Page:The Enormous Room.pdf/245

234 ''croyez moi! C'est pas un homme, tu sais? Je l'ai vu, moi''"—and he indicated his eyes.

We pricked up our ears.

The balayeur, stuffing a pipe nervously with his tiny thumb said: "You saw the fight here? So did I. The whole of it. Le noir avait raison. Well, when they took him downstairs, I slipped out too—Je suis le balayeur, savez vous? and the balayeur can go where other people can't."

I gave him a match, and he thanked me. He struck it on his trousers with a quick pompous gesture, drew heavily on his squeaky pipe, and at last shot a minute puff of smoke into the air: then another, and another. Satisfied, he went on; his good hand grasping the pipe between its index and second fingers and resting on one little knee, his legs crossed, his small body hunched forward, wee unshaven face close to mine—went on in the confidential tone of one who relates an unbelievable miracle to a couple of intimate friends:

"Monsieur Jean, I followed. They got him to the cabinot. The door stood open. At this moment les femmes descendaient, it was their corvée d'eau, vous savez. He saw them, le noir. One of them cried from the stairs, Is a Frenchman stronger than you, Jean? The plantons were standing around him, the Surveillant was behind. He took the nearest planton, and tossed him down the corridor so that he struck against the door at the end of it. He picked up two more, one in each arm, and threw them away. They fell on top of the first. The last tried to take hold of Jean, and so Jean took him by the neck"—(the balayeur strangled himself for our benefit)—"and that planton knocked down the other three, who had got on their feet by this time. You should have seen the Surveillant. He had run away and was saying, 'Capture him, capture him.' The plantons rushed Jean, all four of them. He caught them as they came and threw them about. One knocked down the Surveillant. The women cried 'Vive Jean,' and clapped their hands. The Surveillant called to the plantons to take Jean, but they wouldn't go near Jean, they said he was a black devil. The women kidded them. They were so sore. And they could