--He had a way of borrowing the paper (_Le Matin_) which we bought
from one of the lesser _plantons_ who went to the town and got _Le Matin_
there; borrowing it before we had read it--by the sunset. And his
favourite observations were:
"It's a rotten country. Dirty weather."
Fifth and sixth, a vacillating, staggering, decrepit creature with
wildish white beard and eyes, who had been arrested--incredibly
enough--for "rape." With him his son, a pleasant youth quiet of
demeanour, inquisitive of nature, with whom we sometimes conversed on the
subject of the English Army.
Such were the individuals whose concerted arrival taxed to its utmost the
capacity of The Enormous Room. And now for my incident:
In the doorway, one day shortly after the arrival of the gentlemen
mentioned, quietly stood a well-dressed handsomely middle-aged man, with
a sensitive face culminating in a groomed Van Dyck beard. I thought for a
moment that the Mayor of Orne, or whatever his title is, had dropped in
for an informal inspection of The Enormous Room. Thank God, I said to
myself, it has never looked so chaotically filthy since I have had the
joy of inhabiting it. And _sans blague_, The Enormous Room _was_ in a
state of really supreme disorder; shirts were thrown everywhere, a few
twine clothes lines supported various pants, handkerchiefs and stockings,
the stove was surrounded by a gesticulating group of nearly undressed
prisoners, the stink was actually sublime.
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