Book: The Enormous Room

E >> Edward Estlin Cummings >> The Enormous Room




Monsieur le Gestionnaire looked as if he was trying very hard, with the
aid of his beribboned glasses and librarian's jacket (not to mention a
very ponderous gold watch-chain and locket that were supported by his
copious equator) to appear possessed of the solemnity necessarily
emanating from his lofty and responsible office. This solemnity, however,
met its Waterloo in his frank and stupid eyes, not to say his trilogy of
cheerful chins--so much so that I felt like crying "Wie gehts!" and
cracking him on his huge back. Such an animal! A contented animal, a
bulbous animal; the only living hippopotamus in captivity, fresh from the
Nile.

He contemplated me with a natural, under the circumstances, curiosity. He
even naively contemplated me. As if I were hay. My hay-coloured head
perhaps pleased him, as a hippopotamus. He would perhaps eat me. He
grunted, exposing tobacco-yellow tusks, and his tiny eyes twittered.
Finally he gradually uttered, with a thick accent, the following
extremely impressive dictum:

"_C'est l'américain._"

I felt much pleased, and said "_Oui, j'suis américain, Monsieur._"

He rolled half over backwards in his creaking chair with wonderment at
such an unexpected retort. He studied my face with a puzzled air,
appearing slightly embarrassed that before him should stand _l'américain_
and that _l'américain_ should admit it, and that it should all be so
wonderfully clear. I saw a second dictum, even more profound than the
first, ascending from his black vest. The chain and fob trembled with
anticipation. I was wholly fascinated. What vast blob of wisdom would
find its difficult way out of him? The bulbous lips wiggled in a pleasant
smile.

"_Voo parlez français._"

This was delightful. The _planton_ behind me was obviously angered by the
congenial demeanour of Monsieur le Gestionnaire, and rasped with his boot
upon the threshold. The maps to my right and left, maps of France, maps
of the Mediterranean, of Europe, even, were abashed. A little anaemic and
humble biped whom I had not previously noted, as he stood in one corner
with a painfully deferential expression, looked all at once relieved. I
guessed, and correctly guessed, that this little thing was the translator
of La Ferté. His weak face wore glasses of the same type as the
hippopotamus', but without a huge black ribbon. I decided to give him a
tremor; and said to the hippo "_Un peu, Monsieur_," at which the little
thing looked sickly.

The hippopotamus benevolently remarked "_Voo parlez bien_," and his
glasses fell off. He turned to the watchful _planton_:

"_Voo poovez aller. Je vooz appelerai._"

The watchful _planton_ did a sort of salute and closed the door after
him. The skullcapped dignitary turned to his papers and began mouthing
them with his huge hands, grunting pleasantly. Finally he found one, and
said lazily:

"_De quelle endroit que vooz êtes?_"

"_De Massachusetts_," said I.

He wheeled round and stared dumbly at the weak faced one, who looked at a
complete loss, but managed to stammer simperingly that it was a part of
the United States.

"UH." The hippopotamus said.

Then he remarked that I had been arrested, and I agreed that I had been
arrested.

Then he said "Have you got any money?" and before I could answer
clambered heavily to his feet and, leaning over the table before which I
stood, punched me gently.

"Uh," said the hippopotamus, sat down, and put on his glasses.

"I have your money here," he said. "You are allowed to draw a little from
time to time. You may draw 20 francs, if you like. You may draw it twice
a week."

"I should like to draw 20 francs now" I said, "in order to buy something
at the canteen."

"You will give me a receipt," said the hippopotamus. "You want to draw 20
francs now, quite so." He began, puffing and grunting, to make
handwriting of a peculiarly large and somewhat loose variety.

The weak face now stepped forward, and asked me gently: "Hugh er a merry
can?"--so I carried on a brilliant conversation in pidgeon English about
my relatives and America until interrupted by

"Uh."

The hip had finished.

"Sign your name, here," he said, and I did. He looked about in one of the
tomes and checked something opposite my name, which I enjoyed seeing in
the list of inmates. It had been spelled, erased, and re-spelled several
times.

Monsieur le Gestionnaire contemplated my signature. Then he looked up,
smiled and nodded recognition to someone behind me. I turned. There stood
(having long since noiselessly entered) The Fencer Himself, nervously
clasping and unclasping his hands behind his back and regarding me with
approval, or as a keeper regards some rare monkey newly forwarded from
its habitat by Hagenbeck.

The hippo pulled out a drawer. He found, after hunting, some notes. He
counted two off, licking his big thumb with a pompous gesture, and having
recounted them passed them heavily to me. I took them as a monkey takes a
cocoanut.

"Do you wish?"--the Gestionnaire nodded toward me, addressing the Fencer.

"No, no" the Fencer said bowingly. "I have talked to him already."

"Call that _planton!_" cried Monsieur le Gestionnaire, to the little
thing. The little thing ran out dutifully and called in a weak voice
"_Planton!_"

A gruff but respectful "_Oui_" boomed from below-stairs. In a moment the
_planton_ of _plantons_ had respectfully entered.

"The promenade being over, you can take him to the men's room," said the
Surveillant, as the Hippo (immensely relieved and rather proud of
himself) collapsed in his creaking chair.

Feeling like a suit-case in the clutches of a porter, I obediently
preceded my escort down two flights, first having bowed to the
hippopotamus and said "_Merci_"--to which courtesy the Hippo paid no
attention. As we went along the dank hall on the ground floor, I
regretted that no whispers and titters had greeted my descent. Probably
the furious _planton_ had seen to it that _les femmes_ kept their rooms
in silence. We ascended the three flights at the farther end of the
corridor, the _planton_ of all _plantons_ unlocked and unbolted the door
at the top landing, and I was swallowed by The Enormous Room.

I made for B., in my excitement allowing myself to wave the bank-notes.
Instantly a host had gathered at my side. On my way to my bed--a distance
of perhaps thirty feet--I was patted on the back by Harree, Pompom and
Bathhouse John, congratulated by Monsieur Auguste, and saluted by Fritz.
Arriving, I found myself the centre of a stupendous crowd. People who had
previously had nothing to say to me, who had even sneered at my unwashed
and unshaven exterior, now addressed me in terms of more than polite
interest. Judas himself stopped in a promenade of the room, eyed me a
moment, hastened smoothly to my vicinity, and made a few oily remarks of
a pleasant nature. Simultaneously by Monsieur Auguste Harree and Fritz I
was advised to hide my money and hide it well. There were people, you
know ... who didn't hesitate, you understand.... I understood, and to the
vast disappointment of the clamorous majority reduced my wealth to its
lowest terms and crammed it in my trousers, stuffing several trifles of a
bulky nature on top of it. Then I gazed quietly around with a William S.
Hart expression calculated to allay any undue excitement. One by one the
curious and enthusiastic faded from me, and I was left with the few whom
I already considered my friends; with which few B. and myself proceeded
to wile away the time remaining before _Lumières Éteintes_.

Incidentally, I exchanged (in the course of the next two hours) a
considerable mass of two legged beings for a number of extremely
interesting individuals. Also, in that somewhat limited period of time, I
gained all sorts of highly enlightening information concerning the lives,
habits and likes of half a dozen of as fine companions as it has ever
been my luck to meet or, so far as I can now imagine, ever will be. In
prison one learns several million things--if one is _l'américain_ from
_Mass-a-chu-setts_. When the ominous and awe-inspiring rattle on the
further side of the locked door announced that the captors were come to
bid the captives good night, I was still in the midst of conversation and
had been around the world a number of times. At the clanking sound our
little circle centripetally disintegrated, as if by sheer magic; and I
was left somewhat dizzily to face a renewal of reality.

The door shot wide. The _planton's_ almost indistinguishable figure in
the doorway told me that the entire room was dark. I had not noticed the
darkness. Somebody had placed a candle (which I recalled having seen on a
table in the middle of the room when I looked up once or twice during the
conversation) on a little shelf hard by the cabinet. There had been men
playing at cards by this candle--now everybody was quietly reposing upon
the floor along three sides of The Enormous Room. The _planton_ entered.
Walked over to the light. Said something about everybody being present,
and was answered by a number of voices in a more or less profane
affirmative. Strutted to and fro, kicked the cabinet, flashed an electric
torch, and walked up the room examining each _paillasse_ to make sure it
had an occupant. Crossed the room at the upper end. Started down on my
side. The white circle was in my eyes. The _planton_ stopped. I stared
stupidly and wearily into the glare. The light moved all over me and my
bed. The rough voice behind the glare said:

"_Vous êtes le nouveau?_"

Monsieur Auguste, from my left, said quietly:

"_Oui, c'est le nouveau._"

The holder of the torch grunted, and (after pausing a second at B.'s bed
to inspect a picture of perfect innocence) banged out through the door
which whanged to behind him and another _planton_, of whose presence I
had been hitherto unaware. A perfect symphony of "_Bonne nuits_" "_Dormez
biens_" and other affectionate admonitions greeted the exeunt of the
authorities. They were advised by various parts of the room in divers
tongues to dream of their wives, to be careful of themselves in bed, to
avoid catching cold, and to attend to a number of personal wants before
retiring. The symphony gradually collapsed, leaving me sitting in a state
of complete wonderment, dead tired and very happy, upon my _paillasse_.

"I think I'll turn in" I said to the neighbouring darkness.

"That's what I'm doing" B.'s voice said.

"By God" I said, "this is the finest place I've ever been in my life."

"It's the finest place in the world" said B.'s voice.

"Thank Heaven, we're out of A.'s way and the ---- _Section Sanitaire_," I
grunted as I placed my boots where a pillow might have been imagined.

"Amen" B.'s voice said.

"If you put your shoes un-der your mat-tress" Monsieur Auguste's voice
said, "you'll sleep well."

I thanked him for the suggestion, and did so. I reclined in an ecstasy of
happiness and weariness. There could be nothing better than this. To
sleep.

"Got a _gottverdummer_ cigarette?" Harree's voice asked of Fritz.

"No bloody fear," Fritz's voice replied coolly.

Snores had already begun in various keys at various distances in various
directions. The candle flickered a little; as if darkness and itself were
struggling to the death, and darkness were winning.

"I'll get a chew from John" Harree's voice said.

Three or four _paillasses_ away, a subdued conversation was proceeding. I
found myself listening sleepily.

"_Et puis_," a voice said, "_je suis reformé...._"




V.

A GROUP OF PORTRAITS

With the reader's permission I beg, at this point of my narrative, to
indulge in one or two extrinsic observations.

In the preceding pages I have described my Pilgrim's Progress from the
Slough of Despond, commonly known as Section Sanitaire Vingt-et-Un (then
located at Germaine) through the mysteries of Noyon, Gré and Paris to the
Porte de Triage de La Ferté Macé, Orne. With the end of my first day as a
certified inhabitant of the latter institution a definite progression is
brought to a close. Beginning with my second day at La Ferté a new period
opens. This period extends to the moment of my departure and includes the
discovery of The Delectable Mountains, two of which--The Wanderer and I
shall not say the other--have already been sighted. It is like a vast
grey box in which are laid helter-skelter a great many toys, each of
which is itself completely significant apart from the always unchanging
temporal dimension which merely contains it along with the rest. I make
this point clear for the benefit of any of my readers who have not had
the distinguished privilege of being in jail. To those who have been in
jail my meaning is at once apparent; particularly if they have had the
highly enlightening experience of being in jail with a perfectly
indefinite sentence. How, in such a case, could events occur and be
remembered otherwise than as individualities distinct from Time Itself?
Or, since one day and the next are the same to such a prisoner, where
does Time come in at all? Obviously, once the prisoner is habituated to
his environment, once he accepts the fact that speculation as to when he
will regain his liberty cannot possibly shorten the hours of his
incarceration and may very well drive him into a state of unhappiness
(not to say morbidity), events can no longer succeed each other: whatever
happens, while it may happen in connection with some other perfectly
distinct happenings, does not happen in a scale of temporal
priorities--each happening is self-sufficient, irrespective of minutes,
months and the other treasures of freedom.

It is for this reason that I do not purpose to inflict upon the reader a
diary of my alternative aliveness and non-existence at La Ferté--not
because such a diary would unutterably bore him, but because the diary or
time method is a technique which cannot possibly do justice to
timelessness. I shall (on the contrary) lift from their grey box at
random certain (to me) more or less astonishing toys; which may or may
not please the reader, but whose colours and shapes and textures are a
part of that actual Present--without future and past--whereof they alone
are cognizant who--so to speak--have submitted to an amputation of the
world.

I have already stated that La Ferté was a Porte de Triage--that is to
say, a place where suspects of all varieties were herded by _le
gouvernement français_ preparatory to their being judged as to their
guilt by a Commission. If the Commission found that they were wicked
persons or dangerous persons, or undesirable persons, or puzzling
persons, or persons in some way insusceptible of analysis, they were sent
from La Ferté to a "regular" prison, called Précigne, in the province of
Sarthe. About Précigne the most awful rumors were spread. It was
whispered that it had a huge moat about it, with an infinity of barbed
wire fences thirty-feet high, and lights trained on the walls all night
to discourage the escape of prisoners. Once in Précigne you were "in" for
good and all, _pour la durée de la guerre_, which _durée_ was a subject
of occasional and dismal speculation--occasional for reasons, as I have
mentioned, of mental health; dismal for unreasons of diet, privation,
filth, and other trifles. La Ferté was, then, a stepping stone either to
freedom or to Précigne. But the excellent and inimitable and altogether
benignant French Government was not satisfied with its own generosity in
presenting one merely with Précigne--beyond that lurked a _cauchemar_
called by the singularly poetic name: Isle de Groix. A man who went to
Isle de Groix was done.

As the Surveillant said to us all, leaning out of a littlish window, and
to me personally upon occasion--

"You are not prisoners. Oh, no. No indeed, I should say not. Prisoners
are not treated like this. You are lucky."

I had _de la chance_ all right, but that was something which the _pauvre_
M. Surveillant wot altogether not of. As for my fellow-prisoners, I am
sorry to say that he was--it seems to my humble personality--quite wrong.
For who was eligible to La Ferté? Anyone whom the police could find in
the lovely country of France (a) who was not guilty--of treason (b) who
could not prove that he was not guilty of treason. By treason I refer to
any little annoying habits of independent thought or action which _en
temps de guerre_ are put in a hole and covered over, with the somewhat
naïve idea that from their cadavers violets will grow, whereof the
perfume will delight all good men and true and make such worthy citizens
forget their sorrows. Fort Leavenworth, for instance, emanates even now a
perfume which is utterly delightful to certain Americans. Just how many
La Fertés France boasted (and for all I know may still boast) God Himself
knows. At least, in that Republic, amnesty has been proclaimed, or so I
hear.--But to return to the Surveillants remark.

_J'avais de la chance._ Because I am by profession a painter and a
writer. Whereas my very good friends, all of them deeply suspicious
characters, most of them traitors, without exception lucky to have the
use of their cervical vertebrae, etc., etc., could (with a few
exceptions) write not a word and read not a word; neither could they
_faire la photographie_ as Monsieur Auguste chucklingly called it (at
which I blushed with pleasure): worst of all, the majority of these dark
criminals who had been caught in nefarious plots against the honour of
France were totally unable to speak French. Curious thing. Often I
pondered the unutterable and inextinguishable wisdom of the police,
who--undeterred by facts which would have deceived less astute
intelligences into thinking that these men were either too stupid or too
simple to be connoisseurs of the art of betrayal--swooped upon their
helpless prey with that indescribable courage which is the prerogative of
policemen the world over, and bundled it into the La Fertés of that
mighty nation upon some, at least, of whose public buildings it seems to
me that I remember reading:

Liberté.

Egalité.

Fraternité.

And I wondered that France should have a use for Monsieur Auguste, who
had been arrested (because he was a Russian) when his fellow munition
workers struck and whose wife wanted him in Paris because she was hungry
and because their child was getting to look queer and white. Monsieur
Auguste, that desperate ruffian exactly five feet tall who--when he could
not keep from crying (one must think about one's wife or even one's child
once or twice, I merely presume, if one loves them--"_et ma femme est
très gen-tille, elle est fran-çaise et très belle, très, très belle,
vraiment; elle n'est fas comme moi, un pet-it homme laide, ma femme est
grande et belle, elle sait bien lire et é-crire, vraiment; et notre fils
... vous dev-ez voir notre pet-it fils...._")--used to start up and cry
out, taking B. by one arm and me by the other,

"_Allons, mes amis! Chan-tons 'Quackquackquack_.'"

Whereupon we would join in the following song, which Monsieur Auguste had
taught us with great care, and whose renditions gave him unspeakable
delight:

"_Un canard, déployant chez elle
(Quackquackquack)
Il disait à sa canard fidèle
(Quackquackquack)
Il disait (Quackquackquack)
Il faisait (Quackquackquack)
Quand_" (spelling mine)
"_finirons nos desseins,
Quack.
Quack.
Quack.
Quack."

I suppose I will always puzzle over the ecstasies of That Wonderful Duck.
And how Monsieur Auguste, the merest gnome of a man, would bend backwards
in absolute laughter at this song's spirited conclusion upon a note so
low as to wither us all.

Then, too, the Schoolmaster.

A little fragile old man. His trousers were terrifically too big for him.
When he walked (in an insecure and frightened way) his trousers did the
most preposterous wrinkles. If he leaned against a tree in the _cour_,
with a very old and also fragile pipe in his pocket--the stem (which
looked enormous in contrast to the owner) protruding therefrom--his
three-sizes too big collar would leap out so as to make his wizened neck
appear no thicker than the white necktie which flowed upon his two-sizes
too big shirt. He always wore a coat which reached below his knees, which
coat, with which knees, perhaps someone had once given him. It had huge
shoulders which sprouted, like wings, on either side of his elbows when
he sat in The Enormous Room quietly writing at a tiny three-legged table,
a very big pen walking away with his weak bony hand. His too big cap had
a little button on top which looked like the head of a nail; and
suggested that this old doll had once lost its poor grey head and had
been repaired by means of tacking its head upon its neck, where it should
be and properly belonged. Of what hideous crime was this being suspected?
By some mistake he had three moustaches, two of them being eyebrows. He
used to teach school in Alsace-Lorraine, and his sister is there. In
speaking to you his kind face is peacefully reduced to triangles. And his
tie buttons on every morning with a Bang! And off he goes; led about by
his celluloid collar, gently worried about himself, delicately worried
about the world. At eating time he looks sidelong as he stuffs soup into
stiff lips. There are two holes where cheeks might have been. Lessons
hide in his wrinkles. Bells ding in the oldness of eyes. Did he, by any
chance, tell the children that there are such monstrous things as peace
and good will ... a corrupter of youth, no doubt ... he is altogether
incapable of anger, wholly timid and tintinabulous. And he had always
wanted so much to know--if there were wild horses in America?

Yes, probably the Schoolmaster was a notorious seditionist. The all-wise
French Government has its ways, which like the ways of God are wonderful.

I had almost forgot The Bear--number two, not to be confused with the
seeker of cigarette-ends. A big, shaggy person, a farmer, talked about
"_mon petit jardin_," an anarchist, wrote practically all the time (to
the gentle annoyance of The Schoolmaster) at the queer-legged table;
wrote letters (which he read aloud with evident satisfaction to himself)
addressing "my confrères", stimulating them to even greater efforts,
telling them that the time was ripe, that the world consisted of
brothers, etc. I liked The Bear. He had a sincerity which, if somewhat
startlingly uncouth, was always definitely compelling. His French itself
was both uncouth and startling. I hardly think he was a dangerous bear.
Had I been the French Government I should have let him go berrying, as a
bear must and should, to his heart's content. Perhaps I liked him best
for his great awkward way of presenting an idea--he scooped it out of its
environment with a hearty paw in a way which would have delighted anyone
save _le gouvernement français_. He had, I think,

VIVE LA LIBERTÉ

tattooed in blue and green on his big hairy chest. A fine bear. A bear
whom no twitchings at his muzzle nor any starvation nor yet any beating
could ever teach to dance ... but then, I am partial to bears. Of course
none of this bear's letters ever got posted--Le Directeur was not that
sort of person; nor did this bear ever expect that they would go
elsewhere than into the official waste-basket of La Ferté, which means
that he wrote because he liked to; which again means that he was
essentially an artist--for which reason I liked him more than a little.
He lumbered off one day--I hope to his brier-patch, and to his children,
and to his _confrères_, and to all things excellent and livable and
highly desirable to a bruin.

The Young Russian and The Barber escaped while I was enjoying my little
visit at Orne. The former was an immensely tall and very strong boy of
nineteen or under; who had come to our society by way of solitary
confinement, bread and water for months, and other reminders that to err
is human, etc. Unlike Harree, whom, if anything, he exceeded in strength,
he was very quiet. Everyone let him alone. I "caught water" in the town
with him several times and found him an excellent companion. He taught me
the Russian numerals up to ten, and was very kind to my struggles over 10
and 9. He picked up the cannon-ball one day and threw it so hard that the
wall separating the men's _cour_ from the _cour des femmes_ shook, and a
piece of stone fell off. At which the cannon-ball was taken away from us
(to the grief of its daily wielders, Harree and Fritz) by four perspiring
_plantons_, who almost died in the performance of their highly patriotic
duty. His friend, The Barber, had a little shelf in The Enormous Room,
all tricked out with an astonishing array of bottles, atomizers, tonics,
powders, scissors, razors and other deadly implements. It has always been
a _mystère_ to me that our captors permitted this array of obviously
dangerous weapons when we were searched almost weekly for knives. Had I
not been in the habit of using B.'s safety razor I should probably have
become better acquainted with The Barber. It was not his price, nor yet
his technique, but the fear of contamination which made me avoid these
instruments of hygiene. Not that I shaved to excess. On the contrary, the
Surveillant often, nay bi-weekly (so soon as I began drawing certain
francs from Norton Harjes) reasoned with me upon the subject of
appearance; saying that I was come of a good family, and I had enjoyed
(unlike my companions) an education, and that I should keep myself neat
and clean and be a shining example to the filthy and ignorant--adding
slyly that the "hospital" would be an awfully nice place for me and my
friend to live, and that there we could be by ourselves like gentlemen
and have our meals served in the room, avoiding the _salle a manger_;
moreover, the food would be what we liked, delicious food, especially
cooked ... all (quoth the Surveillant with the itching palm of a Grand
Central Porter awaiting his tip) for a mere trifle or so, which if I
liked I could pay him on the spot--whereat I scornfully smiled, being
inhibited by a somewhat selfish regard for my own welfare from kicking
him through the window. To The Barber's credit be it said: he never once
solicited my trade, although the Surveillant's "_Soi-même_" (oneself)
lectures (as B. and I referred to them) were the delight of our numerous
friends and must, through them, have reached his alert ears. He was a
good-looking quiet man of perhaps thirty, with razor-keen eyes--and
that's about all I know of him except that one day The Young Russian and
The Barber, instead of passing from the _cour_ directly to the building,
made use of a little door in an angle between the stone wall and the
kitchen; and that to such good effect that we never saw them again. Nor
were the ever-watchful guardians of our safety, the lion-hearted
_plantons_, aware of what had occurred until several hours after; despite
the fact that a ten-foot wall had been scaled, some lesser obstructions
vanquished, and a run in the open made almost (one unpatriotically minded
might be tempted to say) before their very eyes. But then--who knows? May
not the French Government deliberately have allowed them to escape,
after--through its incomparable spy system--learning that The Barber and
his young friend were about to attempt the life of the Surveillant with
an atomizer brim-full of T.N.T.? Nothing could after all be more highly
probable. As a matter of fact a couple of extra-fine razors (presented by
the _Soi-même_-minded Surveillant to the wily coiffeur in the interests
of public health) as well as a knife which belonged to the kitchen and
had been lent to The Barber for the purpose of peeling potatoes--he
having complained that the extraordinary safety-device with which, on
alternate days, we were ordinarily furnished for that purpose, was an
insult to himself and his profession--vanished into the rather thick air
of Orne along with The Barber _lui-même_. I remember him perfectly in The
Enormous Room, cutting apples deliberately with his knife and sharing
them with the Young Russian. The night of the escape--in order to keep up
our morale--we were helpfully told that both refugees had been snitched
e'er they had got well without the limits of the town, and been remanded
to a punishment consisting among other things, in _travaux forcés à
perpetuité--verbum sapientibus_, he that hath ears, etc. Also a nightly
inspection was instituted; consisting of our being counted thrice by a
_planton_, who then divided the total by three and vanished.

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