I was stiff with
cold and only half awake, but peculiarly thrilled. The gendarmes on
either side moved grimly, without speaking; or returning monosyllables to
my few questions. Yes, we were to take the train. I was going somewhere,
then? "_B'en sure._"--"Where?"--"You will know in time."
After a few minutes we reached the station, which I failed to recognize.
The yellow flares of lamps, huge and formless in the night mist, some
figures moving to and fro on a little platform, a rustle of conversation:
everything seemed ridiculously suppressed, beautifully abnormal,
deliciously insane. Every figure was wrapped with its individual
ghostliness; a number of ghosts each out on his own promenade, yet each
for some reason selecting this unearthly patch of the world, this
putrescent and uneasy gloom. Even my guards talked in whispers. "Watch
him, I'll see about the train." So one went off into the mist. I leaned
dizzily against the wall nearest me (having plumped down my baggage) and
stared into the darkness at my elbow, filled with talking shadows. I
recognized _officiers anglais_ wandering helplessly up and down,
supported with their sticks; French lieutenants talking to each other
here and there; the extraordinary sense-bereft station master at a
distance looking like a cross between a jumping-jack and a goblin; knots
of _permissionaires_ cursing wearily or joking hopelessly with one
another or stalking back and forth with imprecatory gesticulations.
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