Now, I tread upon French ground, and am greeted by the three
charming words, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, painted up (in
letters a little too thin for their height) on the Custom-house
wall – also by the sight of large cocked hats, without which
demonstrative head-gear nothing of a public nature can be done upon
this soil. All the rabid Hotel population of Boulogne howl and
shriek outside a distant barrier, frantic to get at us. Demented,
by some unlucky means peculiar to himself, is delivered over to
their fury, and is presently seen struggling in a whirlpool of
Touters – is somehow understood to be going to Paris – is, with
infinite noise, rescued by two cocked hats, and brought into
Custom-house bondage with the rest of us.
Here, I resign the active duties of life to an eager being, of
preternatural sharpness, with a shelving forehead and a shabby
snuff-coloured coat, who (from the wharf) brought me down with his
eye before the boat came into port. He darts upon my luggage, on
the floor where all the luggage is strewn like a wreck at the
bottom of the great deep; gets it proclaimed and weighed as the
property of ‘Monsieur a traveller unknown;’ pays certain francs for
it, to a certain functionary behind a Pigeon Hole, like a pay-box
at a Theatre (the arrangements in general are on a wholesale scale,
half military and half theatrical); and I suppose I shall find it
when I come to Paris – he says I shall. I know nothing about it,
except that I pay him his small fee, and pocket the ticket he gives
me, and sit upon a counter, involved in the general distraction.
Railway station. ‘Lunch or dinner, ladies and gentlemen. Plenty
of time for Paris. Plenty of time!’ Large hall, long counter,
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long strips of dining-table, bottles of wine, plates of meat, roast
chickens, little loaves of bread, basins of soup, little caraffes
of brandy, cakes, and fruit. Comfortably restored from these
resources, I begin to fly again.
I saw Zamiel (before I took wing) presented to Compact Enchantress
and Sister Artist, by an officer in uniform, with a waist like a
wasp’s, and pantaloons like two balloons. They all got into the
next carriage together, accompanied by the two Mysteries. They
laughed. I am alone in the carriage (for I don’t consider Demented
anybody) and alone in the world.
Fields, windmills, low grounds, pollard-trees, windmills, fields,
fortifications, Abbeville, soldiering and drumming. I wonder where
England is, and when I was there last – about two years ago, I
should say. Flying in and out among these trenches and batteries,
skimming the clattering drawbridges, looking down into the stagnant
ditches, I become a prisoner of state, escaping. I am confined
with a comrade in a fortress. Our room is in an upper story. We
have tried to get up the chimney, but there’s an iron grating
across it, imbedded in the masonry. After months of labour, we
have worked the grating loose with the poker, and can lift it up.
We have also made a hook, and twisted our rugs and blankets into
ropes. Our plan is, to go up the chimney, hook our ropes to the
top, descend hand over hand upon the roof of the guard-house far
below, shake the hook loose, watch the opportunity of the sentinels
pacing away, hook again, drop into the ditch, swim across it, creep
into the shelter of the wood. The time is come – a wild and stormy
night. We are up the chimney, we are on the guard-house roof, we
are swimming in the murky ditch, when lo! ‘Qui v’la?’ a bugle, the
alarm, a crash! What is it? Death? No, Amiens.
More fortifications, more soldiering and drumming, more basins of
soup, more little loaves of bread, more bottles of wine, more
caraffes of brandy, more time for refreshment. Everything good,
and everything ready. Bright, unsubstantial-looking, scenic sort
of station. People waiting. Houses, uniforms, beards, moustaches,
some sabots, plenty of neat women, and a few old-visaged children.
Unless it be a delusion born of my giddy flight, the grown-up
people and the children seem to change places in France. In