He takes it quiveringly, holds it a second as a king
might hold and contemplate the best and biggest jewel of his realm, turns
with profuse thanks to us--and disappears....
He is perhaps most curious of this pleasantly sounding thing which
everyone around him, everyone who curses and spits upon and bullies him,
desires with a terrible desire--_Liberte_. Whenever anyone departs
Surplice is in an ecstasy of quiet excitement. The lucky man may be
Fritz; for whom Bathhouse John is taking up a collection as if he, Fritz,
were a Hollander and not a Dane--for whom Bathhouse John is striding
hither and thither, shaking a hat into which we drop coins for Fritz;
Bathhouse John, chipmunk-cheeked, who talks Belgian, French, English and
Dutch in his dreams, who has been two years in La Ferte (and they say he
declined to leave, once, when given the chance), who cries "_baigneur de
femmes moi_" and every night hoists himself into his wooden bunk crying
"goo-d ni-te"; whose favourite joke is "_une section pour les femmes_,"
which he shouts occasionally in the _cour_ as he lifts his paper-soled
slippers and stamps in the freezing mud, chuckling and blowing his nose
on the Union Jack ... and now Fritz, beaming with joy, shakes hands and
thanks us all and says to me "Good-bye, Johnny," and waves and is gone
forever--and behind me I hear a timid voice
"_monsieur, Liberte?_"
and I say Yes, feeling that Yes in my belly and in my head at the same
instant; and Surplice stands beside me, quietly marvelling, extremely
happy, uncaring that _le parti_ did not think to say good-bye to him.
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