He was never perfectly
happy unless exercising his inexhaustible imagination....
Of all Jean's extraordinary selves, the moral one was at once the most
rare and most unreasonable. In the matter of _les femmes_ he could hardly
have been accused by his bitterest enemy of being a Puritan. Yet the
Puritan streak came out one day, in a discussion which lasted for several
hours. Jean as in the case of France, spoke in dogma. His contention was
very simple: "The woman who smokes is not a woman." He defended it hotly
against the attacks of all the nations represented; in vain did Belgian
and Hollander, Russian and Pole, Spaniard and Alsatian, charge and
counter-charge--Jean remained unshaken. A woman could do anything but
smoke--if she smoked she ceased automatically to be a woman and became
something unspeakable. As Jean was at this time sitting alternately on
B.'s bed and mine, and as the alternations became increasingly frequent
as the discussion waxed hotter, we were not sorry when the _planton's_
shout "_A la promenade les hommes!_" scattered the opposing warriors.
Then up leaped Jean (who had almost come to blows innumerable times) and
rushed laughing to the door, having already forgotten the whole thing.
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