There were always, in other words, eight or ten men
waiting in the upper corridor opposite a disagreeably crisp door, which
door belonged to that mysterious room wherein _la commission_ transacted
its inestimable affairs. Not more than a couple of yards away ten or
eight women waited their turns. Conversation between the men and the
women had been forbidden in the fiercest terms by Monsieur le Directeur:
nevertheless conversation spasmodically occurred, thanks to the indulgent
nature of the Wooden Hand. The Wooden Hand must have been cuckoo--he
looked it. If he wasn't I am totally at a loss to account for his
indulgence.
B. and I spent a morning in The Enormous Room without results, an
astonishing acquisition of nervousness excepted. _Apres la soupe_ (noon)
we were conducted _en haut_, told to leave our spoons and bread (which we
did) and--in company with several others whose names were within a
furlong of the last man called--were descended to the corridor. All that
afternoon we waited. Also we waited all next morning. We spent our time
talking quietly with a buxom pink-cheeked Belgian girl who was in
attendance as translator for one of _les femmes_. This Belgian told us
that she was a permanent inhabitant of La Ferte, that she and another
_femme honnette_ occupied a room by themselves, that her brothers were at
the front in Belgium, that her ability to speak fluently several
languages (including English and German) made her invaluable to
_Messieurs la commission_, that she had committed no crime, that she was
held as a _suspecte_, that she was not entirely unhappy.
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