Frankly, I do not regret those four days’ imprisonment. True, they cost
me a terrific cold--and perhaps I may here be allowed to say that the
guard-room was anything but clean--still, I learnt some very useful
things. Indeed, I can hardly cry out against the injustice of it in
view of the inestimable benefit I received and the insight it gave me.
No, I am not sorry for having experienced, at the age of forty-six, the
straw of the prison cell that every one admits to be damp and unhealthy.
When the sergeant, who is not at all a bad fellow, though afflicted
with a painful disease, came and told me, “Monsieur Bouin, you’ve got
four days guard-room,” I was at first amazed and incredulous. At the
same time, it was early in the day, and the sergeant, who never joked
before his morning operation, added with a doleful expression:
“Some one named Bouin ought to have been on duty last night in the
hospital. But no one turned up. It wasn’t perhaps you, my poor Monsieur
Bouin, who cut your job, but it’s certainly you who have four days’
imprisonment.”
The sergeant stopped. I felt something gripping me in the pit of the
stomach, and a heavy blush added to my discomfort. Right up to the
first weeks of the war, my life had been peaceful and happy: there were
some emotions I had not until then experienced, and I could not get
accustomed to them, so that I was acutely conscious of the indignity I
now had to suffer.
“Sergeant,” I said, “it can’t be true. I was on hospital duty the day
before yesterday, and I am to-morrow again. It wasn’t my turn last
night, I am quite certain.”
I must have been very red and trembling, for the sergeant looked at me
for a moment or two, evidently feeling very sorry. Then he said, “Just
wait a moment. I’ll go and see the orderly officer”; and he went out.
I went back to my scrubbing. That is very tiring work for a man who has
spent his life studying mathematics; but in September 1914 a spirit of
determination and of sacrifice had aroused all Frenchmen worthy of the
name. I had volunteered to serve my country humbly, proudly, within the
extreme limits of my strength; and as it was upon my physical strength
that the demand was chiefly being made, I used every day to scrub the
floor with enthusiasm. On that morning I threw myself frantically into
the job, with such a will indeed that heavy drops of perspiration undid
my work. I suffered, but was quite content: we water our native soil
with what we can. Don’t you think so?
The sergeant came back.
“Monsieur Bouin,” he said, “it’s you all right. You’ve got four days’
clink, and it’s a dirty trick they are playing on you. Quite lately a
doctor joined up who has the same name as yours, but he hasn’t yet been
given his rank. As he does the work of a major, he hasn’t to stick it
on night duty. But the clerks, who never know anything, put him down
for duty, and that’s how no one turned up. You understand? Then the
colonel ordered four days’ imprisonment. But the orderly officer got
him to see that he couldn’t punish the doctor, who’s got his job to
do! But you see the punishment has been posted under the name Bouin;
and as some one has got to be punished, I suppose it’s got to be
you....”
I was holding one of those scrubbing-sticks at the end of which a piece
of wax was usually fixed. I was so astounded that I let the thing fall.
The clumsy clatter seemed to be cruelly emphasised by the echoing walls
of the room. It sounded like a smack. I felt so wretched.
“Go yourself and see the officer,” said the sergeant, rather touched,
shifting from one leg to the other. “I have now to see about the
signatures....”
I let him go; for when this good fellow talks of signatures, he is
tortured by a very necessary need, which he cannot satisfy without
suffering those shooting pains....
I placed my scrubbing implements in a corner, and I hastened to
the office, buttoning my little jacket with trembling fingers: my
equanimity was never real, and I felt some difficulty in controlling my
emotions.
I knew the officer: he was an old Alsatian whom the war had dragged
out of a _mairie_ where he was spending the days of his retirement.
He had not, up till then, appeared to me a difficult person, nor
needlessly fussy; and I did not despair of being able to make him
unbend and to acknowledge himself in the wrong.
“Ah! it’s you, Bouin,” he said coolly. “Well, you’ve got to do four
days’ imprisonment. You begin at noon.”
“But, sir,” I said, “while my name is Bouin--Bouin, Léon--and----”
He cut me short.
“It doesn’t matter what your Christian name is. There was no Christian
name on the list. You have seen the name Bouin: you’ve only got to
carry out----”
“But, sir, the times I go on duty have been definitely fixed for the
last two weeks. I haven’t noticed----”
The man jumped to his feet, and I saw he was short--almost ridiculously
short. He came towards me angrily, sputtering into his moustache.
“A punishment has been ordered. Some one has got to take it; and it’s
you who’ve got to do so. What is your profession?”
“A teacher of mathematics, and a volunteer.”
He added in a tense voice:
“It doesn’t follow that because you are not a conscript you’re going to
be cock of the walk here. Besides, men of education like yourself ought
to be an example to the others. Follow my advice, and do your four
days, my boy.”
“But, _Monsieur l’officier_----”
“You do as I advise you. This is not the moment, when the enemy is
hammering at the gates of the capital--this is not the moment, I
repeat, to scatter germs of indiscipline.”
“But, sir, discipline----”
Lines appeared on his brow and round his mouth. Then he muttered in a
tone that was at once arrogant, sad and sententious:
“Discipline!--why, you don’t know what it is! You can’t teach me
anything about that. Do your four days.”
I understood from the gesture accompanying these words that I must
depart. An unexpected reply escaped me.
“Sir,” I said, “I shall send in a complaint to the colonel.”
The dwarf brought down his fists on a pile of documents.
“Good! good! Another row! And we think we are going to win with such
people! Get out of my sight, will you!”
I thought he groaned, and I found myself in the passage. Midway between
the floor and the ceiling ran a water-pipe, making a babbling noise. It
seemed to have been installed there in the silence since the days of
Adam.