“Allons, mes amis! Chan-tons ‘Quackquackquack.’”
Whereupon we would join in the following song, which Monsieur Auguste had taught us with great care, and whose renditions gave him unspeakable delight:
“Un canard, déployant ses ailes
(Quackquackquack)
Il disait à sa canarde fidèle
(Quackquackquack)
Il disait (Quackquackquack)
Il faisait (Quackquackquack)
Quand” (spelling mine)
“finirons nos desseins,
Quack.
Quack.
Quack.
Qua-
ck.”
I suppose I will always puzzle over the ecstasies of That Wonderful Duck. And how Monsieur Auguste, the merest gnome of a man, would bend backwards in absolute laughter at this song’s spirited conclusion upon a note so low as to wither us all.
Then, too, the Schoolmaster.
A little fragile old man. His trousers were terrifically too big for him. When he walked (in an insecure and frightened way) his trousers did the most preposterous wrinkles. If he leaned against a tree in the cour, with a very old and also fragile pipe in his pocket—the stem (which looked enormous in contrast to the owner) protruding therefrom—his three-sizes too big collar would leap out so as to make his wizened neck appear no thicker than the white necktie which flowed upon his two-sizes too big shirt. He always wore a coat which reached below his knees, which coat, with which knees, perhaps someone had once given him. It had huge shoulders which sprouted, like wings, on either side of his elbows when he sat in The Enormous Room quietly writing at a tiny three-legged table, a very big pen walking away with his weak bony hand. His too big cap had a little button on top which looked like the head of a nail; and suggested that this old doll had once lost its poor grey head and had been repaired by means of tacking its head upon its neck, where it should be and properly belonged. Of what hideous crime was this being suspected? By some mistake he had three moustaches, two of them being eyebrows. He used to teach school in Alsace-Lorraine, and his sister is there. In speaking to you his kind face is peacefully reduced to triangles. And his tie buttons on every morning with a Bang! And off he goes; led about by his celluloid collar, gently worried about himself, delicately worried about the world. At eating time he looks sidelong as he stuffs soup into stiff lips. There are two holes where cheeks might have been. Lessons hide in his wrinkles. Bells ding in the oldness of eyes. Did he, by any chance, tell the children that there are such monstrous things as peace and good will … a corrupter of youth, no doubt … he is altogether incapable of anger, wholly timid and tintinnabulous. And he had always wanted so much to know—if there were wild horses in America?
Yes, probably the Schoolmaster was a notorious seditionist. The all-wise French Government has its ways, which like the ways of God are wonderful.
I had almost forgot The Bear—number two, not to be confused with the seeker of cigarette-ends. A big, shaggy person, a farmer, talked about “mon petit jardin,” an anarchist, wrote practically all the time (to the gentle annoyance of The Schoolmaster) at the queer-legged table; wrote letters (which he read aloud with evident satisfaction to himself) addressing “my confrères,” stimulating them to even greater efforts, telling them that the time was ripe, that the world consisted of brothers, etc. I liked The Bear. He had a sincerity which, if somewhat startlingly uncouth, was always definitely compelling. His French itself was both uncouth and startling. I hardly think he was a dangerous bear. Had I been the French Government I should have let him go berrying, as a bear must and should, to his heart’s content. Perhaps I liked him best for his great awkward way of presenting an idea—he scooped it out of its environment with a hearty paw in a way which would have delighted anyone save le gouvernement français. He had, I think,
Vive la Liberté
tattooed in blue and green on his big hairy chest. A fine bear. A bear whom no twitchings at his muzzle nor any starvation nor yet any beating could ever teach to dance … but then, I am partial to bears. Of course none of this bear’s letters ever got posted—Le Directeur was not that sort of person; nor did this bear ever expect that they would go elsewhere than into the official wastebasket of La Ferté, which means that he wrote because he liked to; which again means that he was essentially an artist—for which reason I liked him more than a little. He lumbered off one day—I hope to his brier-patch, and to his children, and to his confrères, and to all things excellent and livable and highly desirable to a bruin.
The Young Russian and The Barber escaped while I was enjoying my little visit at Orne. The former was an immensely tall and very strong boy of nineteen or under; who had come to our society by way of solitary confinement, bread and water for months, and other reminders that to err is human, etc. Unlike Harree, whom, if anything, he exceeded in strength, he was very quiet. Everyone let him alone. I “caught water” in the town with him several times and found him an excellent companion. He taught me the Russian numerals up to ten, and was
