enormous: weird cries, oaths, laughter, pulling it sideways and backward,
extending it to inconceivable depth and width, telescoping it to
frightful nearness. From all directions, by at least thirty voices in
eleven languages (I counted as I lay Dutch, Belgian, Spanish, Turkish,
Arabian, Polish, Russian, Swedish, German, French--and English) at
distances varying from seventy feet to a few inches, for twenty minutes I
was ferociously bombarded. Nor was my perplexity purely aural. About five
minutes after lying down, I saw (by a hitherto unnoticed speck of light
which burned near the doors which I had entered) two extraordinary
looking figures--one a well-set man with a big, black beard, the other a
consumptive with a bald head and sickly moustache, both clad only in
their knee-length chemises, hairy legs naked, feet bare--wander down the
room and urinate profusely in the corner nearest me. This act
accomplished, the figures wandered back, greeted with a volley of
ejaculatory abuse from the invisible co-occupants of my new
sleeping-apartment; and disappeared in darkness.

I remarked to myself that the _gendarmes_ of this _gendarmerie_ were
peculiarly up in languages, and fell asleep.




IV

LE NOUVEAU

_"Vous ne voulez pas de cafe?"_

The threatening question recited in a hoarse voice woke me like a shot.