_"
Two days in a _gendarmerie_ would be enough, I thought. We marched out.
Behind me the bedslippered rooster uhahingly shuffled. In front of me
clumsily gamboled the huge imitation of myself. It descended the terribly
worn stairs. It turned to the right and disappeared....
We were standing in a chapel.
The shrinking light which my guide held had become suddenly minute; it
was beating, senseless and futile, with shrill fists upon a thick
enormous moisture of gloom. To the left and right through lean oblongs of
stained glass burst dirty burglars of moonlight. The clammy stupid
distance uttered dimly an uncanny conflict--the mutterless tumbling of
brutish shadows. A crowding ooze battled with my lungs. My nostrils
fought against the monstrous atmospheric slime which hugged a sweet
unpleasant odour. Staring ahead, I gradually disinterred the pale carrion
of the darkness--an altar, guarded with the ugliness of unlit candles, on
which stood inexorably the efficient implements for eating God.
I was to be confessed, then, of my guilty conscience, before retiring? It
boded well for the morrow.
... the measured accents of the fencer: "_Prenez votre paillasse._" I
turned. He was bending over a formless mass in one corner of the room.
Pages:
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94