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Updated: April 30, 2025
Which words were pronounced in a voice so subdued, so constrained, so mild, so altogether ingratiating, that I could not imagine to whom it belonged. Surely not to the Fiend, to Apollyon, to the Prince of Hell, to Satan, to Monsieur le Directeur du Camp de Triage de la Ferte Mace "Get ready. You will leave immediately." Then I noticed the Surveillant. Upon his face I saw an almost smile.
and over and beneath and around the voice I saw frightened faces of women hanging in the smoke, some screaming with their lips apart and their eyes closed, some staring with wide eyes; and among the women's faces I discovered the large, placid, interested expression of the Gestionnaire and the nervous clicking eyes of the Surveillant.
"You will be the only lady, not the wife or daughter of an official of the place, who has ever entered at this gate, mademoiselle," he remarked as the key of the surveillant grated in the lock. The door opened, and Virginia passed through, trembling, the Commandant at her side. They were in a long, oddly-shaped courtyard. "The place of execution," said her guide.
Beneath the Demon was the Surveillant. I have already described the Surveillant. I wish to say, however, that in my opinion the Surveillant was the most decent official at La Ferte. I pay him this tribute gladly and honestly. To me, at least, he was kind: to the majority he was inclined to be lenient. As a personality I therefore pay him my respects.
The Surveillant smiled and bowed and wound and unwound his hands behind his back and denied anything of the sort. It seems that B. had heard that the kindly nobleman wasn't going to Paris at all. Moreover, Monsieur Pet-airs had said to B. something about Count Bragard being a suspicious personage Monsieur Pet-airs, the R.A.'s best friend.
Jean had dropped his arms to his sides. His face was twisted with anguish. He made a child's gesture, a pitiful hopeless movement with his slender hands. Sobbing he protested: "It isn't my fault, monsieur le Surveillant! They attacked me! I didn't do a thing! They wanted to kill me! Ask him" he pointed to me desperately.
The Surveillant called to the plantons to take Jean, but they wouldn't go near Jean, they said he was a black devil. The women kidded them. They were so sore. And they could do nothing. Jean was laughing. His shirt was almost off him. He asked the planton to come and take him, please. He asked the Surveillant, too. The women had set down their pails and were dancing up and down and yelling.
I am myself incapable of caring whether, as a tool of the Devil, he will find the bright firelight of Hell too warm for him or no. Beneath the Surveillant were the Secretaire, Monsieur Richard, the Cook, and the plantons. The first I have described sufficiently, since he was an obedient and negative albeit peculiarly responsible cog in the machine of decomposition.
At this moment les femmes descendaient, it was their corvee d'eau, vous savez. He saw them, le noir. One of them cried from the stairs, Is a Frenchman stronger than you, Jean? The plantons were standing around him, the Surveillant was behind. He took the nearest planton, and tossed him down the corridor so that he struck against the door at the end of it.
They took the lacings out of his shoes for fear he would use them to strangle himself. They stood him up in an angle between two walls in the cabinot. They left him there for an hour. He was supposed to have been in there all night; but the Surveillant knew that he would have died, for he was almost naked, and vous savez, Monsieur Jean, it was cold in there. And damp.
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