Book: The Enormous Room

E >> Edward Estlin Cummings >> The Enormous Room




Harree and Pompom had completed their third and final trip and returned
from the kitchen, smacking their lips and wiping their mouths with the
backs of their hands. I was gazing airily into the muddy sky, when a roar
issued from the door-way:

"_Monter les hommes!_" or "Send the men up!"

It was the beefy-necked. We filed from the _cour_, through the door, past
a little window which I was told belonged to the kitchen, down the clammy
corridor, up the three flights of stairs, to the door of The Enormous
Room. Padlocks were unlocked, chains rattled, and the door thrown open.
We entered. The Enormous Room received us in silence. The door was
slammed and locked behind us by the _planton_, whom we could hear
descending the gnarled and filthy stairs.

In the course of a half-hour, which time, as I was informed, intervened
between the just-ended morning promenade and the noon meal which was the
next thing on the program, I gleaned considerable information concerning
the daily schedule of La Ferté. A typical day was divided by
planton-cries as follows:

"_Café_," "_Corvée d'eau_," "_Nettoyage de Chambre_," "_Monter les
Hommes_," "_A la soupe les hommes_."

The most terrible cry of all, and which was not included in the regular
program of planton-cries, consisted of the words:

"_Aux douches les hommes_"--when all, sick, dead and dying not excepted,
descended to the baths. Although _les douches_ came only once in 15 days,
such was the terror they inspired that it was necessary for the _planton_
to hunt under mattresses for people who would have preferred death
itself.

Upon remarking that _corvée d'eau_ must be excessively disagreeable, I
was informed that it had its bright side, viz., that in going to and from
the sewer one could easily exchange a furtive signal with the women who
always took pains to be at their windows at that moment. Influenced
perhaps by this, Harree and Pompom were in the habit of doing their
friends' _corvées_ for a consideration. The girls, I was further
instructed, had their _corvée_ (as well as their meals) just after the
men; and the miraculous stupidity of the _plantons_ had been known to
result in the coincidence of the two.

At this point somebody asked me how I had enjoyed my shower?

I was replying in terms of unmeasured opprobrium when I was interrupted
by that gruesome clanking and rattling which announced the opening of the
door. A moment later it was thrown wide, and the beefy-neck stood in the
doorway, a huge bunch of keys in his paw, and shouted:

"_A la soupe les hommes._"

The cry was lost in a tremendous confusion, a reckless
thither-and-hithering of humanity, everyone trying to be at the door,
spoon in hand, before his neighbour. B. said calmly, extracting his own
spoon from beneath his mattress on which we were seated: "They'll give
you yours downstairs and when you get it you want to hide it or it'll be
pinched"--and in company with Monsieur Bragard, who had refused the
morning promenade, and whose gentility would not permit him to hurry when
it was a question of such a low craving as hunger, we joined the dancing
roaring throng at the door. I was not too famished myself to be
unimpressed by the instantaneous change which had come over The Enormous
Room's occupants. Never did Circe herself cast upon men so bestial an
enchantment. Among these faces convulsed with utter animalism I scarcely
recognised my various acquaintances. The transformation produced by the
_planton's_ shout was not merely amazing; it was uncanny, and not a
little thrilling. These eyes bubbling with lust, obscene grins sprouting
from contorted lips, bodies unclenching and clenching in unctuous
gestures of complete savagery, convinced me by a certain insane beauty.
Before the arbiter of their destinies some thirty creatures, hideous and
authentic, poised, cohering in a sole chaos of desire; a fluent and
numerous cluster of vital inhumanity. As I contemplated this ferocious
and uncouth miracle, this beautiful manifestation of the sinister alchemy
of hunger, I felt that the last vestige of individualism was about
utterly to disappear, wholly abolished in a gambolling and wallowing
throb.

The beefy-neck bellowed:

"Are you all here?"

A shrill roar of language answered. He looked contemptuously around him,
upon the thirty clamouring faces each of which wanted to eat
him--puttees, revolver and all. Then he cried:

"_Allez, descendez._"

Squirming, jostling, fighting, roaring, we poured slowly through the
doorway. Ridiculously. Horribly. I felt like a glorious microbe in huge
absurd din irrevocably swathed. B. was beside me. A little ahead Monsieur
Auguste's voice protested. Count Bragard brought up the rear.

When we reached the corridor nearly all the breath was knocked out of me.
The corridor being wider than the stairs allowed me to inhale and look
around. B. was yelling in my ear:

"Look at the Hollanders and the Belgians! They're always ahead when it
comes to food!"

Sure enough: John the Bathman, Harree and Pompom were leading this
extraordinary procession. Fritz was right behind them, however, and
pressing the leaders hard. I heard Monsieur Auguste crying in his child's
voice:

"If every-body goes slow-er we will ar-rive soon-er. You mustn't act like
that!"

Then suddenly the roar ceased. The mêlée integrated. We were marching in
orderly ranks. B. said:

"The Surveillant!"

At the end of the corridor, opposite the kitchen window, there was a
flight of stairs. On the third stair from the bottom stood (teetering a
little slowly back and forth, his lean hands joined behind him and
twitching regularly, a kepi tilted forward on his cadaverous head so that
its visor almost hid the weak eyes sunkenly peering from under droopy
eyebrows, his pompous rooster-like body immaculately attired in a shiny
uniform, his puttees sleeked, his cross polished)--The Fencer. There was
a renovated look about him which made me laugh. Also his pose was
ludicrously suggestive of Napoleon reviewing the armies of France.

Our column's first rank moved by him. I expected it to continue ahead
through the door and into the open air, as I had myself done in going
from _les douches_ to _le cour;_ but it turned a sharp right and then
sharp left, and I perceived a short hall, almost hidden by the stairs. In
a moment I had passed The Fencer myself and entered the hall. In another
moment I was in a room, pretty nearly square, filled with rows of
pillars. On turning into the hall the column had come almost to a
standstill. I saw that the reason for this slowing-down lay in the fact
that on entering the room every man in turn passed a table and received a
piece of bread from the chef. When B. and I came opposite the table the
dispenser of bread smiled pleasantly and nodded to B., then selected a
large hunk and pushed it rapidly into B.'s hands with an air of doing
something which he shouldn't. B. introduced me, whereupon the smile and
selection was repeated.

"He thinks I'm a German," B. explained in a whisper, "and that you are a
German too." Then aloud, to the cook: "My friend here needs a spoon. He
just got here this morning and they haven't given him one."

The excellent person at the bread table hereupon said to me: "You shall
go to the window and say I tell you to ask for spoon and you will catch
one spoon"--and I broke through the waiting line, approached the
kitchen-window, and demanded of a roguish face within:

"A spoon, please."

The roguish face, which had been singing in a high faint voice to itself,
replied critically but not unkindly:

"You're a new one?"

I said that I was, that I had arrived late last night.

It disappeared, reappeared, and handed me a tin spoon and cup, saying:

"You haven't a cup?"--"No" I said.

"Here. Take this. Quick." Nodding in the direction of the Surveillant,
who was standing all this time on the stairs behind me.

I had expected from the cook's phrase that something would be thrown at
me which I should have to catch, and was accordingly somewhat relieved at
the true state of affairs. On re-entering the _salle à manger_ I was
greeted by many cries and wavings, and looking in their direction
perceived everybody uproariously seated at wooden benches which were
placed on either side of an enormous wooden table. There was a tiny gap
on one bench where a place had been saved for me by B., with the
assistance of Monsieur Auguste, Count Bragard, Harree and several other
fellow-convicts. In a moment I had straddled the bench and was occupying
the gap, spoon and cup in hand, and ready for anything.

The din was perfectly terrific. It had a minutely large quality. Here and
there, in a kind of sonal darkness, solid sincere unintelligible absurd
wisps of profanity heavily flickered. Optically the phenomenon was
equally remarkable: seated waggingly swaying corpselike figures,
swaggering, pounding with their little spoons, roaring, hoarse, unkempt.
Evidently Monsieur le Surveillant had been forgotten. All at once the
roar bulged unbearably. The roguish man, followed by the _chef_ himself,
entered with a suffering waddle, each of them bearing a huge bowl of
steaming something. At least six people immediately rose, gesturing and
imploring: "_Ici_"--"_Mais non, ici_"--"_Mettez par ici_"--

The bearers plumped their burdens carefully down, one at the head of the
table and one in the middle. The men opposite the bowls stood up. Every
man seized the empty plate in front of him and shoved it into his
neighbour's hand; the plates moved toward the bowls, were filled amid
uncouth protestations and accusations--"_Mettez plus que ça_"--"_C'est
pas juste, alors_"--"_Donnez-moi encore de pommes_"--"_Nom de Dieu,
il n'y a pas assez_"--"_Cochon, qu'est-ce qu'il veut?_"--"_Shut
up_"--"_Gott-ver-dummer_"--and returned one by one. As each man received
his own, he fell upon it with a sudden guzzle.

Eventually, in front of me, solemnly sat a faintly-smoking urine-coloured
circular broth, in which soggily hung half-suspended slabs of raw potato.
Following the example of my neighbours, I too addressed myself to _La
Soupe_. I found her luke-warm, completely flavourless. I examined the
hunk of bread. It was almost bluish in colour; in taste mouldy, slightly
sour. "If you crumb some into the soup," remarked B., who had been
studying my reactions from the corner of his eye, "they both taste
better." I tried the experiment. It was a complete success. At least one
felt as if one were getting nourishment. Between gulps I smelled the
bread furtively. It smelled rather much like an old attic in which kites
and other toys gradually are forgotten in a gentle darkness.

B. and I were finishing our soup together when behind and somewhat to the
left there came the noise of a lock being manipulated. I turned and saw
in one corner of the _salle à manger_ a little door, shaking
mysteriously. Finally it was thrown open, revealing a sort of minute bar
and a little closet filled with what appeared to be groceries and
tobacco; and behind the bar, standing in the closet, a husky,
competent-looking lady. "It's the canteen," B. said. We rose, spoon in
hand and breadhunk stuck on spoon, and made our way to the lady. I had,
naturally, no money; but B. reassured me that before the day was over I
should see the Gestionnaire and make arrangements for drawing on the
supply of ready cash which the _gendarmes_ who took me from Gré had
confided to The Surveillant's care; eventually I could also draw on my
account with Norton-Harjes in Paris; meantime he had _quelques sous_
which might well go into chocolate and cigarettes. The large lady had a
pleasant quietness about her, a sort of simplicity, which made me
extremely desirous of complying with B.'s suggestion. Incidentally I was
feeling somewhat uncertain in the region of the stomach, due to the
unique quality of the lunch which I had just enjoyed, and I brightened at
the thought of anything as solid as chocolate. Accordingly we purchased
(or rather B. did) a _paquet jaune_ and a cake of something which was not
Meunier. And the remaining _sous_ we squandered on a glass apiece of red
acrid _pinard_, gravely and with great happiness pledging the hostess of
the occasion and then each other.

With the exception of ourselves hardly anyone patronized the canteen,
noting which I felt somewhat conspicuous. When, however, Harree Pompom
and John the Bathman came rushing up and demanded cigarettes my fears
were dispelled. Moreover the _pinard_ was excellent.

"Come on! Arrange yourselves!" the bull-neck cried hoarsely as the five
of us were lighting up; and we joined the line of fellow-prisoners with
their breads and spoons, gaping, belching, trumpeting fraternally, by the
doorway.

"_Tout le monde en haut!_" this _planton_ roared.

Slowly we filed through the tiny hall, past the stairs (empty now of
their Napoleonic burden), down the corridor, up the creaking gnarled damp
flights, and (after the inevitable pause in which the escort rattled
chains and locks) into The Enormous Room.

This would be about ten thirty.

Just what I tasted, did, smelled, saw, and heard, not to mention touched,
between ten thirty and the completion of the evening meal (otherwise the
four o'clock soup) I am quite at a loss to say. Whether it was that glass
of _pinard_ (plus, or rather times, the astonishing exhaustion bequeathed
me by my journey of the day before) which caused me to enter temporarily
the gates of forgetfulness, or whether the sheer excitement attendant
upon my ultra-novel surroundings proved too much for an indispensable
part of my so-called mind--I do not in the least know. I am fairly
certain that I went on afternoon promenade. After which I must surely
have mounted to await my supper in The Enormous Room. Whence (after the
due and proper interval) I doubtless descended to the clutches of _La
Soupe Extraordinaire_ ... yes, for I perfectly recall the cry which made
me suddenly to re-enter the dimension of distinctness ... and by Jove I
had just finished a glass of _pinard_ ... somebody must have treated me
... we were standing together, spoon in hand ... when we heard--

"_A la promenade_," ... we issued _en queue_, firmly grasping our spoons
and bread, through the dining-room door. Turning right we were emitted,
by the door opposite the kitchen, from the building itself into the open
air. A few steps and we passed through the little gate in the barbed wire
fence of the _cour_.

Greatly refreshed by my second introduction to the canteen, and with the
digestion of the somewhat extraordinary evening meal apparently assured,
I gazed almost intelligently around me. Count Bragard had declined the
evening promenade in favour of The Enormous Room, but I perceived in the
crowd the now familiar faces of the three Hollanders--John, Harree and
Pompom--likewise of The Bear, Monsieur Auguste, and Fritz. In the course
of the next hour I had become, if not personally, at least optically
acquainted with nearly a dozen others.

Somewhat overawed by the animals Harree and Pompom (but nevertheless
managing to overawe a goodly portion of his fellow-captives) an
extraordinary human being paced the _cour_. On gazing for the first time
directly at him I experienced a feeling of nausea. A figure inclined to
corpulence, dressed with care, remarkable only above the neck--and then
what a head! It was large, and had a copious mop of limp hair combed back
from the high forehead--hair of a disagreeable blond tint, dutch-cut
behind, falling over the pinkish soft neck almost to the shoulders. In
this pianist's or artist's hair, which shook en masse when the owner
walked, two large and outstanding and altogether brutal white ears tried
to hide themselves. The face, a cross between classic Greek and Jew, had
a Reynard expression, something distinctly wily and perfectly
disagreeable. An equally with the hair blond moustache--or rather
mustachios projectingly important--waved beneath the prominent nostrils,
and served to partially conceal the pallid mouth, weak and large, whose
lips assumed from time to time a smile which had something almost foetal
about it. Over the even weaker chin was disposed a blond goatee. The
cheeks were fatty. The continually perspiring forehead exhibited
innumerable pinkish pock-marks. In conversing with a companion this being
emitted a disgusting smoothness, his very gestures were oily like his
skin. He wore a pair of bloated wristless hands, the knuckles lost in
fat, with which he smoothed the air from time to time. He was speaking
low and effortless French, completely absorbed in the developing ideas
which issued fluently from his mustachios. About him there clung an aura
of cringing. His hair whiskers and neck looked as if they were trick neck
whiskers and hair, as if they might at any moment suddenly disintegrate,
as if the smoothness of his eloquence alone kept them in place.

We called him Judas.

Beside him, clumsily keeping the pace but not the step, was a tallish
effeminate person whose immaculate funereal suit hung loosely upon an
aged and hurrying anatomy. He wore a big black cap on top of his haggard
and remarkably clean-shaven face, the most prominent feature of which was
a red nose, which sniffed a little now and then as if its owner was
suffering from a severe cold. This person emanated age, neatness and
despair. Aside from the nose which compelled immediate attention, his
face consisted of a few large planes loosely juxtaposed and registering
pathos. His motions were without grace. He had a certain refinement. He
could not have been more than forty-five. There was worry on every inch
of him. Possibly he thought that he might die. B. said "He's a Belgian, a
friend of Count Bragard, his name is Monsieur Pet-airs." From time to
time Monsieur Pet-airs remarked something delicately and pettishly in a
gentle and weak voice. His adam's-apple, at such moments, jumped about in
a longish slack wrinkled skinny neck which was like the neck of a turkey.
To this turkey the approach of Thanksgiving inspired dread. From time to
time M. Pet-airs looked about him sidewise as if he expected to see a
hatchet. His hands were claws, kind, awkward and nervous. They twitched.
The bony and wrinkled things looked as if they would like to close
quickly upon a throat.

B. called my attention to a figure squatting in the middle of the _cour_
with his broad back against one of the more miserable trees. This figure
was clothed in a remarkably picturesque manner: it wore a dark
sombrero-like hat with a large drooping brim, a bright red gipsy shirt of
some remarkably fine material with huge sleeves loosely falling, and
baggy corduroy trousers whence escaped two brown, shapely, naked feet. On
moving a little I discovered a face--perhaps the handsomest face that I
have ever seen, of a gold brown color, framed in an amazingly large and
beautiful black beard. The features were finely formed and almost fluent,
the eyes soft and extraordinarily sensitive, the mouth delicate and firm
beneath a black moustache which fused with the silky and wonderful
darkness falling upon the breast. The face contained a beauty and dignity
which, as I first saw it, annihilated the surrounding tumult without an
effort. Around the carefully formed nostrils there was something almost
of contempt. The cheeks had known suns of which I might not think. The
feet had travelled nakedly in countries not easily imagined. Seated
gravely in the mud and noise of the _cour_, under the pitiful and
scraggly _pommier_ ... behind the eyes lived a world of complete
strangeness and silence. The composure of the body was graceful and
Jovelike. This being might have been a prophet come out of a country
nearer to the sun. Perhaps a god who had lost his road and allowed
himself to be taken prisoner by _le gouvernement français_. At least a
prince of a dark and desirable country, a king over a gold-skinned people
who would return when he wished to his fountains and his houris. I
learned upon inquiry that he travelled in various countries with a horse
and cart and his wife and children, selling bright colours to the women
and men of these countries. As it turned out, he was one of the
Delectable Mountains; to discover which I had come a long and difficult
way. Wherefore I shall tell you no more about him for the present, except
that his name was Joseph Demestre.

We called him The Wanderer.

I was still wondering at my good luck in occupying the same miserable
yard with this exquisite personage when a hoarse, rather thick voice
shouted from the gate: "_L'américain!_"

It was a _planton_, in fact the chief _planton_ for whom all ordinary
_plantons_ had unutterable respect and whom all mere men unutterably
hated. It was the _planton_ into whom I had had the distinguished honour
of bumping shortly after my visit to _le bain_.

The Hollanders and Fritz were at the gate in a mob, all shouting "Which"
in four languages.

This _planton_ did not deign to notice them. He repeated roughly
"_L'américain._" Then, yielding a point to their frenzied entreaties: "Le
nouveau."

B. said to me "Probably he's going to take you to the Gestionnaire.
You're supposed to see him when you arrive. He's got your money and will
keep it for you, and give you an allowance twice a week. You can't draw
more than 20 francs. I'll hold your bread and spoon."

"Where the devil is the American?" cried the _planton_.

"Here I am."

"Follow me."

I followed his back and rump and holster through the little gate in the
barbed wire fence and into the building, at which point he commanded
"Proceed."

I asked "Where?"

"Straight ahead" he said angrily.

I proceeded. "Left!" he cried. I turned. A door confronted me.
"_Entrez_," he commanded. I did. An unremarkable looking gentleman in a
French uniform, sitting at a sort of table. "_Monsieur le médecin, le
nouveau._" The doctor got up. "Open your shirt." I did. "Take down your
pants." I did. "All right." Then, as the _planton_ was about to escort me
from the room: "English?" he asked with curiosity. "No" I said,
"American." "_Vraiment_"--he contemplated me with attention. "South
American are you?" "United States" I explained. "_Vraiment_"--he looked
curiously at me, not disagreeably in the least. "_Pourquoi vous êtes
ici?_" "I don't know" I said smiling pleasantly, "except that my friend
wrote some letters which were intercepted by the French censor." "Ah," he
remarked. "_C'est tout._"

And I departed. "Proceed!" cried the Black Holster. I retraced my steps,
and was about to exit through the door leading to the _cour_, when "Stop!
_Nom de Dieu!_ Proceed!"

I asked "Where?" completely bewildered.

"Up," he said angrily.

I turned to the stairs on the left, and climbed.

"Not so fast there," he roared behind me.

I slowed up. We reached the landing. I was sure that the Gestionnaire was
a very fierce man--probably a lean slight person who would rush at me
from the nearest door saying "Hands up" in French, whatever that may be.
The door opposite me stood open. I looked in. There was the Surveillant
standing, hands behind back, approvingly regarding my progress. I was
asking myself, Should I bow? when a scurrying and a tittering made me
look left, along a dark and particularly dirty hall. Women's voices ... I
almost fell with surprise. Were not those shadows' faces peering a little
boldly at me from doors? How many girls were there--it sounded as if
there were a hundred--

"_Qu'est-ce que vous faites_," etc., and the _planton_ gave me a good
shove in the direction of another flight of stairs. I obligingly
ascended; thinking of the Surveillant as a spider, elegantly poised in
the centre of his nefarious web, waiting for a fly to make too many
struggles....

At the top of this flight I was confronted by a second hall. A shut door
indicated the existence of a being directly over the Surveillant's holy
head. Upon this door, lest I should lose time in speculating, was in
ample letters inscribed:

GESTIONNAIRE

I felt unutterably lost. I approached the door. I even started to push
it.

"_Attends, Nom de Dieu._" The _planton_ gave me another shove, faced the
door, knocked twice, and cried in accents of profound respect: "Monsieur
le Gestionnaire"--after which he gazed at me with really supreme
contempt, his neat pig-like face becoming almost circular.

I said to myself: This Gestionnaire, whoever he is, must be a very
terrible person, a frightful person, a person utterly without mercy.

From within a heavy, stupid, pleasant voice lazily remarked:

"_Entrez._"

The _planton_ threw the door open, stood stiffly on the threshold, and
gave me the look which _plantons_ give to eggs when _plantons_ are a
little hungry.

I crossed the threshold, trembling with (let us hope) anger.

Before me, seated at a table, was a very fat personage with a black skull
cap perched upon its head. Its face was possessed of an enormous nose, on
which pince-nez precariously roosted; otherwise the face was large,
whiskered, very German and had three chins. Extraordinary creature. Its
belly, as it sat, was slightly dented by the table-top, on which
table-top rested several enormous tomes similar to those employed by the
recording angel on the Day of Judgment, an inkstand or two, innumerable
pens and pencils, and some positively fatal looking papers. The person
was dressed in worthy and semi-dismal clothes amply cut to afford a
promenade for the big stomach. The coat was of that extremely thin black
material which occasionally is affected by clerks and dentists and more
often by librarians. If ever I looked upon an honest German jowl, or even
upon a caricature thereof, I looked upon one now. Such a round fat red
pleasant beer-drinking face as reminded me only and immediately of huge
meerschaum pipes, Deutsche Verein mottos, sudsy seidels of Wurtzburger,
and Jacob Wirth's (once upon a time) brachwurst. Such pinlike pink merry
eyes as made me think of Kris Kringle himself. Such extraordinarily huge
reddish hands as might have grasped six seidels together in the Deutsche
Küchen on 13th street. I gasped with pleasurable relief.

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