the whole flock! Mastodons! they grunt! growl! quiver! big potbellies! twenty-five motors!.. stopped, all red, there, alert, muzzle against croup. massed, set. all vibrating at the signal!. snuffling at the butt-ends! putt! putt!. blood buffaloes!.. I confront them!.. snuffle as they do!.. brrrooo! brr. rr. roo. oooo!. And I charge everything! lightning! dodge!. hack the herd!. cut sideways!. arrow! escape!. right at the crossing!. in front of the Lyons, the giant tearoom, open night and day!. Ah! the stout fellow!
Ah! the hero!. Just look at ’im! the cops are whistling at me!. Whistling!. Whistling! Futile! I step on the gas!
.. Ah! every man for himself!.. I tear along the walls at top speed!.. Racing like mad!. Far off! at the end! it’s Bedford Square! I sniff!.. I get my bearings!.. I dash forward!. I’m there!. I see the trees! the Y.M.C.A.!.. The grounds, the fine sycamores!.. the oaks!.. the Consulate!
I see it!. Go on, go, boy!. Shoot ahead!. fly!.. one more dash! Hip! Hop! it’s pouring! it’s teeming! it’s pissing! I’m soaked!.. dripping! streaming in flight! I dash under the umbrellas. I stumble!. I flop!. Up! on my feet!.. Faster and faster!.. I don’t feel myself any more!
Bedford Square! the Consulate!. mine?. No! the Russian!.. I’m a bit off!.. another run!.. I’ve got too much pep!. Got to lose it!. use it up!. I’m slowing down!.. now trotting!. There’re at least a dozen consulates… of all countries. around the trees!.. all around the square. like a merry-go-round! against one another!. that one there! the Russian! the biggest! At least three or four buildings. The crowd’s milling in front of the door… I bear down… I dig in!. I’m pushed back!. I succumb!. I collapse in the mob of Russians!. They’re fuming!. they spit!. they call me names!. I’m at a standstill!. a stricken meteor!. I collapse on the spot!.. I’m squeezed in, bundled, ground up in the crush of bodies!. It’s an endless mob!. There’s been a triple line around the square for days and days! for weeks!.. They’ve been marking time. they squawk.. they cough… in the sun… in the rain.. the office door’s closed… it just barely opens.. They take only two at a time. They keep them for hours, for days.. It’s for their visas!. It’s a teeming mob full of cooties!. and hard to delouse!. I’m scratching too!.. It’s a mixture.. it’s swarming.. forearms.. feet.. They all flock to the door every time it opens.. it’s a mixed sort of mob.. they shove one another into the railings.. they’re all scraping away at the lice. digging at themselves. tickling… a hodgepodge. and cute specimens. big merchants and moujiks!. lots of all kinds. show-offs in overcoats.. professors with eyeglasses.. peasants with kerchiefs… all of them milling, mashing feet, shoving, advancing a hundredth of an inch. Got to go through them!
I’ll never make it! My French Consulate! there! getting farther away! I find myself deported! dragged to the left! I brace myself! tear away! I knock over some Jews in caps.. a whole band of them!..sidewhiskers with big glasses. two popes with crosses on their bellies.. They’re squeezed tightly together. I buck right into them. right into the mash of meat. I cut through. push them all aside!. a burst!.. Got to get to my cloister. to my Consulate. French soil!
It’s just as compact there too!. They’re blocking the entrance. a whole yowling furious mixture Franco-Belgo-Rus-sian who-where-what!.. they’re all jabbering and shouting.. calling each other the lowest names.. sour chambermaids.. artists… a Greek whom I recognize… a plump little woman spouting away… a girl from Toulouse full of accent…They’re waiting for opening time. it reopens at eight o’clock for visas for the evening train..
I’m in a much greater rush than anyone else!.. I yell it to the populace!.. Got to assert myself at once! I didn’t come to wait around!.. I want to see the Consul in person!.. Himself!. and right away!. I roar it over the crowd’s heads.. Monsieur le Consul General!. That’s the least of things!.. I’ve torn my overcoat. it’s just a rag now. getting pushed around by the crowd!. It’s hanging down in tatters!. my expensive raglan… I salute the flag over the door!.. and the coat of arms!. our three colors!. "Attention!” I order.. "Atten-shun!” in a stentorian voice over the mob. I beat my way through. I’m trying to penetrate. The women around me, the French teachers, call me a ruffian, a cutthroat… I don’t answer. I bang. I go at it with all I’ve got!. I’m ready to smash anything!. I shove through like mad!. with kicks!.. Finally they open after all!.. just a crack!.. I barge in head on!. into the usher!.. the concierge!. I’m inside!
I’ve made it!.. But my heart can’t take it! I buckle under!
I sit down on the floor!. The effort’s been too much!
"Monsieur! Monsieur!. Mister!” I exclaim. "Duty calls me!. .Allons enfants de la Patrie!”. I bawl it out!. I give it all I’ve got!..I insult the flunky!..He answers in English, "Go away! Go away! I’m the Commissioner!”. the kind of uniformed lackey who hires himself out by the hour, by the week, who defends anterooms, offices, official places..
"The French Consul!” I demand…'! want to see the French Consul!. Monsieur le Consul General!”
Finally a clerk comes along. A real one, with lustrine sleeves.. then three!. ten others!.. all in lustrine and spectacles, wearing celluloid collars. Ah! I stop dead! Oh, celluloid!.. they flabbergast me! They’re the first I’ve seen in London!.. I sit there dumfounded! They fascinate me.. They’re all wearing bow ties!.. "ready-made!”. I get it!
I know where I am!. it’s my whole youth!. I just sit there stunned, cockeyed.. from squinting so hard at their ties!
Ah! I can’t take my eyes off them!. It’s my whole childhood!. my apprenticeship!. the Passage du Verododat!.. God it’s not possible? They’re all wearing them, one and the same kind!. Like my poor father!. always "ready-made” ties. with chevron stripes like his! black and white. Ah! tears are welling up!
"Gentlemen!. Gentlemen!” I exclaim. "You’ll forgive me!. it’s weakness!. It’s hunger!. Just a fainting spell!”
"You want some help, young man?. Help?. In the morning around ten o’clock.. Come back tomorrow morning!”
They’re clearing me out.
"Help?… Help?”
Ah! the sneaks!.. Ah! my anger!
"I want to enlist, you bastards!.. I want to go back to the war! To save our country!. You shitheads!. I’ve got my fake papers!” I scream it at them! I’m announcing it.
I can see they think I’m off my nut. They’re making signs to one another.
"Follow us, young man!.. Follow us!.. Come up quietly.. quietly with us.”
They invite me.. they escort me.. they close around me.. They don’t want me to run away. Oh! they’re smart!.. I know their kind!..
We get to the first floor.. two three.. four offices in a row… all of them filled with typists.. homely ones, pale and squint-eyed… a hunchback..
At the very back, the “Military Office”.. written on the outer door.. “Medical Officer”. We all bolt in together.. we surge in. and all the typists follow!. they’re clucking away, the scarecrows. They’re accompanying me. They won’t leave me!.
It’s been some time since I’ve seen medics in uniform.. since the hospital, as a matter of fact!.. it excites me immediately!. Since Hazebrouck in Flanders..
“Atten-shun! ” I yell.. “Atten-shun! ”
Everybody laughs. Haw! haw! haw!
"Let me see your papers, young man!. Let me see your papers! ”
I tear out my inner pocket sewn up in my jacket. well preserved at the bottom of my rags!. I hand my papers to the medic.. My record… my citations!..
“It’s all fake!”. I warn him at the start. “It’s all fake!”
I’m warning him good and loud!..
“Completely fake!”. I emphasize it..