light at all, penetrated ) the culprit could shout and scream his
or her heart out if he or she liked, without serious annoyance
to His Majesty King Satan . I wonder how many times,
en route to la soupe or The Enormous Room or promenade,
I have heard the unearthly smouldering laughter of girls or of
men entombed within the drooling greenish walls of La Ferté
Macé. A dozen times, I suppose , I have seen a friend of the
entombed stoop adroitly and shove a cigarette or a piece of
chocolate under the door, to the girls or the men or the girl
or man screaming, shouting, and pommeling faintly behind
that very door - but, you would say by the sound, a good part
of a mile away. . . . Ah well, more of this later, when we
come to les femmes on their own account.
The third method employed to throw Fear into the minds of his captives lay, as I have said, in the sight of the Captor Himself. And this was by far the most efficient method.
He loved to suddenly dash upon the girls when they were carrying their slops along the hall and downstairs, as (in common with the men) they had to do at least twice every morning and twice every afternoon. The corvée of girls and men were of course arranged so as not to coincide; yet somehow or other they managed to coincide on the average about once a week, or if not coincide, at any rate approach coincidence. On such occasions, as often as not under the planton's very stupid nose, a kiss or an embrace would be stolen—provocative of much fierce laughter and some scurrying. Or else, while the moneyed captives (including B. and Cummings) were waiting their turn to enter the bureau de M. le Gestionnaire, or even were ascending the stairs with a planton behind them, en route to Mecca, along the hall would come five or six women staggering and carrying huge pails full to the brim of everyone knew what; five or six heads lowered, ill-dressed bodies tense with effort, free arms rigidly extended from the shoulder downward and outward in a plane at right angles to their difficult progress and thereby helping to balance the disconcerting load—all embarrassed, some humiliated, others desperately at ease—along they would come under the steady
