I
wonder how many times, en route to _la soupe_ or The Enormous Room or
promenade, I have heard the unearthly smouldering laughter of girls or of
men entombed within the drooling greenish walls of La Ferte Mace. A dozen
times, I suppose, I have seen a friend of the entombed stoop adroitly and
shove a cigarette or a piece of chocolate under the door, to the girls or
the men or the girl or man screaming, shouting, and pommeling faintly
behind that very door--but, you would say by the sound, a good part of a
mile away.... Ah well, more of this later, when we come to _les femmes_
on their own account.
The third method employed to throw Fear into the minds of his captives
lay, as I have said, in the sight of the Captor Himself. And this was by
far the most efficient method.
He loved to suddenly dash upon the girls when they were carrying their
slops along the hall and downstairs, as (in common with the men) they had
to do at least twice every morning and twice every afternoon. The
_corvee_ of girls and men were of course arranged so as not to coincide;
yet somehow or other they managed to coincide on the average about once a
week, or if not coincide, at any rate approach coincidence. On such
occasions, as often as not under the _planton's_ very stupid nose, a kiss
or an embrace would be stolen--provocative of much fierce laughter and
some scurrying.
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