Book: The Enormous Room

E >> Edward Estlin Cummings >> The Enormous Room




"You see dat feller over dere, dat fat feller? I speak Spanish to him. He
no good. Tell me he make fifty thousand franc last year runnin'
whorehouse in" (I think it was) "Brest. Son of bitch!"

"Dat fat feller" lived in a perfectly huge bed which he contrived to have
brought up for him immediately upon his arrival. The bed arrived in a
knock-down state and with it a mechanician from _la ville_, who set about
putting it together, meanwhile indulging in many glances expressive not
merely of interest but of amazement and even fear. I suppose the bed had
to be of a special size in order to accommodate the circular millionaire
and being an extraordinary bed required the services of a skilled
artisan--at all events, "dat fat feller's" couch put the Skipper's
altogether in the shade. As I watched the process of construction it
occurred to me that after all here was the last word in luxury--to call
forth from the metropolis not only a special divan but with it a special
slave, the Slave of the Bed.... "Dat fat feller" had one of the prisoners
perform his _corvée_ for him. "Dat fat feller" bought enough at the
canteen twice every day to stock a transatlantic liner for seven voyages,
and never ace with the prisoners. I will mention him again àpropos the
Mecca of respectability, the Great White Throne of purity, Three rings
Three--alias Count Bragard, to whom I have long since introduced my
reader.

So we come, willy-nilly, to The Fighting Sheeney.

The Fighting Sheeney arrived carrying the expensive suitcase of a livid,
strangely unpleasant-looking Roumanian gent, who wore a knit sweater of a
strangely ugly red hue, impeccable clothes, and an immaculate velour hat
which must have been worth easily fifty francs. We called this gent
Rockyfeller. His personality might be faintly indicated by the adjective
Disagreeable. The porter was a creature whom Ugly does not even slightly
describe. There are some specimens of humanity in whose presence one
instantly and instinctively feels a profound revulsion, a revulsion
which--perhaps because it is profound--cannot be analysed. The Fighting
Sheeney was one of these specimens. His face (or to use the good American
idiom, his mug) was exceedingly coarse-featured and had an indefatigable
expression of sheer brutality--yet the impression which it gave could not
be traced to any particular plane or line. I can and will say, however,
that this face was most hideous--perhaps that is the word--when it
grinned. When The Fighting Sheeney grinned you felt that he desired to
eat you, and was prevented from eating you only by a superior desire to
eat everybody at once. He and Rockyfeller came to us from, I think it
was, the Santé; both accompanied B. to Précigne. During the weeks which
The Fighting Sheeney spent at La Ferté Macé, the non-existence of the
inhabitants of The Enormous Room was rendered something more than
miserable. It was rendered well-nigh unbearable.

The night Rockyfeller and his slave arrived was a night to be remembered
by everyone. It was one of the wildest and strangest and most perfectly
interesting nights I, for one, ever spent. Rockyfeller had been corralled
by Judas, and was enjoying a special bed to our right at the upper end of
The Enormous Room. At the canteen he had purchased a large number of
candles in addition to a great assortment of dainties which he and Judas
were busily enjoying--when the _planton_ came up, counted us twice,
divided by three, gave the order "_Lumières éteintes_," and descended,
locking the door behind him. Everyone composed himself for miserable
sleep. Everyone except Judas, who went on talking to Rockyfeller, and
Rockyfeller, who proceeded to light one of his candles and begin a
pleasant and conversational evening. The Fighting Sheeney lay stark-naked
on a _paillasse_ between me and his lord. The Fighting Sheeney told
everyone that to sleep stark-naked was to avoid bugs (whereof everybody,
including myself, had a goodly portion). The Fighting Sheeney was,
however, quieted by the _planton's_ order; whereas Rockyfeller continued
to talk and munch to his heart's content. This began to get on
everybody's nerves. Protests in a number of languages arose from all
parts of The Enormous Room. Rockyfeller gave a contemptuous look around
him and proceeded with his conversation. A curse emanated from the
darkness. Up sprang The Fighting Sheeney, stark naked; strode over to the
bed of the curser, and demanded ferociously:

"_Boxe? Vous!_"

The curser was apparently fast asleep, and even snoring. The Fighting
Sheeney turned away disappointed, and had just reached his _paillasse_
when he was greeted by a number of uproariously discourteous remarks
uttered in all sorts of tongues. Over he rushed, threatened, received no
response, and turned back to his place. Once more ten or twelve voices
insulted him from the darkness. Once more The Fighting Sheeney made for
them, only to find sleeping innocents. Again he tried to go to bed. Again
the shouts arose, this time with redoubled violence and in greatly
increased number. The Fighting Sheeney was at his wits' end. He strode
about challenging everyone to fight, receiving not the slightest
recognition, cursing, reviling, threatening, bullying. The darkness
always waited for him to resume his mattress, then burst out in all sorts
of maledictions upon his head and the sacred head of his lord and master.
The latter was told to put out his candle, go to sleep and give the rest
a chance to enjoy what pleasure they might in forgetfulness of their
woes. Whereupon he appealed to The Sheeney to stop this. The Sheeney
(almost weeping) said he had done his best, that everyone was a pig, that
nobody would fight, that it was disgusting. Roars of applause. Protests
from the less strenuous members of our circle against the noise in
general: Let him have his _foutue_ candle, Shut up, Go to sleep yourself,
etc. Rockyfeller kept on talking (albeit visibly annoyed by the
ill-breeding of his fellow-captives) to the smooth and oily Judas. The
noise, or rather noises, increased. I was for some reason angry at
Rockyfeller--I think I had a curious notion that if I couldn't have a
light after "_lumières éteintes_" and if my very good friends were none
of them allowed to have one, then, by God! neither should Rockyfeller. At
any rate, I passed a few remarks calculated to wither the by this time a
little nervous Übermench; got up, put on some enormous _sabots_ (which I
had purchased from a horrid little boy whom the French Government had
arrested with his parent, for some cause unknown--which horrid little boy
told me that he had "found" the _sabots_ "in a train" on the way to La
Ferté) shook myself into my fur coat, and banged as noisemakingly as I
knew how over to One Eyed Dah-veed's _paillasse_, where Mexique joined
us. "It is useless to sleep," said One Eyed Dah-veed in French and
Spanish. "True," I agreed; "therefore, let's make all the noise we can."

Steadily the racket bulged in the darkness. Human cries, quips and
profanity had now given place to wholly inspired imitations of various,
not to say sundry, animals. Afrique exclaimed--with great pleasure I
recognised his voice through the impenetrable gloom:

"Agahagahagahagahagah!"

--"perhaps," said I, "he means a machine gun; it sounds like either that
or a monkey." The Wanderer crowed beautifully. Monsieur Auguste's bosom
friend, _le Cordonnier_, uttered an astonishing:

"Meeee-ooooooOW!"

which provoked a tornado of laughter and some applause. Mooings,
chirpings, cacklings--there was a superb hen--neighings, he-hawing,
roarings, bleatings, growlings, quackings, peepings, screamings,
bellowings, and--something else, of course--set The Enormous Room
suddenly and entirely alive. Never have I imagined such a menagerie as
had magically instated itself within the erstwhile soggy and dismal four
walls of our chamber. Even such staid characters as Count Bragard set up
a little bawling. Monsieur Pet-airs uttered a tiny aged crowing to my
immense astonishment and delight. The dying, the sick, the ancient, the
mutilated, made their contributions to the common pandemonium. And then,
from the lower left darkness, sprouted one of the very finest noises
which ever fell on human ears--the noise of a little dog with floppy ears
who was tearing after something on very short legs and carrying his very
fuzzy tail straight up in the air as he tore; a little dog who was busier
than he was wise, louder than he was big; a red-tongued, foolish
breathless, intent little dog with black eyes and a great smile and
woolly paws--which noise, conceived and executed by The Lobster, sent The
Enormous Room into an absolute and incurable hysteria.

The Fighting Sheeney was at a standstill. He knew not how to turn. At
last he decided to join with the insurgents, and wailed brutally and
dismally. That was the last straw: Rockyfeller, who could no longer (even
by shouting to Judas) make himself heard, gave up conversation and gazed
angrily about him; angrily yet fearfully, as if he expected some of these
numerous bears, lions, tigers and baboons to leap upon him from the
darkness. His livid super-disagreeable face trembled with the flickering
cadence of the candle. His lean lips clenched with mortification and
wrath. "_Vous êtes chef de chambre_," he said fiercely to Judas--"why
don't you make the men stop this? _C'est enmerdant._" "Ah," replied Judas
smoothly and insinuatingly--"They are only men, and boors at that; you
can't expect them to have any manners." A tremendous group of Something
Elses greeted this remark together with cries, insults, groans and
linguistic trumpetings. I got up and walked the length of the room to the
cabinet (situated as always by this time of night in a pool which was in
certain places six inches deep, from which pool my _sabots_ somewhat
protected me) and returned, making as loud a clattering as I was able.
Suddenly the voice of Monsieur Auguste leaped through the din in an

"_Alors! c'est as-sez._"

The next thing we knew he had reached the window just below the cabinet
(the only window, by the way, not nailed up with good long wire nails for
the sake of warmth) and was shouting in a wild, high, gentle, angry voice
to the sentinel below:

"_Plan-ton!_ It is impos-si-ble to sleep!"

A great cry: "Yes! I am coming!" floated up--every single noise
dropped--Rockyfeller shot out his hand for the candle, seized it in
terror, blew it out as if blowing it out were the last thing he would do
in this life--and The Enormous Room hung silent; enormously dark,
enormously expectant....

BANG! Open the door. "_Alors, qui, m'appelle? Qu'est-ce qu'on a foutu
ici._" And the Black Holster, revolver in hand, flashed his torch into
the inky stillness of the chamber. Behind him stood two _plantons_ white
with fear; their trembling hands clutching revolvers, the barrels of
which shook ludicrously.

"_C'est moi, plan-ton!_" Monsieur Auguste explained that no one could
sleep because of the noise, and that the noise was because "_ce monsieur
là_" would not extinguish his candle when everyone wanted to sleep. The
Black Holster turned to the room at large and roared: "You children of
_Merde_ don't let this happen again or I'll fix you every one of
you."--Then he asked if anyone wanted to dispute this assertion (he
brandishing his revolver the while) and was answered by peaceful
snorings. Then he said by X Y and Z he'd fix the noisemakers in the
morning and fix them good--and looked for approbation to his trembling
assistants. Then he swore twenty or thirty times for luck, turned, and
thundered out on the heels of his fleeing _confrères_ who almost tripped
over each other in their haste to escape from The Enormous Room. Never
have I seen a greater exhibition of bravery than was afforded by The
Black Holster, revolver in hand, holding at bay the snoring and
weaponless inhabitants of The Enormous Room. _Vive les plantons._ He
should have been a _gendarme_.

Of course Rockyfeller, having copiously tipped the officials of La Ferté
upon his arrival, received no slightest censure nor any hint of
punishment for his deliberate breaking an established rule--a rule for
the breaking of which anyone of the common scum (e.g., thank God, myself)
would have got _cabinot de suite_. No indeed. Several of _les hommes_,
however, got _pain sec_--not because they had been caught in an act of
vociferous protestation by the Black Holster, which they had not--but
just on principle, as a warning to the rest of us and to teach us a
wholesome respect for (one must assume) law and order. One and all, they
heartily agreed that it was worth it. Everyone knew, of course, that the
Spy had peached. For, by Jove, even in The Enormous Room there was a man
who earned certain privileges and acquired a complete immunity from
punishment by squealing on his fellow-sufferers at each and every
opportunity. A really ugly person, with a hard knuckling face and
treacherous hands, whose daughter lived downstairs in a separate room
apart from _les putains_ (against which "dirty," "filthy," "whores" he
could not say enough--"Hi'd rather die than 'ave my daughter with them
stinkin' 'ores," remarked once to me this strictly moral man, in Cockney
English) and whose daughter (aged thirteen) was generally supposed to
serve in a pleasurable capacity. One did not need to be warned against
the Spy (as both B. and I were warned, upon our arrival)--a single look
at that phiz was enough for anyone partially either intelligent or
sensitive. This phiz or mug had, then, squealed. Which everyone took as a
matter of course and admitted among themselves that hanging was too good
for him.

But the vast and unutterable success achieved by the _Menagerie_ was
this--Rockyfeller, shortly after, left our ill-bred society for
"_l'hôpital_"; the very same "hospital" whose comforts and seclusion
Monsieur le Surveillant had so dextrously recommended to B. and myself.
Rockyfeller kept The Fighting Sheeney in his way, in order to defend him
when he went on promenade; otherwise our connection with him was
definitely severed, his new companions being Muskowitz the Cock-eyed
Millionaire, and The Belgian Song Writer--who told everyone to whom he
spoke that he was a government official ("_de la blague_" cried the
little Machine-Fixer, "_c'est un menteur!_" Adding that he knew of this
person in Belgium and that this person was a man who wrote popular
ditties). Would to Heaven we had got rid of the slave as well as the
master--but unfortunately The Fighting Sheeney couldn't afford to follow
his lord's example. So he went on making a nuisance of himself, trying
hard to curry favour with B. and me, getting into fights and bullying
everyone generally.

Also this lion-hearted personage spent one whole night shrieking and
moaning on his _paillasse_ after an injection by Monsieur Richard--for
syphilis. Two or three men were, in the course of a few days, discovered
to have had syphilis for some time. They had it in their mouths. I don't
remember them particularly, except that at least one was a Belgian. Of
course they and The Fighting Sheeney had been using the common dipper and
drink pail. _Le gouvernement français_ couldn't be expected to look out
for a little thing like venereal disease among prisoners: didn't it have
enough to do curing those soldiers who spent their time on permission
trying their best to infect themselves with both gonorrhea and syphilis?
Let not the reader suppose I am day-dreaming: let him rather recall that
I had had the honour of being a member of Section Sanitaire Vingt-et-Un,
which helped evacuate the venereal hospital at Ham, with whose
inhabitants (in odd moments) I talked and walked and learned several
things about _la guerre_. Let the reader--if he does not realise it
already--realise that This Great War for Humanity, etc., did not agree
with some people's ideas, and that some people's ideas made them prefer
to the glories of the front line the torments (I have heard my friends at
Ham screaming a score of times) attendant upon venereal diseases. Or as
one of my aforesaid friends told me--after discovering that I was, in
contrast to _les américains_, not bent upon making France discover
America but rather upon discovering France and _les français_ myself:

"_Mon vieux_, it's quite simple. I go on leave. I ask to go to Paris,
because there are prostitutes there who are totally diseased. I catch
syphilis, and, when possible gonorrhea also. I come back. I leave for the
front line. I am sick. The hospital. The doctor tells me: you must not
smoke or drink, then you will be cured quickly. 'Thanks, doctor!' I drink
all the time and I smoke all the time and I do not get well. I stay five,
six, seven weeks. Perhaps a few months. At last, I am well. I rejoin my
regiment. And now it is my turn to go on leave. I go. Again the same
thing. It's very pretty, you know."

But about the syphilitics at La Ferté: they were, somewhat tardily to be
sure, segregated in a very small and dirty room--for a matter of,
perhaps, two weeks. And the Surveillant actually saw to it that during
this period they ate _la soupe_ out of individual china bowls.

I scarcely know whether The Fighting Sheeney made more of a nuisance of
himself during his decumbiture or during the period which followed
it--which period houses an astonishing number of fights, rows, bullyings,
etc. He must have had a light case for he was cured in no time, and on
everyone's back as usual. Well, I will leave him for the nonce; in fact,
I will leave him until I come to The Young Pole, who wore black puttees
and spoke of The Zulu as "_mon ami_"--the Young Pole whose troubles I
will recount in connection with the second Delectable Mountain Itself. I
will leave the Sheeney with the observation that he was almost as vain as
he was vicious; for with what ostentation, one day when we were in the
kitchen, did he show me a post-card received that afternoon from Paris,
whereon I read "Comme vous êtes beau" and promises to send more money as
fast as she earned it and, hoping that he had enjoyed her last present,
the signature (in a big, adoring hand)

"_Ta mome. Alice._"

and when I had read it--sticking his map up into my face, The Fighting
Sheeney said with emphasis:

"_No travailler moi. Femme travaille, fait la noce, tout le temps.
Toujours avec officiers anglais. Gagne beaucoup, cent franc, deux cent
franc, trois cent franc, toutes les nuits. Anglais riches. Femme me donne
tout. Moi no travailler. Bon, eh?_"

Grateful for this little piece of information, and with his leer an inch
from my chin, I answered slowly and calmly that it certainly was. I might
add that he spoke Spanish by preference (according to Mexique very bad
Spanish); for The Fighting Sheeney had made his home for a number of
years in Rio, and his opinion thereof may be loosely translated by the
expressive phrase, "it's a swell town."

A charming fellow, The Fighting Sheeney.

Now I must tell you what happened to the poor Spanish Whoremaster. I have
already noted the fact that Count Bragard conceived an immediate fondness
for this rolypoly individual, whose belly--as he lay upon his back of a
morning in bed--rose up with the sheets, blankets and quilts as much as
two feet above the level of his small, stupid head studded with chins. I
have said that this admiration on the part of the admirable Count and R.
A. for a personage of the Spanish Whoremaster's profession somewhat
interested me. The fact is, a change had recently come in our own
relations with Vanderbilt's friend. His cordiality toward B. and myself
had considerably withered. From the time of our arrivals the good
nobleman had showered us with favours and advice. To me, I may say, he
was even extraordinarily kind. We talked painting, for example: Count
Bragard folded a piece of paper, tore it in the centre of the folded
edge, unfolded it carefully, exhibiting a good round hole, and remarking:
"Do you know this trick? It's an English trick, Mr. Cummings," held the
paper before him and gazed profoundly through the circular aperture at an
exceptionally disappointing section of the altogether gloomy landscape,
visible thanks to one of the ecclesiastical windows of The Enormous Room.
"Just look at that, Mr. Cummings," he said with quiet dignity. I looked.
I tried my best to find something to the left. "No, no, straight
through," Count Bragard corrected me. "There's a lovely bit of
landscape," he said sadly. "If I only had my paints here. I thought, you
know, of asking my housekeeper to send them on from Paris--but how can
you paint in a bloody place like this with all these bloody pigs around
you? It's ridiculous to think of it. And it's tragic, too," he added
grimly, with something like tears in his grey, tired eyes.

Or we were promenading The Enormous Room after supper--the evening
promenade in the _cour_ having been officially eliminated owing to the
darkness and the cold of the autumn twilight--and through the windows the
dull bloating colours of sunset pouring faintly; and the Count stops dead
in his tracks and regards the sunset without speaking for a number of
seconds. Then--"it's glorious, isn't it?" he asks quietly. I say
"Glorious indeed." He resumes his walk with a sigh, and I accompany him.
"_Ce n'est pas difficile à peindre, un coucher du soleil_, it's not
hard," he remarks gently. "No?" I say with deference. "Not hard a bit,"
the Count says, beginning to use his hands. "You only need three colours,
you know. Very simple." "Which colours are they?" I inquire ignorantly.
"Why, you know of course," he says surprised. "Burnt sienna, cadmium
yellow, and--er--there! I can't think of it. I know it as well as I know
my own face. So do you. Well, that's stupid of me."

Or, his worn eyes dwelling benignantly upon my duffle-bag, he warns me
(in a low voice) of Prussian Blue.

"Did you notice the portrait hanging in the bureau of the Surveillant?"
Count Bragard inquired one day. "That's a pretty piece of work, Mr.
Cummings. Notice it when you get a chance. The green moustache,
particularly fine. School of Cézanne."--"Really?" I said in
surprise.--"Yes, indeed," Count Bragard said, extracting his
tired-looking hands from his tired-looking trousers with a cultured
gesture. "Fine young fellow painted that. I knew him. Disciple of the
master. Very creditable piece of work."--"Did you ever see Cézanne?" I
ventured.--"Bless you, yes, scores of times," he answered almost
pityingly.--"What did he look like?" I asked, with great
curiosity.--"Look like? His appearance, you mean?" Count Bragard seemed
at a loss. "Why he was not extraordinary looking. I don't know how you
could describe him. Very difficult in English. But you know a phrase we
have in French, '_l'air pésant_'; I don't think there's anything in
English for it; _il avait l'air pésant_, Cézanne, if you know what I
mean.

"I should work, I should not waste my time," the Count would say almost
weepingly. "But it's no use, my things aren't here. And I'm getting old
too; couldn't concentrate in this stinking hole of a place, you know."

I did some hasty drawings of Monsieur Pet-airs washing and rubbing his
bald head with a great towel in the dawn. The R.A. caught me in the act
and came over shortly after, saying, "Let me see them." In some
perturbation (the subject being a particular friend of his) I showed one
drawing. "Very good, in fact, excellent," the R.A. smiled whimsically.
"You have a real talent for caricature, Mr. Cummings, and you should
exercise it. You really got Peters. Poor Peters, he's a fine fellow, you
know; but this business of living in the muck and filth, _c'est
malheureux_. Besides, Peters is an old man. It's a dirty bloody shame,
that's what it is. A bloody shame that all of us here should be forced to
live like pigs with this scum!

"I tell you what, Mr. Cummings," he said, with something like fierceness,
his weary eyes flashing, "I'm getting out of here shortly, and when I do
get out (I'm just waiting for my papers to be sent on by the French
consul) I'll not forget my friends. We've lived together and suffered
together and I'm not a man to forget it. This hideous mistake is nearly
cleared up, and when I go free I'll do anything for you and your chum.
Anything I can do for you I'd be only too glad to do it. If you want me
to buy you paints when I'm in Paris, nothing would give me more pleasure.
I know French as well as I know my own language" (he most certainly did)
"and whereas you might be cheated, I'll get you everything you need _à
bon marché_. Because you see they know me there, and I know just where to
go. Just give me the money for what you need and I'll get you the best
there is in Paris for it. You needn't worry"--I was protesting that it
would be too much trouble--"my dear fellow, it's no trouble to do a
favour for a friend."

And to B. and myself _ensemble_ he declared, with tears in his eyes, "I
have some marmalade at my house in Paris, real marmalade, not the sort of
stuff you buy these days. We know how to make it. You can't get an idea
how delicious it is. In big crocks"--the Count said simply--"well, that's
for you boys." We protested that he was too kind. "Nothing of the sort,"
he said, with a delicate smile. "I have a son in the English Army," and
his face clouded with worry, "and we send him some now and then, he's
crazy about it. I know what it means to him. And you shall share in it
too. I'll send you six crocks." Then, suddenly looking at us with a
pleasant expression, "By Jove!" the Count said, "do you like whiskey?
Real Bourbon whiskey? I see by your look that you know what it is. But
you never tasted anything like this. Do you know London?" I said no, as I
had said once before. "Well, that's a pity," he said, "for if you did
you'd know this bar. I know the barkeeper well, known him for thirty
years. There's a picture of mine hanging in his place. Look at it when
you're in London, drop in to ---- Street, you'll find the place, anyone
will tell you where it is. This fellow would do anything for me. And now
I'll tell you what I'll do: you fellows give me whatever you want to
spend and I'll get you the best whiskey you ever tasted. It's his own
private stock, you understand. I'll send it on to you--God knows you need
it in this place. I wouldn't do this for anyone else, you understand,"
and he smiled kindly; "but we've been prisoners together, and we
understand each other, and that's enough for gentlemen. I won't forget
you." He drew himself up. "I shall write," he said slowly and distinctly,
"to Vanderbilt about you. I shall tell him it's a dirty bloody shame that
you two young Americans, gentlemen born, should be in this foul place.
He's a man who's quick to act. He'll not tolerate a thing like this--an
outrage, a bloody outrage, upon two of his own countrymen. We shall see
what happens then."

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