Guard Champêtre was at the nearest window, dancing a
little horribly and crying:
“_Noël! Noël!_”
I went to another window and looked out. Sure enough. Snow was falling,
gradually and wonderfully falling, silently falling through the thick
soundless Autumn…. It seemed to me supremely beautiful, the snow. There
was about it something unspeakably crisp and exquisite, something
perfect and minute and gentle and fatal…. The Guard Champêtre’s cry
began a poem in the back of my head, a poem about the snow, a poem in
French, beginning _Il tombe de la neige, Noël, Noël._ I watched the
snow. After a long time I returned to my bunk and I lay down, closing
my eyes; feeling the snow’s minute and crisp touch falling gently and
exquisitely, falling perfectly and suddenly, through the thick
soundless autumn of my imagination….
“_L’américain! L’américain!_”
Someone is speaking to me.
“_Le petit belge avec le bras cassé est là-bas, à la porte, il veut
parler…._”
I marched the length of the room. The Enormous Room is filled with a
new and beautiful darkness, the darkness of the snow outside, falling
and falling and falling with the silent and actual gesture which has
touched the soundless country of my mind as a child touches a toy it
loves….
Through the locked door I heard a nervous whisper: “_Dis à l’américain
que je veux parler avec lui._”—“_Me voici_” I said.
“Put your ear to the key-hole, _M’sieu’ Jean_,” said the
Machine-Fixer’s voice. The voice of the little Machine-Fixer,
tremendously excited. I obey—“_Alors. Qu’est-ce que c’est, mon ami?_”
“_M’sieu’ Jean! Le Directeur va vous appeler tout de suite!_ You must
get ready instantly! Wash and shave, eh? He’s going to call you right
away. And don’t forget! Oloron! You will ask to go to Oloron Sainte
Marie, where you can paint! Oloron Sainte Marie, Basse Pyrenées!
_N’oubliez pas, M’sieu’ Jean! Et dépêchez-vous!_”
“_Merci bien, mon ami!_”—I remember now. The little Machine-Fixer and I
had talked. It seemed that _la commission_ had decided that I was not a
criminal, but only a suspect. As a suspect I would be sent to some
place in France, any place I wanted to go, provided it was not on or
near the sea coast. That was in order that I should not perhaps try to
escape from France. The Machine-Fixer had advised me to ask to go to
Oloron Sainte Marie. I should say that, as a painter, the Pyrenees
particularly appealed to me. “_Et qu’il fait beau, là-bas!_ The snow on
the mountains! And it’s not cold. And what mountains! You can live
there very cheaply. As a suspect you will merely have to report once a
month to the chief of police of Oloron Sainte Marie; he’s an old friend
of mine! He’s a fine, fat, red-cheeked man, very kindly. He will make
it easy for you, _M’sieu’ Jean_, and will help you out in every way,
when you tell him you are a friend of the little Belgian with the
broken arm. Tell him I sent you. You will have a very fine time, and
you can paint: such scenery to paint! My God—not like what you see from
these windows. I advise you by all means to ask to go to Oloron.”
So thinking I lathered my face, standing before Judas’ mirror.
“You don’t rub enough,” the Alsatian advised, “_il faut frotter bien!_”
A number of fellow-captives were regarding my toilet with surprise and
satisfaction. I discovered in the mirror an astounding beard and a good
layer of dirt. I worked busily, counselled by several voices, censured
by the Alsatian, encouraged by Judas himself. The shave and the wash
completed I felt considerably refreshed.