Page:The Enormous Room.pdf/128

Rh ''Le médecin major la regarde. Il dit de suite 'Bon. C'est tout.' Elle sort. Une autre entre. La même chose. 'Bon. C'est fini'.... M'sieu' Jean: prenez garde!''"

And he struck a match fiercely on the black, almost square boot which lived on the end of his little worn trouser-leg, bending his small body forward as he did so, and bringing the flame upward in a violent curve. The flame settled on his little black pipe, his cheeks sucked until they must have met, and a slow unwilling noise arose, and with the return of his cheeks a small colorless wisp of possibly smoke came upon the air.—"That's not tobacco. Do you know what it is? It's wood! And I sit here smoking wood in my pipe when my wife is sick with worrying.... M'sieu! Jean"—leaning forward with jaw protruding and a oneness of bristly eyebrows, "Ces grande messieurs qui ne foutent 'pas mal si l'on CREVE de faim, savez-vous ils croient chacun qu'il est Le Bon Dieu LUI-Même. Et M'sieu' Jean, savez-vous, ils sont tous"—leaning right in my face, the withered hand making a pitiful fist of itself—"ils. Sont. Des. CRAPULES!"

And his ghastly and toylike wizened and minute arm would try to make a pass at their lofty lives. O gouvernement français, I think it was not very clever of you to put this terrible doll in La Ferté; I should have left him in Belgium with his little doll-wife if I had been You; for when governments are found dead there is always a little doll on top of them, pulling and tweaking with his little hands to get back the microscopic knife which sticks firmly in the quiet meat of their hearts.

One day only did I see him happy or nearly happy—when a Belgian baroness for some reason arrived, and was bowed and fed and wined by the delightfully respectful and perfectly behaved Official Captors—"and I know of her in Belgium, she is a great lady, she is very powerful and she is generous; I fell on my knees before her, and implored her in the name of my wife and Le Bon Dieu to intercede in my behalf; and she has made a note of it, and she told me she would write the Belgian King and I will be free in a few weeks, FREE!"