Book: The Enormous Room

E >> Edward Estlin Cummings >> The Enormous Room




And he is intensely religious, religious with a terrible and exceedingly
beautiful and absurd intensity ... every Friday he will be found sitting
on a little kind of stool by his _paillasse_ reading his prayer-book
upside down; turning with enormous delicacy the thin difficult leaves,
smiling to himself as he sees and does not read. Surplice is actually
religious, and so are Garibaldi and I think The Woodchuck (a little dark
sad man who spits blood with regularity); by which I mean they go to _la
messe_ for _la messe_, whereas everyone else goes _pour voir les femmes_.
And I don't know for certain why The Woodchuck goes, but I think it's
because he feels entirely sure he will die. And Garibaldi is afraid,
immensely afraid. And Surplice goes in order to be surprised, surprised
by the amazing gentleness and delicacy of God--Who put him, Surplice,
upon his knees in La Ferté Macé, knowing that Surplice would appreciate
His so doing.

He is utterly ignorant. He thinks America is out a particular window on
your left as you enter The Enormous Room. He cannot understand the
submarine. He does now know that there is a war. On being informed upon
these subjects he is unutterably surprised, he is inexpressibly
astonished. He derives huge pleasure from this astonishment. His filthy
rather proudly noble face radiates the pleasure he receives upon being
informed that people are killing people for nobody knows what reason,
that boats go under water and fire six-foot long bullets at ships, that
America is not really outside this window close to which we are talking,
that America is, in fact, over the sea. The sea: is that water?--"_c'est
de l'eau, monsieur?_" Ah: a great quantity of water; enormous amounts of
water, water and then water; water and water and water and water and
water. "Ah! You cannot see the other side of this water, monsieur?
Wonderful, monsieur!"--He meditates it, smiling quietly; its wonder, how
wonderful it is, no other side, and yet--the sea. In which fish swim.
Wonderful.

He is utterly curious. He is utterly hungry. We have bought cheese with
The Zulu's money. Surplice comes up, bows timidly and ingratiatingly with
the demeanour of a million-times whipped but somewhat proud dog. He
smiles. He says nothing, being terribly embarrassed. To help his
embarrassment, we pretend we do not see him. That makes things better:

"_Fromage, monsieur?_"

"_Oui, c'est du frommage._"

"_Ah-h-h-h-h-h-h...._"

his astonishment is supreme. _C'est du frommage._ He ponders this. After
a little

"_Monsieur, c'est bon, monsieur?_"

asking the question as if his very life depended on the answer: "Yes, it
is good," we tell him reassuringly.

"_Ah-h-h. Ah-h._"

He is once more superlatively happy. It is good, _le fromage_. Could
anything be more superbly amazing? After perhaps a minute

"_monsieur--monsieur--c'est chère le fromage?_"


"Very," we tell him truthfully. He smiles, blissfully astonished. Then,
with extreme delicacy and the utmost timidity conceivable

"_monsieur, combien ça coute, monsieur?_"


We tell him. He totters with astonishment and happiness. Only now, as if
we had just conceived the idea, we say carelessly

"_en voulez-vous?_"

He straightens, thrilled from the top of his rather beautiful filthy head
to the soleless slippers with which he promenades in rain and frost:

"_Merci, Monsieur!_"

We cut him a piece. He takes it quiveringly, holds it a second as a king
might hold and contemplate the best and biggest jewel of his realm, turns
with profuse thanks to us--and disappears....

He is perhaps most curious of this pleasantly sounding thing which
everyone around him, everyone who curses and spits upon and bullies him,
desires with a terrible desire--_Liberté_. Whenever anyone departs
Surplice is in an ecstasy of quiet excitement. The lucky man may be
Fritz; for whom Bathhouse John is taking up a collection as if he, Fritz,
were a Hollander and not a Dane--for whom Bathhouse John is striding
hither and thither, shaking a hat into which we drop coins for Fritz;
Bathhouse John, chipmunk-cheeked, who talks Belgian, French, English and
Dutch in his dreams, who has been two years in La Ferté (and they say he
declined to leave, once, when given the chance), who cries "_baigneur de
femmes moi_" and every night hoists himself into his wooden bunk crying
"goo-d ni-te"; whose favourite joke is "_une section pour les femmes_,"
which he shouts occasionally in the _cour_ as he lifts his paper-soled
slippers and stamps in the freezing mud, chuckling and blowing his nose
on the Union Jack ... and now Fritz, beaming with joy, shakes hands and
thanks us all and says to me "Good-bye, Johnny," and waves and is gone
forever--and behind me I hear a timid voice

"_monsieur, Liberté?_"

and I say Yes, feeling that Yes in my belly and in my head at the same
instant; and Surplice stands beside me, quietly marvelling, extremely
happy, uncaring that _le parti_ did not think to say good-bye to him. Or
it may be Harree and Pompom who are running to and fro shaking hands with
everybody in the wildest state of excitement, and I hear a voice behind
me:

"_Liberté, monsieur? Liberté?_"

and I say, No. Précigne, feeling weirdly depressed, and Surplice is
standing to my left, contemplating the departure of the incorrigibles
with interested disappointment--Surplice of whom no man takes any notice
when that man leaves, be it for Hell or Paradise....

And once a week the _maître de chambre_ throws soap on the mattresses,
and I hear a voice

"_monsieur, voulez pas?_"

and Surplice is asking that we give him our soap to wash with.

Sometimes, when he has made _quelques sous_ by washing for others, he
stalks quietly to the Butcher's chair (everyone else who wants a shave
having been served) and receives with shut eyes and a patient expression
the blade of The Butcher's dullest razor--for The Butcher is not a man to
waste a good razor on Surplice; he, The Butcher, as we call him, the
successor of The Frog (who one day somehow managed to disappear like his
predecessor The Barber), being a thug and a burglar fond of telling us
pleasantly about German towns and prisons, prisons where men are not
allowed to smoke, clean prisons where there is a daily medical
inspection, where anyone who thinks he has a grievance of any sort has
the right of immediate and direct appeal; he, The Butcher, being perhaps
happiest when he can spend an evening showing us little parlour tricks
fit for children of four and three years old; quite at his best when he
remarks:

"Sickness doesn't exist in France,"

meaning that one is either well or dead; or

"If they (the French) get an inventor they put him in prison."

--So The Butcher is stooping heavily upon Surplice and slicing and
gashing busily and carelessly, his thick lips stuck a little pursewise,
his buried pig's eyes glistening--and in a moment he cries "_Fini!_" and
poor Surplice rises unsteadily, horribly slashed, bleeding from at least
three two-inch cuts and a dozen large scratches; totters over to his
couch holding on to his face as if he were afraid it would fall off any
moment; and lies down gently at full length, sighing with pleasurable
surprise, cogitating the inestimable delights of cleanness....

It struck me at the time as intensely interesting that, in the case of a
certain type of human being, the more cruel are the miseries inflicted
upon him the more cruel does he become toward anyone who is so
unfortunate as to be weaker or more miserable than himself. Or perhaps I
should say that nearly every human being, given sufficiently miserable
circumstances, will from time to time react to those very circumstances
(whereby his own personality is mutilated) through a deliberate
mutilation on his own part of a weaker or already more mutilated
personality. I daresay that this is perfectly obvious. I do not pretend
to have made a discovery. On the contrary, I merely state what interested
me peculiarly in the course of my sojourn at La Ferté: I mention that I
was extremely moved to find that, however busy sixty men may be kept
suffering in common, there is always one man or two or three men who can
always find time to make certain that their comrades enjoy a little extra
suffering. In the case of Surplice, to be the butt of everyone's ridicule
could not be called precisely suffering; inasmuch as Surplice, being
unspeakably lonely, enjoyed any and all insults for the simple reason
that they constituted or at least implied a recognition of his existence.
To be made a fool of was, to this otherwise completely neglected
individual, a mark of distinction; something to take pleasure in; to be
proud of. The inhabitants of The Enormous Room had given to Surplice a
small but essential part in the drama of La Misère: he would play that
part to the utmost of his ability; the cap-and-bells should not grace a
head unworthy of their high significance. He would be a great fool, since
that was his function; a supreme entertainer, since his duty was to
amuse. After all, men in La Misère as well as anywhere else rightly
demand a certain amount of amusement; amusement is, indeed, peculiarly
essential to suffering; in proportion as we are able to be amused we are
able to suffer; I, Surplice, am a very necessary creature after all.

I recall one day when Surplice beautifully demonstrated his ability to
play the fool. Someone had crept up behind him as he was stalking to and
fro, head in air proudly, hands in pockets, pipe in teeth, and had (after
several heart-breaking failures) succeeded in attaching to the back of
his jacket by means of a pin a huge placard carefully prepared
beforehand, bearing the numerical inscription

606

in vast writing. The attacher, having accomplished his difficult feat,
crept away. So soon as he reached his _paillasse_ a volley of shouts went
up from all directions, shouts in which all nationalities joined, shouts
or rather jeers which made the pillars tremble and the windows rattle--

"_SIX CENT SIX! SYPH'LIS!_"

Surplice started from his reverie, removed his pipe from his lips, drew
himself up proudly, and--facing one after another the sides of The
Enormous Room--blustered in his bad and rapid French accent:

"_Pas syph'lis! Pas syph'lis!_"

at which, rocking with mirth, everyone responded at the top of his voice:

"_SIX CENT SIX!_"

Whereat, enraged, Surplice made a dash at Pete The Shadow and was greeted
by

"Get away, you bloody Polak, or I'll give you something you'll be sorry
for"--this from the lips of America Lakes. Cowed, but as majestic as
ever, Surplice attempted to resume his promenade and his composure
together. The din bulged:

"_Six cent six! Syph'lis! Six cent Six!_"

--increasing in volume with every instant. Surplice, beside himself with
rage, rushed another of his fellow-captives (a little old man, who fled
under the table) and elicited threats of:

"Come on now, you Polak hoor, and quit that business or I'll kill you,"
upon which he dug his hands into the pockets of his almost transparent
pantaloons and marched away in a fury, literally frothing at the mouth.--

"_Six Cent Six!_"

everyone cried. Surplice stamped with wrath and mortification. "_C'est
domage_" Monsieur Auguste said gently beside me. "_C'est un bon-homme, le
pauvre, il ne faut pas l'enmerd-er._"

"Look behind you!"

somebody yelled. Surplice wheeled, exactly like a kitten trying to catch
its own tail, and provoked thunders of laughter. Nor could anything at
once more pitiful and ridiculous, more ludicrous and horrible, be
imagined.

"On your coat! Look on your jacket!"

Surplice bent backward, staring over his left, then his right, shoulder,
pulled at his jacket first one way then the other--thereby making his
improvised tail to wag, which sent The Enormous Room into spasms of
merriment--finally caught sight of the incriminating appendage, pulled
his coat to the left, seized the paper, tore it off, threw it fiercely
down, and stamped madly on the crumpled 606; spluttering and blustering
and waving his arms; slavering like a mad dog. Then he faced the most
prominently vociferous corner and muttered thickly and crazily:

"_Wuhwuhwuhwuhwuh...._"

Then he strode rapidly to his _paillasse_ and lay down; in which position
I caught him, a few minutes later, smiling and even chuckling ... very
happy ... as only an actor is happy whose efforts have been greeted with
universal applause....

In addition to being called "Syph'lis" he was popularly known as "Chaude
Pisse, the Pole." If there is anything particularly terrifying about
prisons, or at least imitations of prisons such as La Ferté, it is
possibly the utter obviousness with which (quite unknown to themselves)
the prisoners demonstrate willy-nilly certain fundamental psychological
laws. The case of Surplice is a very exquisite example: everyone, of
course, is afraid of _les maladies venérinnes_--accordingly all pick an
individual (of whose inner life they know and desire to know nothing,
whose external appearance satisfies the requirements of the mind _à
propos_ what is foul and disgusting) and, having tacitly agreed upon this
individual as a Symbol of all that is evil, proceed to heap insults upon
him and enjoy his very natural discomfiture ... but I shall remember
Surplice on his both knees sweeping sacredly together the spilled sawdust
from a spittoon-box knocked over by the heel of the omnipotent _planton_;
and smiling as he smiled at _la messe_ when Monsieur le Curé told him
that there was always Hell....

He told us one day a great and huge story of an important incident in his
life, as follows:

"_Monsieur_, disabled me--yes, _monsieur_--disabled--I work, many people,
house, very high, third floor, everybody, planks up there--planks no
good--all shake..." (here he began to stagger and rotate before us)
"begins to fall ... falls, falls, all, all twenty-seven men--bricks--
planks--wheelbarrows--all--ten metres ... _zuhzuhzuhzuhzuhPOOM_!...
everybody hurt, everybody killed, not me, injured ... _oui
monsieur_"--and he smiled, rubbing his head foolishly. Twenty-seven men,
bricks, planks and wheelbarrows. Ten metres. Bricks and planks. Men and
wheelbarrows....

Also he told us, one night, in his gentle, crazy, shrugging voice, that
once upon a time he played the fiddle with a big woman in Alsace-Lorraine
for fifty francs a night; "_c'est la misère_"--adding quietly, "I can
play well, I can play anything, I can play _n'importe quoi_."

Which I suppose and guess I scarcely believed--until one afternoon a man
brought up a harmonica which he had purchased _en ville_; and the man
tried it; and everyone tried it; and it was perhaps the cheapest
instrument and the poorest that money can buy, even in the fair country
of France; and everyone was disgusted--but, about six o'clock in the
evening, a voice came from behind the last experimenter; a timid hasty
voice:

"_monsieur, monsieur, permettez?_"

the last experimenter turned and to his amazement saw Chaude Pisse the
Pole, whom everyone had (of course) forgotten.

The man tossed the harmonica on the table with a scornful look (a
menacingly scornful look) at the object of universal execration; and
turned his back. Surplice, trembling from the summit of his filthy and
beautiful head to the naked soles of his filthy and beautiful feet,
covered the harmonica delicately and surely with one shaking paw; seated
himself with a surprisingly deliberate and graceful gesture; closed his
eyes, upon whose lashes there were big filthy tears ... and played....

... and suddenly:

He put the harmonica softly upon the table. He rose. He went quickly to
his _paillasse_. He neither moved nor spoke nor responded to
the calls for more music, to the cries of "_Bis!_"--"_Bien
joué!_"--"_Allez!_"--"_Va-g-y!_" He was crying, quietly and carefully, to
himself ... quietly and carefully crying, not wishing to annoy anyone ...
hoping that people could not see that Their Fool had temporarily failed
in his part.

The following day he was up as usual before anyone else, hunting for
chewed cigarette ends on the spitty slippery floor of The Enormous Room;
ready for insult, ready for ridicule, for buffets, for curses.

_Alors_--

One evening, some days after everyone who was fit for _la commission_ had
enjoyed the privilege of examination by that inexorable and delightful
body--one evening very late, in fact, just before _lumières éteintes_, a
strange _planton_ arrived in The Enormous Room and hurriedly read a list
of five names, adding:

"_demain partis, à bonne heure_"

and shut the door behind him. Surplice was, as usual, very interested,
enormously interested. So were we: for the names respectively belonged to
Monsieur Auguste, Monsieur Pet-airs, The Wanderer, Surplice and The
Spoonman. These men had been judged. These men were going to Précigne.
These men would be _prisoniers pour la durée de la guerre_.

I have already told how Monsieur Pet-airs sat with the frantically
weeping Wanderer writing letters, and sniffing with his big red nose, and
saying from time to time: "Be a man, Demestre, don't cry, crying does no
good."--Monsieur Auguste was broken-hearted. We did our best to cheer
him; we gave him a sort of Last Supper at our bedside, we heated some red
wine in the tin cup and he drank with us. We presented him with certain
tokens of our love and friendship, including--I remember--a huge cheese
... and then, before us, trembling with excitement, stood Surplice--

We asked him to sit down. The onlookers (there were always onlookers at
every function, however personal, which involved Food or Drink) scowled
and laughed. _Le con, surplice, chaude pisse_--how could he sit with men
and gentlemen? Surplice sat down gracefully and lightly on one of our
beds, taking extreme care not to strain the somewhat capricious mechanism
thereof; sat very proudly; erect; modest but unfearful. We offered him a
cup of wine. A kind of huge convulsion gripped, for an instant, fiercely
his entire face: then he said in a whisper of sheer and unspeakable
wonderment, leaning a little toward us without in any way suggesting that
the question might have an affirmative answer,

"_pour moi, monsieur?_"

We smiled at him and said "_Prenez, monsieur._" His eyes opened. I have
never seen eyes since. He remarked quietly, extending one hand with
majestic delicacy:

"_Merci, monsieur._"

... Before he left, B. gave him some socks and I presented him with a
flannel shirt, which he took softly and slowly and simply and otherwise
not as an American would take a million dollars.

"I will not forget you," he said to us, as if in his own country he were
a more than very great king ... and I think I know where that country is,
I think I know this; I, who never knew Surplice, know.

* * * * *

For he has the territory of harmonicas, the acres of flutes, the meadows
of clarinets, the domain of violins. And God says: Why did they put you
in prison? What did you do to the people? "I made them dance and they put
me in prison. The soot-people hopped; and to twinkle like sparks on a
chimney-back and I made eighty francs every _dimanche_, and beer and
wine, and to eat well. _Maintenant ... c'est fini ... Et tout suite_
(gesture of cutting himself in two) _la tête_." And He says: "O you who
put the jerk into joys, come up hither. There's a man up here called
Christ who likes the violin."




XI

JEAN LE NÈGRE

On a certain day the ringing of the bell and accompanying rush of men to
the window facing the entrance gate was supplemented by an unparalleled
volley of enthusiastic exclamations in all the languages of La Fertè
Macé--provoking in me a certainty that the queen of fair women had
arrived. This certainty thrillingly withered when I heard the cry: "_II y
a un noir!_" Fritz was at the best peep-hole, resisting successfully the
onslaught of a dozen fellow prisoners, and of him I demanded in English,
"Who's come?"--"Oh, a lot of girls," he yelled, "and there's a NIGGER
too"--hereupon writhing with laughter.

I attempted to get a look, but in vain; for by this at least two dozen
men were at the peep-hole, fighting and gesticulating and slapping each
other's back with joy. However, my curiosity was not long in being
answered. I heard on the stairs the sound of mounting feet, and knew that
a couple of _plantons_ would before many minutes arrive at the door with
their new prey. So did everyone else--and from the farthest beds uncouth
figures sprang and rushed to the door, eager for the first glimpse of the
_nouveau_; which was very significant, as the ordinary procedure on
arrival of prisoners was for everybody to rush to his own bed and stand
guard over it.

Even as the _plantons_ fumbled with the locks I heard the inimitable,
unmistakable divine laugh of a negro. The door opened at last. Entered a
beautiful pillar of black strutting muscle topped with a tremendous
display of the whitest teeth on earth. The muscle bowed politely in our
direction, the grin remarked musically: "_Bo'jour, tou'l'monde_"; then
came a cascade of laughter. Its effect on the spectators was
instantaneous: they roared and danced with joy. "_Comment vous
appelez-vous?_" was fired from the hubbub.--"_J'm'appelle Jean, moi_,"
the muscle rapidly answered with sudden solemnity, proudly gazing to left
and right as if expecting a challenge to this statement: but when none
appeared, it relapsed as suddenly into laughter--as if hugely amused at
itself and everyone else including a little and tough boy, whom I had not
previously noted, although his entrance had coincided with the muscle's.

Thus into the _misère_ of La Ferté Macé stepped lightly and proudly Jean
le Nègre.

Of all the fine people in La Ferté, Monsieur Jean ("_le noir_" as he was
entitled by his enemies) swaggers in my memory as the finest.

Jean's first act was to complete the distribution (begun, he announced,
among the _plantons_ who had escorted him upstairs) of two pockets full
of Cubebs. Right and left he gave them up to the last, remarking
carelessly, "_J'ne veux, moi._"

_Après la soupe_ (which occurred a few minutes after _le noir's_ entry)
B. and I and the greater number of prisoners descended to the _cour_ for
our afternoon promenade. The cook spotted us immediately and desired us
to "catch water"; which we did, three cartfuls of it, earning our usual
_café sucré_. On quitting the kitchen after this delicious repast (which
as usual mitigated somewhat the effects of the swill that was our
official nutriment) we entered the _cour_. And we noticed at once a
well-made figure standing conspicuously by itself, and poring with
extraordinary intentness over the pages of a London Daily Mail which it
was holding upside-down. The reader was culling choice bits of news of a
highly sensational nature, and exclaiming from time to time: "You don't
say! Look, the King of England is sick. Some news!... What? The queen
too? Good God! What's this?--My father is dead! Oh, well. The war is
over. Good."--It was Jean le Nègre, playing a little game with himself to
beguile the time.

When we had mounted _à la chambre_, two or three tried to talk with this
extraordinary personage in French; at which he became very superior and
announced: "_J'suis anglais, moi. Parlez anglais. Comprends pas français,
moi._" At this a crowd escorted him over to B. and me--anticipating great
deeds in the English language. Jean looked at us critically and said:
"_Vous parlez anglais? Moi parlez anglais._"--"We are Americans, and
speak English," I answered.--"_Moi anglais_," Jean said. "_Mon père,
capitaine de gendarmes, Londres. Comprends pas français, moi._
SPEE-Kingliss"--he laughed all over himself.

At this display of English on Jean's part the English-speaking Hollanders
began laughing. "The son of a bitch is crazy," one said.

And from that moment B. and I got on famously with Jean.

His mind was a child's. His use of language was sometimes exalted
fibbing, sometimes the purely picturesque. He courted above all the sound
of words, more or less disdaining their meaning. He told us immediately
(in pidgeon French) that he was born without a mother because his mother
died when he was born, that his father was (first) sixteen (then) sixty
years old, that his father _gagnait cinq cent franc par jour_ (later, par
_année_), that he was born in London and not in England, that he was in
the French army and had never been in any army.

He did not, however, contradict himself in one statement: "_Les français
sont des cochons_"--to which we heartily agreed, and which won him the
approvel of the Hollanders.

The next day I had my hands full acting as interpreter for "_le noir qui
comprends pas français_." I was summoned from the _cour_ to elucidate a
great grief which Jean had been unable to explain to the Gestionnaire. I
mounted with a _planton_ to find Jean in hysterics, speechless, his eyes
starting out of his head. As nearly as I could make out, Jean had had
sixty francs when he arrived, which money he had given to a _planton_
upon his arrival, the _planton_ having told Jean that he would deposit
the money with the Gestionnaire in Jean's name (Jean could not write).
The _planton_ in question who looked particularly innocent denied this
charge upon my explaining Jean's version; while the Gestionnaire puffed
and grumbled, disclaiming any connection with the alleged theft and
protesting sonorously that he was hearing about Jean's sixty francs for
the first time. The Gestionnaire shook his thick piggish finger at the
book wherein all financial transactions were to be found--from the year
one to the present year, month, day, hour and minute (or words to that
effect). "_Mais c'est pas là_" he kept repeating stupidly. The
Surveillant was uh-ahing at a great rate and attempting to pacify Jean in
French. I myself was somewhat fearful for Jean's sanity and highly
indignant at the _planton_. The matter ended with the _planton's_ being
sent about his business; simultaneously with Jean's dismissal to the
_cour_, whither I accompanied him. My best efforts to comfort Jean in
this matter were quite futile. Like a child who has been unjustly
punished he was inconsolable. Great tears welled in his eyes. He kept
repeating "_sees-tee franc--planton voleur_," and--absolutely like a
child who in anguish calls itself by the name which has been given itself
by grown-ups--"steel Jean munee." To no avail I called the _planton_ a
_menteur_, a _voleur_, a _fils d'un chien_, and various other names. Jean
felt the wrong itself too keenly to be interested in my denunciation of
the mere agent through whom injustice had (as it happened) been
consummated.

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