Then Viaïsse took a deep breath, and a mad flow of words poured from his vile mouth, while the long arms, with the outspread claw-like fingers, waved frantically in the air.
"… Wie haisst! nom de Dieu, de bon Dieu de la Légion—damn me, why should I work myself to death? I've had to drill the whole forenoon and have got nix to eat but a poor soup. I'm a stricken man and will have to get some extra food if I am not to fall down dead like a dog, you jewel of a sergeant. Wie haisst! I am a ruined man if I don't get some food at once. Well?"
It is impossible to repeat it all. Words fail me when I try to reproduce my friend Abramovici's grand flow of language. In one respect he was indeed a friend to me; no one ever made me laugh as much as he did. On the day of his arrival with the depot-train from Oran, I happened to hear when the sergeant of the company for the first time ordered him to do some work. Abramovici nearly got a fit at this unheard-of demand. His arms waved frantically in the air like a windmill, and wild words flowed from his mouth.
The poor sergeant wished to put in a word sideways. He wished to give a quiet command, he wanted to get furious. But he could not. He could only see with numb astonishment the lurid red nose, he turned away to get out of the reach of the "windmill arms," and at last fell down on the nearest bed with a horrible Arab oath, and laughed as he had never laughed before in his life. When he at last recovered his breath again, he said in broken German: "Oh, Gott in Himmel, cet homme là, zu viel sprechen.—Talks too much."
But Abramovici went on jabbering, until at last his harangue ended in laments to the God of his Fathers.
This was the way he always got off—one so seldom hears a laugh down there that Monsieur Viaïsse was highly appreciated by officers and men.
He called me his friend. He began our friendship with the conventional question:
"Wie haisst! will you give me a cigarette?"
Many a cigarette the Roumanian Jew from Berlin got from me, as long as there was silver in my pocket. In return he assured me of his high esteem, and when longing for a smoke called me "Herr Baron." When with the silver pieces the cigarettes came to an end, our friendship suffered a little in consequence.
I myself lived in a state of continual irritation. The least trifle put me into such a rage that I can hardly credit it to-day. Often enough I would tear down my "paquetage" from the shelf, destroying what had been wearisome work, just because some trousers or jacket did not seem to be folded correctly. It had been nothing else but "cafard" when I had roared at the captain because the doctor refused to give me an opiate on the march—it was exactly the same "cafard" in a milder form when I roared at this or that comrade just because he was in my way when I was busy polishing. My vexation, my irritability, my brooding was the madness of the Foreign Legion.