"--"But his comrade is a traitor and a villain!" objected the Fiend,
at the top of his harsh voice--"_Comprenez-vous; votre ami est UN
SALOP!_" he snarled at me.
He seems afraid that I don't get his idea, I said to myself. "I
understand what you say," I assured him.
"And you don't believe it?" he screamed, showing his fangs and otherwise
looking like an exceedingly dangerous maniac.
"_Je ne le crois fas, Monsieur_."
"O God's name!" he shouted. "What a fool, _quel idiot_, what a beastly
fool!" And he did something through his froth-covered lips, something
remotely suggesting laughter.
Hereupon the Surveillant again intervened. I was mistaken. It was
lamentable. I could not be made to understand. Very true. But I had been
sent for--"Do you know, you have been decided to be a suspect?" Monsieur
le Surveillant turned to me, "and now you may choose where you wish to be
sent." Apollyon was blowing and wheezing and muttering ... clenching his
huge pinkish hands.
I addressed the Surveillant, ignoring Apollyon. "I should like, if I may,
to go to Oloron Sainte Marie."
"What do you want to go there for?" the Directeur exploded threateningly.
I explained that I was by profession an artist, and had always wanted to
view the Pyrenees.
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