VI
APOLLYON
The inhabitants of The Enormous Room whose portraits I have attempted in the preceding chapter, were, with one or two exceptions, inhabiting at the time of my arrival. Now the thing which above all things made death worth living and life worth dying at La Ferté Macé was the kinetic aspect of that institution; the arrivals, singly or in groups, of nouveaux of sundry nationalities whereby our otherwise more or less simple existence was happily complicated, our putrescent placidity shaken by a fortunate violence. Before, however, undertaking this aspect I shall attempt to represent for my own benefit as well as the reader's certain more obvious elements of that stasis which greeted the candidates for disintegration upon their admittance to our select, not to say distinguished, circle. Or: I shall describe, briefly, Apollyon and the instruments of his power, which instruments are three in number: Fear, Women and Sunday.
By Apollyon I mean a very definite fiend. A fiend who, secluded in the sumptuous and luxurious privacy of his own personal bureau (which as a rule no one of lesser rank than the Surveillant was allowed, so far as I might observe—and I observed—to enter) compelled to the unimaginable meanness of his will by means of the three potent instruments in question all within the sweating walls of La Ferté—that was once upon a time human. I mean a very complete Apollyon, a Satan whose word is dreadful not because it is painstakingly unjust, but because it is incomprehensibly omnipotent. I mean, in short, Monsieur le Directeur. I shall discuss first of all Monsieur le Directeur's most obvious weapon.
Fear was instilled by three means into the erstwhile human entities whose presence at La Ferté gave Apollyon his job. The three means were: through his subordinates, who being one and all fearful of his power directed their energies to but one end—the production in ourselves of a similar emotion; through two forms of punishment, which supplied said subordinates with a weapon over any of us who refused to find room for this desolating emotion in his heart of hearts; and, finally, through direct contact with his unutterable personality.
Beneath the Demon was the Surveillant. I have already described the Surveillant. I wish to say, however, that in my opinion the Surveillant was the most decent official at La Ferté. I pay him this tribute gladly and honestly. To me, at least, he was kind: to the majority he was inclined to be lenient. I honestly and gladly believe that the Surveillant was incapable of that quality whose innateness, in the case of his superior, rendered that gentleman a (to my mind) perfect representative of the Almighty French Government: I believe that the Surveillant did not enjoy being cruel, that he was not absolutely without pity or understanding. As a personality I therefore pay him my respects. I am myself incapable of caring whether, as a tool of the Devil, he will find the bright firelight of Hell too warm for him or no.
Beneath the Surveillant were the Secretaire, Monsieur Richard, the Cook, and the plantons. The first I have described sufficiently, since he was an obedient and negative—albeit peculiarly responsible—cog in the machine of decomposition. Of Monsieur Richard, whose portrait is included in the account of my first day at La Ferté, I wish to say that he had a very comfortable room of his own filled with primitive and otherwise imposing medicines; the walls of this comfortable room being beauteously adorned by some fifty magazine covers representing the female form in every imaginable state of undress, said magazine-covers being taken chiefly from such amorous periodicals as Le Sourire and that old stand-by of indecency, La Vie Parisienne. Also Monsieur Richard kept a pot of geraniums upon his window-ledge, which haggard and aged-looking symbol of joy he doubtless (in his spare moments) peculiarly enjoyed watering. The Cook is by this time familiar to my reader. I beg to say that I highly approve of The Cook; exclusive of the fact that the coffee, which went up to The Enormous Room tous les matins, was made every day with the same grounds plus a goodly injection of checkerberry—for the simple reason that the Cook had to supply our captors and especially Apollyon with real coffee, whereas what he supplied to les hommes made no difference. The same is true of sugar: our morning coffee, in addition to being a water-thin, black, muddy, stinking liquid, contained not the smallest suggestion of sweetness, whereas the coffee which went to the officials—and the coffee which B. and I drank in recompense for "catching water"—had all the sugar you could possibly wish for. The poor Cook was fined one day as a result of his economies, subsequent to a united action on the part of the fellow-sufferers. It was a day when a gent immaculately dressed appeared—after duly warning the Fiend that he was about to inspect the Fiend's ménage—an, I think, public official of Orne. Judas (at the time chef de chambre) supported by the sole and unique indignation of all his fellow-prisoners save two or three out of whom Fear had made rabbits or moles, early carried the pail (which by common agreement not one of us had touched that day) downstairs, along the hall, and up one flight—where he encountered the Directeur, Surveillant and Handsome Stranger all amicably and pleasantly conversing. Judas set the pail down; bowed; and begged, as spokesman for the united male gender of La Ferté Macé, that the quality of the coffee be examined. "We won't any of us drink it, begging your pardon, Messieurs," he claims that he said. What happened then is highly amusing. The petit balayeur, an eye-witness of the proceeding, described it to me as follows:
"The Directeur roared 'COMMENT?' He was horribly angry. 'Oui, Monsieur,' said the maitre de chambre humbly— 'Pourquoi?' thundered the Directeur.—'Because it's undrinkable,' the maitre de chambre said quietly.—'Undrinkable? Nonsense!' cried the Directeur furiously.—'Be so good as to taste it, Monsieur le Directeur.'—' I taste it? Why should I taste it? The coffee is perfectly good, plenty good for you men. This is ridiculous—'—'Why don't we all taste it?' suggested the Surveillant ingratiatingly.—'Why, yes,' said the Visitor mildly.—'Taste it? Of course not. This is ridiculous and I shall punish—'—'I should like, if you don't mind, to try a little,' the Visitor said.—'Oh, well, of course, if you like,' the Directeur mildly agreed. 'Give me a cup of that coffee, you!'—'With pleasure, sir,' said the maitre de chambre. The Directeur—M'sieu' Jean, you would have burst laughing—seized the cup, lifted it to his lips, swallowed with a frightful expression (his eyes almost popping out of his head) and cried fiercely, 'DELICIOUS!' The Surveillant took a cupful; sipped; tossed the coffee away, looking as if he had been hit in the eyes, and remarked, 'Ah.' The maitre de chambre—M'sieu' Jean he is clever—scooped the third cupful from the bottom of the pail, and very politely, with a big bow, handed it to the Visitor; who took it, touched it to his lips, turned perfectly green, and cried out 'Impossible!' M'sieu' Jean, we all thought—the Directeur and the Surveillant and the maitre de chambre and myself—that he was going to vomit. He leaned against the wall a moment, quite green; then recovering said faintly—'The Kitchen.' The Directeur looked very nervous and shouted, trembling all over, 'Yes, indeed! We'll see the cook about this perfectly impossible coffee. I had no idea that my men were getting such coffee. It's abominable! That's what it is, an outrage!'—And they all tottered downstairs to The Cook; and M'sieu Jean, they searched the kitchen; and what do you think? They found ten pounds of coffee and twelve pounds of sugar all neatly hidden away, that The Cook had been saving for himself out of our allowance. He's a beast, the Cook!"
I must say that, although the morning coffee improved enormously for as much as a week, it descended afterwards to its original level of excellence.
The Cook, I may add, officiated three times a week at a little table to the left as you entered the dining-room. Here he stood, and threw at everyone (as everyone entered) a hunk of the most extraordinary meat which I have ever had the privilege of trying to masticate—it could not be tasted. It was pale and leathery. B. and myself often gave ours away in our hungriest moments; which statement sounds as if we were generous to others, whereas the reason for these donations was that we couldn't eat, let alone stand the sight of this staple of diet. We had to do our donating on the sly, since the chef always gave us choice pieces and we were anxious not to hurt the chef's feelings. There was a good deal of spasmodic protestation apropos la viande, but the Cook always bullied it down—nor was the meat his fault; since, from the miserable carcases which I have often seen carried into the kitchen from without, the Cook had to select something which would suit the meticulous stomach of the Lord of Hell, as also the less meticulous digestive organs of his minions; and it was only after every planton had got a piece of viande to his plantonic taste that the captives, female and male, came in for consideration.
On the whole, I think I never envied the Cook his strange and difficult, not to say gruesome, job. With the men en masse he was bound to be unpopular. To the good-will of those above he was necessarily more or less a slave. And on the whole, I liked the Cook very much, as did B.—for the very good and sufficient reason that he liked us both.
About the plantons I have something to say, something which it gives me huge pleasure to say. I have to say, about the plantons, that as a bunch they struck me at the time and will always impress me as the next to the lowest species of human organism; the lowest, in my experienced estimation, being the gendarme proper. The plantons were, with one exception—he of the black holster with whom I collided on the first day—changed from time to time. Again with this one exception, they were (as I have noted) apparently disabled men who were enjoying a vacation from the trenches in the lovely environs of Orne. Nearly all of them were witless. Every one of them had something the matter with him physically as well. For instance, one planton had a large wooden hand. Another was possessed of a long unmanageable left leg made, as nearly as I could discover, of tin. A third had a huge glass eye.
These peculiarities of physique, however, did not inhibit the plantons from certain essential and normal desires. On the contrary. The plantons probably realised that, in competition with the male world at large, their glass legs and tin hands and wooden eyes would not stand a Chinaman's chance of winning the affection and admiration of the fair sex. At any rate they were always on the alert for opportunities to triumph over the admiration and affection of les femmes at La Ferté, where their success was not endangered by competition. They had the bulge on everybody; and they used what bulge they had to such good advantage that one of them, during my stay, was pursued with a revolver by their sergeant, captured, locked up and shipped off for court-martial on the charge of disobedience and threatening the life of a superior officer. He had been caught with the goods—that is to say, in the girl's cabinot—by said superior: an incapable, strutting, undersized, bepimpled person in a bright uniform who spent his time assuming the poses of a general for the benefit of the ladies; of his admiration for whom and his intentions toward whom he made no secret. By all means one of the most disagreeable petty bullies whom I ever beheld. This arrest of a planton was, so long as I inhabited La Ferté, the only case in which abuse of the weaker sex was punished. That attempts at abuse were frequent I know from allusions and direct statements made in the letters which passed by way of the sweeper from the girls to their captive admirers. I might say that the senders of these letters, whom I shall attempt to portray presently, have my unmitigated and unqualified admiration. By all odds they possessed the most terrible vitality and bravery of any human beings, women or men, whom it has ever been my extraordinary luck to encounter, or ever will be (I am absolutely sure) in this world.
The duties of the plantons were those simple and obvious duties which only very stupid persons can perfectly fulfill, namely: to take turns guarding the building and its inhabitants; not to accept bribes, whether in the form of matches, cigarettes or conversation, from their prisoners; to accompany anyone who went anywhere outside the walls (as did occasionally the balayeurs, to transport baggage; the men who did corvée; and the catchers of water for the cook, who proceeded as far as the hydrant situated on the outskirts of the town—a momentous distance of perhaps five hundred feet); and finally to obey any and all orders from all and any superiors without thinking. Plantons were supposed—but only supposed—to report any schemes for escaping which they might overhear during their watch upon les femmes et les hommes en promenade. Of course they never overheard any, since the least intelligent of the watched was a paragon of wisdom by comparison with the watchers. B. and I had a little ditty about plantons, of which I can quote (unfortunately) only the first line and refrain:
"A planton loved a lady once
(Cabbages and cauliflowers!)"
It was a very fine song. In concluding my remarks upon plantons I must, in justice to my subject, mention the three prime plantonic virtues—they were (1) beauty, as regards face and person and bearing, (2) chivalry, as regards women, (3) heroism, as regards males.
The somewhat unique and amusing appearance of the plantons rather militated against than served to inculcate Fear—it was therefore not wonderful that they and the desired emotion were supported by two strictly enforced punishments, punishments which were meted out with equal and unflinching severity to both sexes alike. The less undesirable punishment was known as pain sec—which Fritz, shortly after my arrival, got for smashing a window-pane by accident; and which Harree and Pom Pom, the incorrigibles, were getting most of the time. This punishment consisted in denying to the culprit all nutriment save two stone-hard morsels of dry bread per diem. The culprit's intimate friends, of course, made a point of eating only a portion of their own morsels of soft, heavy, sour bread (we got two a day, with each soupe) and presenting the culprit with the rest. The common method of getting pain sec was also a simple one—it was for a man to wave, shout or make other signs audible or visual to an inhabitant of the women's quarters; and, for a girl, to be seen at her window by the Directeur at any time during the morning and afternoon promenades of the men. The punishment for sending a letter to a girl might possibly be pain sec, but was more often—I pronounce the word even now with a sinking of the heart, though curiously enough I escaped that for which it stands—cabinot.
There were (as already mentioned) a number of cabinots, sometimes referred to as cachots by persons of linguistic propensities. To repeat myself a little: at least three were situated on the ground floor; and these were used whenever possible in preference to the one or ones upstairs, for the reason that they were naturally more damp and chill and dark and altogether more dismal and unhealthy. Dampness and cold were considerably increased by the substitution, for a floor, of two or three planks resting here and there in mud. I am now describing what my eyes saw, not what was shown to the inspectors on their rare visits to the Directeur's little shop for making criminals. I know what these occasional visitors beheld, because it, too, I have seen with my own eyes: seen the two balayeurs staggering downstairs with a bed (consisting of a high iron frame, a huge mattress of delicious thickness, spotless sheets, warm blankets, and a sort of quilt neatly folded over all); seen this bed placed by the panting sweepers in the thoroughly cleaned and otherwise immaculate cabinot at the foot of the stairs and opposite the kitchen, the well-scrubbed door being left wide open. I saw this done as I was going to dinner. While the men were upstairs recovering from la soupe, the gentleman-inspectors were invited downstairs to look at a specimen of the Directeur's kindness—a kindness which he could not restrain even in the case of those who were guilty of some terrible wrong. (The little Belgian with the Broken Arm, alias the Machine-Fixer, missed not a word nor a gesture of all this; and described the scene to me with an indignation which threatened his sanity.) Then, while les hommes were in the cour for the afternoon, the sweepers were rushed to The Enormous Room, which they cleaned to beat the band with the fear of Hell in them; after which, the Directeur led his amiable guests leisurely upstairs and showed them the way the men kept their quarters; kept them without dictation on the part of the officials, so fond were they of what was to them one and all more than a delightful temporary residence—was in fact a home. From The Enormous Room the procession wended a gentle way to the women's quarters (scrubbed and swept in anticipation of their arrival) and so departed; conscious—no doubt—that in the Directeur France had found a rare specimen of whole-hearted and efficient generosity.
Upon being sentenced to cabinot, whether for writing an intercepted letter, fighting, threatening a planton, or committing some minor offense for the nth time, a man took one blanket from his bed, carried it downstairs to the cachot, and disappeared therein for a night or many days and nights as the case might be. Before entering he was thoroughly searched and temporarily deprived of the contents of his pockets, whatever they might include. It was made certain that he had no cigarettes nor tobacco in any other form upon his person, and no matches. The door was locked behind him and double and triple locked-to judge by the sound-by a planton, usually the Black Holster, who on such occasions produced a ring of enormous keys suggestive of a burlesque jailer. Within the stone walls of his dungeon (into which a beam of light no bigger than a ten-cent piece, and in some cases no 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 sensual gaze of the men, under a gaze which seemed to eat them alive ... and then one of them would laugh with the laughter which is neither pitiful nor terrible, but horrible....
And BANG! would a door fly open, and ROAR! a well-dressed animal about five feet six inches in height, with prominent cuffs and a sportive tie, the altogether decently and neatly clothed thick-built figure squirming from top to toe with anger, the large head trembling and white-faced beneath a flourishing mane of coarse blackish bristly perhaps hair, the arm crooked at the elbow and shaking a huge fist of pinkish well-manicured flesh, the distinct, cruel, brightish eyes sprouting from their sockets under bushily enormous black eyebrows, the big, weak, coarse mouth extended almost from ear to ear, and spouting invective, the soggily brutal lips clinched upward and backward, showing the huge horse-like teeth to the froth-shot gums—
And I saw once a little girl eleven years old scream in terror and drop her pail of slops, spilling most of it on her feet; and seize it in a clutch of frail child's fingers, and stagger, sobbing and shaking, past the Fiend—one hand held over her contorted face to shield her from the Awful Thing of Things—to the head of the stairs, where she collapsed, and was half-carried, half-dragged by one of the older ones to the floor below while another older one picked up her pail and lugged this and her own hurriedly downward.
And after the last head had disappeared, Monsieur le Directeur continued to rave and shake and tremble for as much as ten seconds, his shoebrush mane crinkling with black anger—then, turning suddenly upon les hommes (who cowered up against the wall as men cower up against a material thing in the presence of the supernatural) he roared and shook his pinkish fist at us till the gold stud in his immaculate cuff walked out upon the wad of clenching flesh:
"AND YOU—TAKE CARE—IF I CATCH YOU WITH THE WOMEN AGAIN I'LL STICK YOU IN CABINOT FOR TWO WEEKS, ALL—ALL OF YOU—"
for as much as half a minute; then turning his round-shouldered big back suddenly he adjusted his cuffs, muttering PROSTITUTES and WHORES and DIRTY FILTH OF WOMEN, crammed his big fists into his trousers, pulled in his chin till his fattish jowl rippled along the square jaws, panted, grunted, very completely satisfied, very contented, rather proud of himself, took a strutting stride or two in his expensive shiny boots, and shot all at once through the open door which he SLAMMED after him.
Apropos the particular incident described for purposes of illustration, I wish to state that I believe in miracles: the miracle being that I did not knock the spit-covered mouthful of teeth and jabbering brutish outthrust jowl (which certainly were not farther than eighteen inches from me) through the bullneck bulging in its spotless collar. For there are times when one almost decides not to merely observe ... besides which, never in my life before had I wanted to kill, to thoroughly extinguish and to entirely murder. Perhaps ... some day.... Unto God I hope so.
Amen.
Now I will try to give the reader a glimpse of the Women of La Ferté Macé.
The little Machine-Fixer as I said in the preceding chapter, divided them into Good and Bad. He said there were as much as three Good ones, of which three he had talked to one and knew her story. Another of the three Good Women obviously was Margherite—a big, strong female who did washing, and who was a permanent resident because she had been careless enough to be born of German parents. I think I spoke with number three on the day I waited to be examined by the Commission—a Belgian girl, whom I shall mention later along with that incident. Whereat, by process of elimination, we arrive at les putains, whereof God may know how many there were at La Ferté, but I certainly do not. To les putains in general I have already made my deep and sincere bow. I should like to speak here of four individuals. They are Celina, Lena, Lily, Renée.Celina Tek was an extraordinarily beautiful animal. Her firm girl's body emanated a supreme vitality. It was neither tall nor short, its movements nor graceful nor awkward. It came and went with a certain sexual velocity, a velocity whose health and vigour made everyone in La Ferté seem puny and old. Her deep sensual voice had a coarse richness. Her face, dark and young, annihilated easily the ancient and greyish walls. Her wonderful hair was shockingly black. Her perfect teeth, when she smiled, reminded you of an animal. The cult of Isis never worshipped a more deep luxurious smile. This face, framed in the night of its hair, seemed (as it moved at the window overlooking the cour des femmes) inexorably and colossally young. The body was absolutely and fearlessly alive. In the impeccable and altogether admirable desolation of La Ferté and the Normandy Autumn Celina, easily and fiercely moving, was a kinesis.
The French Government must have already recognized this; it called her incorrigible.
Lena, also a Belgian, always and fortunately just missed being a type which in the American language (sometimes called "Slang") has a definite nomenclature. Lena had the makings of an ordinary broad, and yet, thanks to La Misère, a certain indubitable personality became gradually rescued. A tall hard face about which was loosely pitched some hay-coloured hair. Strenuous and mutilated hands. A loose, raucous way of laughing, which contrasted well with Celina's definite gurgling titter. Energy rather than vitality. A certain power and roughness about her laughter. She never smiled. She laughed loudly and obscenely and always. A woman.
Lily was a German girl, who looked unbelievably old, wore white, or once white dresses, had a sort of drawling scream in her throat besides a thick deadly cough, and floundered leanly under the eyes of men. Upon the skinny neck of Lily a face had been set for all the world to look upon and be afraid. The face itself was made of flesh green and almost putrescent. In each cheek a bloody spot. Which was not rouge, but the flower which consumption plants in the cheek of its favourite. A face vulgar and vast and heavy-featured, about which a smile was always flopping uselessly. Occasionally Lily grinned, showing several monstrously decayed and perfectly yellow teeth, which teeth usually were smoking a cigarette. Her bluish hands were very interestingly dead; the fingers were nervous, they lived in cringing bags of freckled skin, they might almost be alive.
She was perhaps eighteen years old.
Renée, the fourth member of the circle, was always well-dressed and somehow chic. Her silhouette had character, from the waved coiffure to the enormously high heels. Had Renée been able to restrain a perfectly toothless smile she might possibly have passed for a jeune gonzesse. She was not. The smile was ample and black. You saw through it into the back of her neck. You felt as if her life was in danger when she smiled, as it probably was. Her skin was not particularly tired. But Renée was old, older than Lena by several years; perhaps twenty-five. Also about Renée there was a certain dangerous fragility, the fragility of unhealth. And yet Renée was hard, immeasurably hard. And accurate. Her exact movements were the movements of a mechanism. Including her voice, which had a purely mechanical timbre. She could do two things with this voice and two only—screech and boom. At times she tried to chuckle and almost fell apart. Renée was in fact dead. In looking at her for the first time, I realised that there may be something stylish about death.
This first time was interesting in the extreme. It was Lily's birthday. We looked out of the windows which composed one side of the otherwise windowless Enormous Room; looked down, and saw—just outside the wall of the building—Celina, Lena, Lily and a new girl who was Renée. They were all individually intoxicated, Celina was joyously tight. Renée was stiffly bunnied. Lena was raucously pickled. Lily, floundering and staggering and tumbling and whirling was utterly soused. She was all tricked out in an erstwhile dainty dress, white, and with ribbons. Celina (as always) wore black. Lena had on a rather heavy striped sweater and skirt. Renée was immaculate in tight-fitting satin or something of the sort; she seemed to have somehow escaped from a doll's house overnight. About the group were a number of plantons, roaring with laughter, teasing, insulting, encouraging, from time to time attempting to embrace the ladies. Celina gave one of them a terrific box on the ear. The mirth of the others was redoubled. Lily spun about and fell down, moaning and coughing, and screaming about her fiancée in Belgium: what a handsome young fellow he was, how he had promised to marry her... shouts of enjoyment from the plantons. Lena had to sit down or else fall down, so she sat down with a good deal of dignity, her back against the wall, and in that position attempted to execute a kind of dance. Les Plantons rocked and applauded. Celina smiled beautifully at the men who were staring from every window of The Enormous Room and, with a supreme effort, went over and dragged Renée (who had neatly and accurately folded up with machine-like rapidity in the mud) through the doorway and into the house. Eventually Lena followed her example, capturing Lily en route. The scene must have consumed all of twenty minutes. The plantons were so mirth-stricken that they had to sit down and rest under the washing-shed. Of all the inhabitants of The Enormous Room, Fritz and Harree and Pom Pom and Bathhouse John enjoyed it most. I should include Jan, whose chin nearly rested on the window-sill with the little body belonging to it fluttering in an ugly interested way all the time. That Bathhouse John's interest was largely cynical is evidenced by the remarks which he threw out between spittings—"Une section mesdames!" "A la gare!" "Aux armes tout le monde!" etc. With the exception of these enthusiastic watchers, the other captives evidenced vague amusement—excepting Count Bragard who said with lofty disgust that it was "no better than a bloody knocking 'ouse, Mr. Cummings" and Monsieur Pet-airs whose annoyance amounted to agony. Of course these twain were, comparatively speaking, old men....
The four female incorrigibles encountered less difficulty in cabinot than any four specimens of incorrigibility among les hommes. Not only were they placed in dungeon vile with a frequency which amounted to continuity; their sentences were far more severe than those handed out to the men. Up to the time of my little visit to La Ferté I had innocently supposed that in referring to women as "the weaker sex" a man was strictly within his rights. La Ferté, if it did nothing else for my intelligence, rid it of this overpowering error. I recall, for example, a period of sixteen days and nights spent (during my stay) by the woman Lena in the cabinot. It was either toward the latter part of October or the early part of November that this occurred, I will not be sure which. The dampness of the Autumn was as terrible, under normal conditions—that is to say in The Enormous Room—as any climatic eccentricity which I have ever experienced. We had a wood-burning stove in the middle of the room, which antiquated apparatus was kept going all day to the vast discomfort of eyes and noses not to mention throats and lungs—the pungent smoke filling the room with an atmosphere next to unbreathable, but tolerated for the simple reason that it stood between ourselves and death. For even with the stove going full blast the wall never ceased to sweat and even trickle, so overpowering was the dampness. By night the chill was to myself—fortunately bedded at least eighteen inches from the floor and sleeping in my clothes; bed-roll, blankets, and all, under and over me and around me—not merely perceptible but desolating. Once my bed broke, and I spent the night perforce on the floor with only my mattress under me; to awake finally in the whitish dawn perfectly helpless with rheumatism. Yet with the exception of my bed and B.'s bed and a wooden bunk which belonged to Bathhouse John, every paillasse lay directly on the floor; moreover the men who slept thus were three-quarters of them miserably clad, nor had they anything beyond their light-weight blankets—whereas I had a complete outfit including a big fur coat, which I had taken with me (as previously described) from the Section Sanitaire. The morning after my night spent on the floor I pondered, having nothing to do and being unable to move, upon the subject of my physical endurance—wondering just how the men about me, many of them beyond middle age, some extremely delicate, in all not more than five or six as rugged constitutionally as myself, lived through the nights in The Enormous Room. Also I recollected glancing through an open door into the women's quarters, at the risk of being noticed by the planton in whose charge I was at the time (who, fortunately, was stupid even for a planton, else I should have been well punished for my curiosity) and beholding paillasses identical in all respects with ours reposing on the floor; and I thought, if it is marvellous that old men and sick men can stand this and not die, it is certainly miraculous that girls of eleven and fifteen, and the baby which I saw once being caressed out in the women's cour with unspeakable gentleness by a little putain whose name I do not know, and the dozen or so oldish females whom I have often seen on promenade—can stand this and not die. These things I mention not to excite the reader's pity nor yet his indignation; I mention them because I do not know of any other way to indicate—it is no more than indicating—the significance of the torture perpetrated under the Directeur's direction in the case of the girl Lena. If incidentally it throws light on the personality of the torturer I shall be gratified.
Lena's confinement in the cabinot—which dungeon I have already attempted to describe but to whose filth and slime no words can begin to do justice—was in this case solitary. Once a day, of an afternoon and always at the time when all the men were upstairs after the second promenade (which gave the writer of this history an exquisite chance to see an atrocity at first-hand), Lena was taken out of the cabinot by three plantons and permitted a half-hour promenade just outside the door of the building, or in the same locality—delimited by barbed wire on one side and the washing-shed on another—made famous by the scene of inebriety above described. Punctually at the expiration of thirty minutes she was shoved back into the cabinot by the plantons. Every day for sixteen days I saw her; noted the indestructible bravado of her gait and carriage, the unchanging timbre of her terrible laughter in response to the salutation of an inhabitant of The Enormous Room (for there were at least six men who spoke to her daily, and took their pain sec and their cabinot in punishment therefor with the pride of a soldier who takes the medaille militaire in recompense for his valour); noted the increasing pallor of her flesh, watched the skin gradually assume a distinct greenish tint (a greenishness which I cannot describe save that it suggested putrefaction); heard the coughing to which she had always been subject grow thicker and deeper till it doubled her up every few minutes, creasing her body as you crease a piece of paper with your thumb-nail, preparatory to tearing it in two—and I realised fully and irrevocably and for perhaps the first time the meaning of civilization. And I realised that it was true—as I had previously only suspected it to be true—that in finding us unworthy of helping to carry forward the banner of progress, alias the tricolour, the inimitable and excellent French government was conferring upon B. and myself—albeit with other intent—the ultimate compliment.
And the Machine-Fixer, whose opinion of this blond putain grew and increased and soared with every day of her martyrdom till the Machine-Fixer's former classification of les femmes exploded and disappeared entirely—the Machine-Fixer who would have fallen on his little knees to Lena had she given him a chance, and kissed the hem of her striped skirt in an ecstasy of adoration—told me that Lena on being finally released, walked upstairs herself, holding hard to the banister without a look for anyone, "having eyes as big as tea-cups." He added, with tears in his own eyes:
"M'sieu' Jean, a woman."
I recall perfectly being in the kitchen one day, hiding from the eagle-eye of the Black Holster and enjoying a talk on the economic consequences of war, said talk being delivered by Afrique. As a matter of fact, I was not in the cuisine proper but in the little room which I have mentioned previously. The door into the kitchen was shut. The sweetly soft odour of newly cut wood was around me. And all the time that Afrique was talking I heard clearly, through the shut door and through the kitchen wall and through the locked door of the cabinot situated directly across the hall from la cuisine, the insane gasping voice of a girl singing and yelling and screeching and laughing. Finally I interrupted my speaker to ask what on earth was the matter in the cabinot?—"C'est la femme allemande qui s'appelle Lily," Afrique briefly answered. A little later BANG went the cabinot door, and ROAR went the familiar coarse voice of the Directeur. "It disturbs him, the noise," Afrique said. The cabinot door slammed. There was silence. Heavily steps ascended. Then the song began again, a little more insane than before; the laughter a little wilder.... "You can't stop her," Afrique said admiringly. "A great voice Mademoiselle has, eh? So, as I was saying, the national debt being conditioned—"
But the experience à propos les femmes, which meant and will always mean more to me than any other, the scene which is a little more unbelievable than perhaps any scene that it has ever been my privilege to witness, the incident which (possibly more than any other) revealed to me those unspeakable foundations upon which are builded with infinite care such at once ornate and comfortable structures as La Gloire and Le Patriotisme—occurred in this wise.
The men, myself among them, were leaving le cour for The Enormous Room under the watchful eye (as always) of a planton. As we defiled through the little gate in the barbed-wire fence we heard, apparently just outside the building whither we were proceeding on our way to The Great Upstairs, a tremendous sound of mingled screams, curses and crashings. The planton of the day was not only stupid—he was a little deaf; to his ears this hideous racket had not, as nearly as one could see, penetrated. At all events he marched us along toward the door with utmost plantonic satisfaction and composure. I managed to insert myself in the fore of the procession, being eager to witness the scene within; and reached the door almost simultaneously with Fritz, Harree and two or three others. I forget which of us opened it. I will never forget what I saw as I crossed the threshold.
The hall was filled with stifling smoke; the smoke which straw makes when it is set on fire, a peculiarly nauseous choking, whitish-blue smoke. This smoke was so dense that only after some moments could I make out, with bleeding eyes and wounded lungs, anything whatever. What I saw was this: five or six plantons were engaged in carrying out of the nearest cabinot two girls, who looked perfectly dead. Their bodies were absolutely limp. Their hands dragged foolishly along the floor as they were carried. Their upward white faces dangled loosely upon their necks. Their crumpled fingers sagged in the planton's arms. I recognised Lily and Renée. Lena I made out at a little distance tottering against the door of the kitchen opposite the cabinot, her hay-coloured head drooping and swaying slowly upon the open breast of her shirt-waist, her legs far apart and propping with difficulty her hinging body, her hands spasmodically searching for the knob of the door. The smoke proceeded from the open cabinot in great ponderous murdering clouds. In one of these clouds, erect and tense and beautiful as an angel—her wildly shouting face framed in its huge night of dishevelled hair, her deep sexual voice, hoarsely strident above the din and smoke, shouting fiercely through the darkness—stood, triumphantly and colossally young, Celina. Facing her, its clenched, pinkish fists raised high above its savagely bristling head in a big, brutal gesture of impotence and rage and anguish—the Fiend Himself paused quivering. Through the smoke, the great bright voice of Celina rose at him, hoarse and rich and sudden and intensely luxurious, quick, throaty, accurate, slaying deepness:
SHIEZ, SI VOUS VOULEZ, SHIEZ,
and over and beneath and around the voice I saw frightened faces of women hanging in the smoke, some screaming with their lips apart and their eyes closed, some staring with wide eyes; and among the women's faces I discovered the large, placid, interested expression of the Gestionnaire and the nervclicking eyes of the Surveillant. And there was a shout—it was the Black Holster shouting at us as we stood transfixed—
"Who the devil brought the men in here? Get up with you where you belong, you...."
—And he made a rush at us, and we dodged in the smoke and passed slowly up the hall, looking behind us, speechless to a man with the admiration of Terror till we reached the further flight of stairs; and mounted slowly, with the din falling below us, ringing in our ears, beating upon our brains—mounted slowly with quickened blood and pale faces—to the peace of The Enormous Room.
I spoke with both balayeurs that night. They told me, independently, the same story: the four incorrigibles had been locked in the cabinot ensemble. They made so much noise, particularly Lily, that the plantons were afraid the Directeur would be disturbed. Accordingly the plantons got together and stuffed the contents of a paillasse in the cracks around the door, and particularly in the crack under the door wherein cigarettes were commonly inserted by friends of the entombed. This process made the cabinot air-tight. But the plantons were not taking any chances on disturbing Monsieur le Directeur. They carefully lighted the paillasse at a number of points and stood back to see the results of their efforts. So soon as the smoke found its way inward the singing was supplanted by coughing; then the coughing stopped. Then nothing was heard. Then Celina began crying out within—"Open the door, Lily and Renée are dead"—and the plantons were frightened. After some debate they decided to open the door—out poured the smoke, and in it Celina, whose voice in a fraction of a second roused everyone in the building. The Black Holster wrestled with her and tried to knock her down by a blow on the mouth; but she escaped, bleeding a little, to the foot of the stairs—simultaneously with the advent of the Directeur who for once had found someone beyond the power of his weapon, Fear, someone in contact with whose indescribable Youth the puny threats of death between his lips, someone finally completely and unutterably Alive whom the Lie upon his slavering tongue could not kill.
I do not need to say that, as soon as the girls who had fainted could be brought to, they joined Lena in pain sec for many days to come; and that Celina was overpowered by six plantons—at the order of Monsieur le Directeur—and reincarcerated in the cabinot adjoining that from which she had made her velocitous exit—reincarcerated without food for twenty-four hours. "Mais, M'sieu' Jean," the Machine-Fixer said trembling, "Vous savez elle est forte. She gave the six of them a fight, I tell you. And three of them went to the doctor as a result of their efforts, including le vieux (The Black Holster). But of course they succeeded in beating her up, six men upon one woman. She was beaten badly, I tell you, before she gave in. M'sieu' Jean, ils sont tous—les plantons et le Directeur Lui-Même et le Surveillant et le Gestionnaire et tous—ils sont des—" and he said very nicely what they were, and lit his little black pipe with a crisp curving upward gesture, and shook like a blade of grass.
With which specimen of purely mediaeval torture I leave the subject of Women, and embark upon the quieter if no less enlightening subject of Sunday.
Sunday, it will be recalled, was Monsieur le Directeur's third weapon. That is to say: lest the ordinarily tantalising proximity of les femmes should not inspire les hommes to deeds which placed the doers automatically in the clutches of himself, his subordinates, and la punition, it was arranged that once a week the tantalising proximity aforesaid should be supplanted by a positively maddening approach to coincidence. Or in other words, the men and the women for an hour or less might enjoy the same exceedingly small room; for purposes of course of devotion—it being obvious to Monsieur le Directeur that the representatives of both sexes at La Ferté Macé were inherently of a strongly devotional nature. And lest the temptation to err in such moments be deprived, through a certain aspect of compulsion, of its complete force, the attendance of such strictly devotional services was made optional. The uplifting services to which I refer took place in that very room
which (the night of my arrival) had yielded me my paillasse under the
Surveillant's direction. It may have been thirty feet long and twenty
wide. At one end was an altar at the top of several wooden stairs, with a
large candle on each side. To the right as you entered a number of
benches were placed to accommodate les femmes. Les hommes upon
entering took off their caps and stood over against the left wall so as
to leave between them and the women an alley perhaps five feet wide. In
this alley stood the Black Holster with his kepi firmly resting upon
his head, his arms folded, his eyes spying to left and right in order to
intercept any signals exchanged between the sheep and goats. Those who
elected to enjoy spiritual things left the cour and their morning
promenade after about an hour of promenading, while the materially minded
remained to finish the promenade; or if one declined the promenade
entirely (as frequently occurred owing to the fact that weather
conditions on Sunday were invariably more indescribable than usual) a
planton mounted to The Enormous Room and shouted,
"La Messe!"
several times; whereat the devotees lined up and were carefully conducted to the scene of spiritual operations.
The priest was changed every week. His assistant (whom I had the indescribable pleasure of seeing only upon Sundays) was always the same. It was his function to pick the priest up when he fell down after tripping upon his robe, to hand him things before he wanted them, to ring a huge bell, to interrupt the peculiarly divine portions of the service with a squeaking of his shoes, to gaze about from time to time upon the worshippers for purposes of intimidation, and finally—most important of all—to blow out the two big candles at the very earliest opportunity, in the interests (doubtless) of economy. As he was a short, fattish, ancient, strangely soggy creature and as his longish black suit was somewhat too big for him, he executed a series of profound efforts in extinguishing the candles. In fact he had to climb part way up the candles before he could get at the flame; at which moment he looked very much like a weakly and fat boy (for he was obviously in his second or fourth childhood) climbing a flag-pole. At moments of leisure he abased his fatty whitish jowl and contemplated with watery eyes the floor in front of his highly polished boots, having first placed his ugly clubby hands together behind his most ample back.
Sunday: green murmurs in coldness. Surplice fiercely fearful, praying on his bony both knees, crossing himself.... The Fake French Soldier, alias Garibaldi, beside him, a little face filled with terror ... the Bell cranks the sharp-nosed priest on his knees ... titter from bench of whores—
And that reminds me of a Sunday afternoon on our backs spent with the wholeness of a hill in Chevancourt, discovering a great apple pie, B. and Jean Stahl and Maurice le Menusier and myself; and the sun falling roundly before us.
—And then one Dimanche a new high old man with a sharp violet face and green hair—"You are free, my children, to achieve immortality—Songes, songez, donc—L'Eternité est une existence sans durée——Toujours le Paradis, toujours L'Enfer" (to the silently roaring whores) "Heaven is made for you"—and the Belgian ten-foot farmer spat three times and wiped them with his foot, his nose dripping; and the nigger shot a white oyster into a far-off scarlet handkerchief—and the priest's strings came untied and he sidled crablike down the steps—the two candles wiggle a strenuous softness....
In another chapter I will tell you about the nigger.
And another Sunday I saw three tiny old females stumble forward, three very formerly and even once bonnets perched upon three wizened skulls, and flop clumsily before the priest, and take the wafer hungrily into their leathery faces.