We offered him a
cup of wine. A kind of huge convulsion gripped, for an instant, fiercely
his entire face: then he said in a whisper of sheer and unspeakable
wonderment, leaning a little toward us without in any way suggesting that
the question might have an affirmative answer,
"_pour moi, monsieur?_"
We smiled at him and said "_Prenez, monsieur._" His eyes opened. I have
never seen eyes since. He remarked quietly, extending one hand with
majestic delicacy:
"_Merci, monsieur._"
... Before he left, B. gave him some socks and I presented him with a
flannel shirt, which he took softly and slowly and simply and otherwise
not as an American would take a million dollars.
"I will not forget you," he said to us, as if in his own country he were
a more than very great king ... and I think I know where that country is,
I think I know this; I, who never knew Surplice, know.
* * * * *
For he has the territory of harmonicas, the acres of flutes, the meadows
of clarinets, the domain of violins. And God says: Why did they put you
in prison? What did you do to the people? "I made them dance and they put
me in prison. The soot-people hopped; and to twinkle like sparks on a
chimney-back and I made eighty francs every _dimanche_, and beer and
wine, and to eat well.
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