To this
little man of perhaps forty-five, with a devoted wife waiting for him in
Belgium (a wife whom he worshipped and loved more than he worshipped and
loved anything in the world, a wife whose fidelity to her husband and
whose trust and confidence in him echoed in the letters which--when we
three were alone--the little Machine-Fixer tried always to read to us,
never getting beyond the first sentence or two before he broke down and
sobbed from his feet to his eyes), to such a little person his reaction
to _les femmes_ was more than natural. It was in fact inevitable.
Women, to him at least, were of two kinds and two kinds only. There were
_les femmes honnetes_ and there were _les putains_. In La Ferte, he
informed us--and as _balayeur_ he ought to have known whereof he
spoke--there were as many as three ladies of the former variety. One of
them he talked with often. She told him her story. She was a Russian, of
a very fine education, living peacefully in Paris up to the time that she
wrote to her relatives a letter containing the following treasonable
sentiment:
"_Je mennuie pour les neiges de Russie._"
The letter had been read by the French censor, as had B.'s letter; and
her arrest and transference from her home in Paris to La Ferte Mace
promptly followed.
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