Book: The Enormous Room

E >> Edward Estlin Cummings >> The Enormous Room




It was during this period that Count Bragard lent us for our personal use
his greatest treasure, a water glass. "I don't need it," he said simply
and pathetically.

Now, as I have said, a change in our relations came.

It came at the close of one soggy, damp, raining afternoon. For this
entire hopeless grey afternoon Count Bragard and B. promenaded The
Enormous Room. Bragard wanted the money--for the whiskey and the paints.
The marmalade and the letter to Vanderbilt were, of course, gratis.
Bragard was leaving us. Now was the time to give him money for what we
wanted him to buy in Paris and London. I spent my time rushing about,
falling over things, upsetting people, making curious and secret signs to
B., which signs, being interpreted, meant be careful! But there was no
need of telling him this particular thing. When the _planton_ announced
_la soupe_, a fiercely weary face strode by me en route to his mattress
and his spoon. I knew that B. had been careful. A minute later he joined
me, and told me as much....

On the way downstairs we ran into the Surveillant. Bragard stepped from
the ranks and poured upon the Surveillant a torrent of French, of which
the substance was: you told them not to give me anything. 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.

Moreover, as I have said, Count Bragard had been playing up to the poor
Spanish Whoremaster to beat the band. Every day had he sat on a little
stool beside the rolypoly millionaire, and written from dictation letter
after letter in French--with which language the rolypoly was sadly
unfamiliar.... And when next day Count Bragard took back his treasure of
treasures, his personal water glass, remarking briefly that he needed it
once again, I was not surprised. And when, a week or so later, he left--I
was not surprised to have Mexique come up to us and placidly remark:

"I give dat feller five francs. Tell me he send me overcoat, very good
overcoat. But say: Please no tell anybody come from me. Please tell
everybody your family send it." And with a smile, "I t'ink dat feller
fake."

Nor was I surprised to see, some weeks later, the poor Spanish
Whoremaster rending his scarce hair as he lay in bed of a morning. And
Mexique said with a smile:

"Dat feller give dat English feller one hundred francs. Now he sorry."

All of which meant merely that Count Bragard should have spelt his name,
not Bra-, but with an l.

And I wonder to this day that the only letter of mine which ever reached
America and my doting family should have been posted by this highly
entertaining personage en ville, whither he went as a trusted inhabitant
of La Ferté to do a few necessary errands for himself; whither he
returned with a good deal of colour in his cheeks and a good deal of _vin
rouge_ in his guts; going and returning with Tommy, the _planton_ who
brought him The Daily Mail every day until Bragard couldn't afford it,
after which either B. and I or Jean le Nègre took it off Tommy's
hands--Tommy, for whom we had a delightful name which I sincerely regret
being unable to tell, Tommy, who was an Englishman for all his French
_planton's_ uniform and worshipped the ground on which the Count stood;
Tommy, who looked like a boiled lobster and had tears in his eyes when he
escorted his idol back to captivity.... _Mirabile dictu_, so it was.

Well, such was the departure of a great man from among us.

And now, just to restore the reader's faith in human nature, let me
mention an entertaining incident which occurred during the latter part of
my stay at La Ferté Macé. Our society had been gladdened--or at any rate
galvanized--by the biggest single contribution in its history; the
arrival simultaneously of six purely extraordinary persons, whose names
alone should be of more than general interest: The Magnifying Glass, The
Trick Raincoat, The Messenger Boy, The Hat, The Alsatian, The
Whitebearded Raper and His Son. In order to give the reader an idea of
the situation created by these _arrivés_, which situation gives the
entrance of the Washing Machine Man--the entertaining incident, in other
words--its full and unique flavour, I must perforce sketch briefly each
member of a truly imposing group. Let me say at once that, so terrible an
impression did the members make, each inhabitant of The Enormous Room
rushed at break-neck speed to his _paillasse_; where he stood at bay,
assuming as frightening an attitude as possible. The Enormous Room was
full enough already, in all conscience. Between sixty and seventy
mattresses, with their inhabitants and, in nearly every case, baggage,
occupied it so completely as scarcely to leave room for _le poêle_ at the
further end and the card table in the centre. No wonder we were struck
with terror upon seeing the six _nouveaux_. Judas immediately protested
to the _planton_ who brought them up that there were no places, getting a
roar in response and the door slammed in his face to boot. But the reader
is not to imagine that it was the number alone of the arrivals which
inspired fear and distrust--their appearance was enough to shake anyone's
sanity. I do protest that never have I experienced a feeling of more
profound distrust than upon this occasion; distrust of humanity in
general and in particular of the following individuals:

An old man shabbily dressed in a shiny frock coat, upon whose peering and
otherwise very aged face a pair of dirty spectacles rested. The first
thing he did, upon securing a place, was to sit upon his mattress in a
professorial manner, tremulously extract a journal from his left coat
pocket, tremblingly produce a large magnifying glass from his upper right
vest pocket, and forget everything. Subsequently, I discovered him
promenading the room with an enormous expenditure of feeble energy,
taking tiny steps flat-footedly and leaning in when he rounded a corner
as if he were travelling at terrific speed. He suffered horribly from
rheumatism, could scarcely move after a night on the floor, and must have
been at least sixty-seven years old.

Second, a palish, foppish, undersized, prominent-nosed creature who
affected a deep musical voice and the cut of whose belted raincoat gave
away his profession--he was a pimp, and proud of it, and immediately upon
his arrival boasted thereof, and manifested altogether as disagreeable a
species of bullying vanity as I ever (save in the case of The Fighting
Sheeney) encountered. He got his from Jean le Nègre, as the reader will
learn later.

Third, a super-Western-Union-Messenger type of ancient-youth,
extraordinarily unhandsome if not positively ugly. He had a weak pimply
grey face, was clad in a brownish uniform, puttees (on pipestem calves),
and a regular Messenger Boy cap. Upon securing a place he instantly went
to the card-table, seated himself hurriedly, pulled out a batch of
blanks, and wrote a telegram to (I suppose) himself. Then he returned to
his _paillasse_, lay down with apparently supreme contentment, and fell
asleep.

Fourth, a tiny old man who looked like a caricature of an East Side
second-hand clothes dealer--having a long beard, a long, worn and dirty
coat reaching just to his ankles, and a small derby hat on his head. The
very first night his immediate neighbour complained that "Le Chapeau" (as
he was christened by The Zulu) was guilty of fleas. A great tempest
ensued immediately. A _planton_ was hastily summoned. He arrived, heard
the case, inspected The Hat (who lay on his _paillasse_ with his derby
on, his hand far down the neck of his shirt, scratching busily and
protesting occasionally his entire innocence), uttered (being the Black
Holster) an oath of disgust, and ordered The Frog to "_couper les cheveux
de suite et la barbe aussi; après il va au bain, le vieux_." The Frog
approached and gently requested The Hat to seat himself upon a chair--the
better of two chairs boasted by The Enormous Room. The Frog, successor to
The Barber, brandished his scissors. The Hat lay and scratched. "_Allez,
Nom de Dieu_" the _planton_ roared. The poor Hat arose trembling, assumed
a praying attitude; and began to talk in a thick and sudden manner.
"_Asseyez-vous là, tête de cochon_." The pitiful Hat obeyed, clutching
his derby to his head in both withered hands. "Take off your hat, you son
of a bitch," the _planton_ yelled. "I don't want to," the tragic Hat
whimpered. BANG! the derby hit the floor, bounded upward and lay still.
"Proceed," the orderly thundered to The Frog, who regarded him with a
perfectly inscrutable expression on his extremely keen face, then turned
to his subject, snickered with the scissors, and fell to. Locks ear-long
fell in crisp succession. Pete the Shadow, standing beside the barber,
nudged me; and I looked; and I beheld upon the floor the shorn locks
rising and curling with a movement of their own.... "Now for the beard,"
said the Black Holster.--"No, no, _Monsieur, s'il vous plait, pas ma
barbe, monsieur_"--The Hat wept, trying to kneel.--"_Ta gueule_ or I'll
cut your throat," the _planton_ replied amiably; and The Frog, after
another look, obeyed. And lo, the beard squirmed gently upon the floor,
alive with a rhythm of its own; squirmed and curled crisply as it lay....
When The Hat was utterly shorn, he was bathed and became comparatively
unremarkable, save for the worn long coat which he clutched about him,
shivering. And he borrowed five francs from me twice, and paid me
punctually each time when his own money arrived, and presented me with
chocolate into the bargain, tipping his hat quickly and bowing (as he
always did whenever he addressed anyone). Poor Old Hat, B. and I and the
Zulu were the only men at La Ferté who liked you.

Fifth, a fat, jolly, decently dressed man.--He had been to a camp where
everyone danced, because an entire ship's crew was interned there, and
the crew were enormously musical, and the captain (having sold his ship)
was rich and tipped the Director regularly; so everyone danced night and
day, and the crew played, for the crew had brought their music with
them.--He had a way of borrowing the paper (_Le Matin_) which we bought
from one of the lesser _plantons_ who went to the town and got _Le Matin_
there; borrowing it before we had read it--by the sunset. And his
favourite observations were:

"It's a rotten country. Dirty weather."

Fifth and sixth, a vacillating, staggering, decrepit creature with
wildish white beard and eyes, who had been arrested--incredibly
enough--for "rape." With him his son, a pleasant youth quiet of
demeanour, inquisitive of nature, with whom we sometimes conversed on the
subject of the English Army.

Such were the individuals whose concerted arrival taxed to its utmost the
capacity of The Enormous Room. And now for my incident:

In the doorway, one day shortly after the arrival of the gentlemen
mentioned, quietly stood a well-dressed handsomely middle-aged man, with
a sensitive face culminating in a groomed Van Dyck beard. I thought for a
moment that the Mayor of Orne, or whatever his title is, had dropped in
for an informal inspection of The Enormous Room. Thank God, I said to
myself, it has never looked so chaotically filthy since I have had the
joy of inhabiting it. And _sans blague_, The Enormous Room _was_ in a
state of really supreme disorder; shirts were thrown everywhere, a few
twine clothes lines supported various pants, handkerchiefs and stockings,
the stove was surrounded by a gesticulating group of nearly undressed
prisoners, the stink was actually sublime.

As the door closed behind him, the handsome man moved slowly and
vigorously up The Enormous Room. His eyes were as big as turnips. His
neat felt hat rose with the rising of his hair. His mouth opened in a
gesture of unutterable astonishment. His knees trembled with surprise and
terror, the creases of his trousers quivering. His hands lifted
themselves slowly outward and upward till they reached the level of his
head; moved inward till they grasped his head: and were motionless. In a
deep awe-struck resonant voice he exclaimed simply and sincerely:

"_Nom de nom de nom de nom de nom de DIEU!_"

Which introduces the reader to The Washing Machine Man, a Hollander,
owner of a store at Brest where he sold the highly _utiles_ contrivances
which gave him his name. He, as I remember, had been charged with aiding
and abetting in the case of escaping deserters--but I know a better
reason for his arrest: undoubtedly _le gouvernement français_ caught him
one day in the act of inventing a super-washing machine, in fact, a
Whitewashing machine, for the private use of the Kaiser and His
Family....

Which brings us, if you please, to the first Delectable Mountain.




VIII

THE WANDERER

One day somebody and I were "catching water" for Monsieur the Chef.

"Catching water" was ordinarily a mixed pleasure. It consisted, as I have
mentioned, in the combined pushing and pulling of a curiously primitive
two-wheeled cart over a distance of perhaps three hundred yards to a kind
of hydrant situated in a species of square upon which the mediaeval
structure known as Porte (or Camp) de Triage faced stupidly and
threateningly. A _planton_ always escorted the catchers through a big
door, between the stone wall, which backed the men's _cour_ and the end
of the building itself, or, in other words, the canteen. The ten-foot
stone wall was, like every other stone wall, connected with La Ferté,
topped with three feet of barbed wire. The door by which we exited with
the water-wagon to the street outside was at least eight feet high,
adorned with several large locks. One pushing behind, one pulling in the
shafts, we rushed the wagon over a sort of threshold or sill and into the
street; and were immediately yelled at by the _planton_, who commanded us
to stop until he had locked the door. We waited until told to proceed;
then yanked and shoved the reeling vehicle up the street to our right,
that is to say, along the wall of the building, but on the outside. All
this was pleasant and astonishing. To feel oneself, however temporarily,
outside the eternal walls in a street connected with a rather selfish and
placid looking little town (whereof not more than a dozen houses were
visible) gave the prisoner an at once silly and uncanny sensation, much
like the sensation one must get when he starts to skate for the first
time in a dozen years or so. The street met two others in a moment, and
here was a very nourishing sumach bush (as I guess) whose berries shocked
the stunned eye with a savage splash of vermilion. Under this colour one
discovered the Mecca of water-catchers in the form of an iron contrivance
operating by means of a stubby lever which, when pressed down, yielded
grudgingly a spout of whiteness. The contrivance was placed in
sufficiently close proximity to a low wall so that one of the catchers
might conveniently sit on the wall and keep the water spouting with a
continuous pressure of his foot, while the other catcher manipulated a
tin pail with telling effect. Having filled the barrel which rode on the
two wagon wheels, we turned it with some difficulty and started it down
the street with the tin pail on top; the man in the shafts leaning back
with all his might to offset a certain velocity promoted by the down
grade, while the man behind tugged helpingly at the barrel itself. On
reaching the door we skewed the machine skillfully to the left, thereby
bringing it to a complete standstill, and waited for the _planton_ to
unlock the locks; which done, we rushed it violently over the threshold,
turned left, still running, and came to a final stop in front of the
kitchen. Here stood three enormous wooden tubs. We backed the wagon
around; then one man opened a spigot in the rear of the barrel, and at
the same time the other elevated the shafts in a clever manner, inducting
the _jet d'eau_ to hit one of the tubs. One tub filled, we switched the
stream wittily to the next. To fill the three tubs (they were not always
all of them empty) required as many as six or eight delightful trips.
After which one entered the _cuisine_ and got his well-earned
reward--coffee with sugar.

I have remarked that catching water was a mixed pleasure. The mixedness
of the pleasure came from certain highly respectable citizens, and more
often citizenesses, of _la ville_ de La Ferté Macé; who had a habit of
endowing the poor water-catchers with looks which I should not like to
remember too well, at the same moment clutching whatever infants they
carried or wore or had on leash spasmodically to them. I never ceased to
be surprised by the scorn, contempt, disgust and frequently sheer
ferocity manifested in the male and particularly in the female faces. All
the ladies wore, of course, black; they were wholly unbeautiful of face
or form, some of them actually repellant; not one should I, even under
more favourable circumstances, have enjoyed meeting. The first time I
caught water everybody in the town was returning from church, and a
terrific sight it was. _Vive la bourgeoisie_, I said to myself, ducking
the shafts of censure by the simple means of hiding my face behind the
moving water barrel.

But one day--as I started to inform the reader--somebody and I were
catching water, and, in fact, had caught our last load, and were
returning with it down the street; when I, who was striding rapidly
behind trying to lessen with both hands the impetus of the machine,
suddenly tripped and almost fell with surprise--

On the curb of the little unbeautiful street a figure was sitting, a
female figure dressed in utterly barbaric pinks and vermilions, having a
dark shawl thrown about her shoulders; a positively Arabian face
delimited by a bright coif of some tenuous stuff, slender golden hands
holding with extraordinary delicacy what appeared to be a baby of not
more than three months old; and beside her a black-haired child of
perhaps three years and beside this child a girl of fourteen, dressed
like the woman in crashing hues, with the most exquisite face I had ever
known.

_Nom de Dieu_, I thought vaguely. Am I or am I not completely asleep? And
the man in the shafts craned his neck in stupid amazement, and the
_planton_ twirled his moustache and assumed that intrepid look which only
a _planton_ (or a _gendarme_) perfectly knows how to assume in the
presence of female beauty.

That night The Wanderer was absent from _la soupe_, having been called by
Apollyon to the latter's office upon a matter of superior import.
Everyone was abuzz with the news. The gypsy's wife and three children,
one a baby at the breast, were outside demanding to be made prisoners.
Would the Directeur allow it? They had been told a number of times by
_plantons_ to go away, as they sat patiently waiting to be admitted to
captivity. No threats, pleas nor arguments had availed. The wife said she
was tired of living without her husband--roars of laughter from all the
Belgians and most of the Hollanders, I regret to say Pete included--and
wanted merely and simply to share his confinement. Moreover, she said,
without him she was unable to support his children! and it was better
that they should grow up with their father as prisoners than starve to
death without him. She would not be moved. The Black Holster told her he
would use force--she answered nothing. Finally she had been admitted
pending judgment. _Also sprach_, highly excited, the _balayeur_.

"Looks like a--hoor," was the Belgian-Dutch verdict, a verdict which was
obviously due to the costume of the lady in question almost as much as to
the untemperamental natures sojourning at La Ferté. B. and I agreed that
she and her children were the most beautiful people we had ever seen, or
would ever be likely to see. So _la soupe_ ended, and everybody belched
and gasped and trumpeted up to The Enormous Room as usual.

That evening, about six o'clock, I heard a man crying as if his heart
were broken. I crossed The Enormous Room. Half-lying on his _paillasse_,
his great beard pouring upon his breast, his face lowered, his entire
body shuddering with sobs, lay The Wanderer. Several of the men were
about him, standing in attitudes ranging from semi-amusement to stupid
sympathy, listening to the anguish which--as from time to time he lifted
his majestic head--poured slowly and brokenly from his lips. I sat down
beside him. And he told me: "I bought him for six hundred francs, and I
sold him for four hundred and fifty ... it was not a horse of this race,
but of the race" (I could not catch the word) "as long as from here to
that post. I cried for a quarter of an hour just as if my child were dead
... and it is seldom I weep over horses--I say: you are going, Jewel, _au
r'oir et bon jour._" ...

The vain little dancer interrupted about "broken-down horses" ...
"_Excuses donc_--this was no disabled horse, such as goes to the
front--these are some horses--pardon, whom you give eat, this, it is
colie, that, the other, it's colie--this never--he could go forty
kilometres a day...."

One of the strongest men I have seen in my life is crying because he has
had to sell his favourite horse. No wonder _les hommes_ in general are
not interested. Someone said: "Be of good cheer, Demestre, your wife and
kids are well enough."

"Yes--they are not cold; they have a bed like that" (a high gesture
toward the quilt of many colours on which we were sitting, such a quilt
as I have not seen since; a feathery deepness soft to the touch as air in
Spring), "which is worth three times this of mine--but _tu comprends_,
it's not hot these mornings"--then he dropped his head, and lifted it
again, crying, crying.

"_Et mes outils_, I had many--and my garments--where are they put,
_où--où? Kis!_ And I had _chemises_ ... this is poor" (looking at himself
as a prince might look at his disguise)--"and like this, that--where?"

"_Si_ the wagon is not sold ... I never will stay here for _la durée de
la guerre_. No--bahsht! To resume, that is why I need...."

(more than upright in the priceless bed--the twice streaming darkness of
his beard, his hoarse sweetness of voice--his immense perfect face and
deeply softnesses eyes--pouring voice)

"my wife sat over there, she spoke to No one and bothered Nobody--why was
my wife taken here and shut up? Had she done anything? There is a wife
who _fait la putain_ and turns, to everyone and another, whom I bring
another tomorrow ... but a woman who loves only her husband, who waits
for no one but her husband--"

(the tone bulged, and the eyes together)

"--_Ces cigarettes ne fument pas!_" I added an apology, having presented
him with the package. "Why do you shell out these? They cost fifteen
sous, you may spend for them if you like, you understand what I'm saying?
But some time when you have nothing" (extraordinary gently) "what then?
Better to save for that day ... better to buy _du tabac_ and _faire_
yourself; these are made of tobacco dust."

And there was someone to the right who was saying: "To-morrow is Sunday"
... wearily. The King, lying upon his huge quilt, sobbing now only a
little, heard:

"So--ah--he was born on a Sunday--my wife is nursing him, she gives him
the breast" (the gesture charmed) "she said to them she would not eat if
they gave her that--that's not worth anything--meat is necessary every
day ..." he mused. I tried to go.

"Sit there" (graciousness of complete gesture. The sheer kingliness of
poverty. He creased the indescribably soft _couverture_ for me and I sat
and looked into his forehead bounded by the cube of square sliced hair.
Blacker than Africa. Than imagination).

After this evening I felt that possibly I knew a little of The Wanderer,
or he of me.

The Wanderer's wife and his two daughters and his baby lived in the
women's quarters. I have not described and cannot describe these four.
The little son of whom he was tremendously proud slept with his father in
the great quilts in The Enormous Room. Of The Wanderer's little son I may
say that he had lolling buttons of eyes sewed on gold flesh, that he had
a habit of turning cart-wheels in one-third of his father's trousers,
that we called him The Imp. He ran, he teased, he turned handsprings, he
got in the way, and he even climbed the largest of the scraggly trees in
the _cour_ one day. "You will fall," Monsieur Peters (whose old eyes had
a fondness for this irrepressible creature) remarked with
conviction.--"Let him climb," his father said quietly. "I have climbed
trees. I have fallen out of trees. I am alive." The Imp shinnied like a
monkey, shouting and crowing, up a lean gnarled limb--to the amazement of
the very _planton_ who later tried to rape Celina and was caught. This
_planton_ put his gun in readiness and assumed an eager attitude of
immutable heroism. "Will you shoot?" the father inquired politely.
"Indeed it would be a big thing of which you might boast all your life:
I, a _planton_, shot and killed a six-year-old child in a tree."--"_C'est
enmerdant_," the _planton_ countered, in some confusion--"he may be
trying to escape. How do I know?"--"Indeed, how do you know anything?"
the father murmured quietly. "It's a _mystère_." The Imp, all at once,
fell. He hit the muddy ground with a disagreeable thud. The breath was
utterly knocked out of him. The Wanderer picked him up kindly. His son
began, with the catching of his breath, to howl uproariously. "Serves him
right, the ---- jackanapes," a Belgian growled.--"I told you so, didn't
I?" Monsieur Petairs worringly cried: "I said he would fall out of that
tree!"--"Pardon, you were right, I think," the father smiled pleasantly.
"Don't be sad, my little son, everybody falls out of trees, they're made
for that by God," and he patted The Imp, squatting in the mud and
smiling. In five minutes The Imp was trying to scale the shed. "Come down
or I fire," the _planton_ cried nervously ... and so it was with The
Wanderer's son from morning till night. "Never," said Monsieur Pet-airs
with solemn desperation, "have I seen such an incorrigible child, a
perfectly incorrigible child," and he shook his head and immediately
dodged a missile which had suddenly appeared from nowhere.

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