The Enormous Room
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Edward Estlin Cummings >> The Enormous Room
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"_le 'paradis est une maison...._"
--Or again, it's a lithe pausing poise, intensely intelligent, certainly
sensitive, delivering dryingly a series of sure and rapid hints that
penetrate the fabric of stupidity accurately and whisperingly; dealing
one after another brief and poignant instupidities, distinct and
uncompromising, crisp and altogether arrowlike. The poise has a cigarette
in its hand, which cigarette it has just pausingly rolled from material
furnished by a number of carefully saved butts (whereof Afrique's pockets
are invariably full). Its neither old nor young, but rather keen face
hoards a pair of greyish-blue witty eyes, which face and eyes are
directed upon us through the open door of a little room. Which little
room is in the rear of the _cuisine_; a little room filled with the
inexpressibly clean and soft odour of newly cut wood. Which wood we are
pretending to split and pile for kindling. As a matter of fact we are
enjoying Afrique's conversation, escaping from the bleak and profoundly
muddy _cour_, and (under the watchful auspices of the Cook, who plays
sentinel) drinking something approximating coffee with something
approximating sugar therein. All this because the Cook thinks we're
boches and being the Cook and a boche _lui-meme_ is consequently
peculiarly concerned for our welfare.
Afrique is talking about _les journaux_, and to what prodigious pains
they go to not tell the truth; or he is telling how a native stole up on
him in the night armed with a spear two metres long, once on a time in a
certain part of the world; or he is predicting that the Germans will
march upon the French by way of Switzerland; or he is teaching us to
count and swear in Arabic; or he is having a very good time in the Midi
as a tinker, sleeping under a tree outside of a little town....
Afrique's is an alert kind of mind, which has been and seen and observed
and penetrated and known--a bit there, somewhat here, chiefly everywhere.
Its specialty being politics, in which case Afrique has had the
inestimable advantage of observing without being observed--until La
Ferte; whereupon Afrique goes on uninterruptedly observing, recognising
that a significant angle of observation has been presented to him gratis.
_Les journaux_ and politics in general are topics upon which Afrique can
say more, without the slightest fatigue, than a book as big as my two
thumbs.
"Why yes, they got water, and then I gave them coffee," Monsieur, or more
properly Mynheer _le chef_, is expostulating; the _planton_ is stupidly
protesting that we are supposed to be upstairs; Afrique is busily
stirring a huge black pot, winking gravely at us and singing softly
"_Le bon Dieu, Soul comme un cochon...._"
VI
APOLLYON
The inhabitants of The Enormous Room whose portraits I have attempted in
the preceding chapter, were, with one or two exceptions, inhabiting at
the time of my arrival. Now the thing which above all things made death
worth living and life worth dying at La Ferte Mace was the kinetic aspect
of that institution; the arrivals, singly or in groups, of _nouveaux_ of
sundry nationalities whereby our otherwise more or less simple existence
was happily complicated, our putrescent placidity shaken by a fortunate
violence. Before, however, undertaking this aspect I shall attempt to
represent for my own benefit as well as the reader's certain more obvious
elements of that stasis which greeted the candidates for disintegration
upon their admittance to our select, not to say distinguished, circle.
Or: I shall describe, briefly, Apollyon and the instruments of his power,
which instruments are three in number: Fear, Women and Sunday.
By Apollyon I mean a very definite fiend. A fiend who, secluded in the
sumptuous and luxurious privacy of his own personal _bureau_ (which as a
rule no one of lesser rank than the Surveillant was allowed, so far as I
might observe--and I observed--to enter) compelled to the unimaginable
meanness of his will by means of the three potent instruments in question
all within the sweating walls of La Ferte--that was once upon a time
human. I mean a very complete Apollyon, a Satan whose word is dreadful
not because it is painstakingly unjust, but because it is
incomprehensibly omnipotent. I mean, in short, Monsieur le Directeur.
I shall discuss first of all Monsieur le Directeur's most obvious weapon.
Fear was instilled by three means into the erstwhile human entities whose
presence at La Ferte gave Apollyon his job. The three means were: through
his subordinates, who being one and all fearful of his power directed
their energies to but one end--the production in ourselves of a similar
emotion; through two forms of punishment, which supplied said
subordinates with a weapon over any of us who refused to find room for
this desolating emotion in his heart of hearts; and, finally, through
direct contact with his unutterable personality.
Beneath the Demon was the Surveillant. I have already described the
Surveillant. I wish to say, however, that in my opinion the Surveillant
was the most decent official at La Ferte. I pay him this tribute gladly
and honestly. To me, at least, he was kind: to the majority he was
inclined to be lenient. I honestly and gladly believe that the
Surveillant was incapable of that quality whose innateness, in the case
of his superior, rendered that gentleman a (to my mind) perfect
representative of the Almighty French Government: I believe that the
Surveillant did not enjoy being cruel, that he was not absolutely without
pity or understanding. As a personality I therefore pay him my respects.
I am myself incapable of caring whether, as a tool of the Devil, he will
find the bright firelight of Hell too warm for him or no.
Beneath the Surveillant were the Secretaire, Monsieur Richard, the Cook,
and the _plantons_. The first I have described sufficiently, since he was
an obedient and negative--albeit peculiarly responsible--cog in the
machine of decomposition. Of Monsieur Richard, whose portrait is included
in the account of my first day at La Ferte, I wish to say that he had a
very comfortable room of his own filled with primitive and otherwise
imposing medicines; the walls of this comfortable room being beauteously
adorned by some fifty magazine covers representing the female form in
every imaginable state of undress, said magazine-covers being taken
chiefly from such amorous periodicals as _Le Sourire_ and that old
stand-by of indecency, _La Vie Parisienne_. Also Monsieur Richard kept a
pot of geraniums upon his window-ledge, which haggard and aged-looking
symbol of joy he doubtless (in his spare moments) peculiarly enjoyed
watering. The Cook is by this time familiar to my reader. I beg to say
that I highly approve of The Cook; exclusive of the fact that the coffee,
which went up to The Enormous Room _tous les matins_, was made every day
with the same grounds plus a goodly injection of checkerberry--for the
simple reason that the Cook had to supply our captors and especially
Apollyon with real coffee, whereas what he supplied to _les hommes_ made
no difference. The same is true of sugar: our morning coffee, in addition
to being a water-thin, black, muddy, stinking liquid, contained not the
smallest suggestion of sweetness, whereas the coffee which went to the
officials--and the coffee which B. and I drank in recompense for
"catching water"--had all the sugar you could possibly wish for. The poor
Cook was fined one day as a result of his economies, subsequent to a
united action on the part of the fellow-sufferers. It was a day when a
gent immaculately dressed appeared--after duly warning the Fiend that he
was about to inspect the Fiend's menage--an, I think, public official of
Orne. Judas (at the time _chef de chambre_) supported by the sole and
unique indignation of all his fellow-prisoners save two or three out of
whom Fear had made rabbits or moles, early carried the pail (which by
common agreement not one of us had touched that day) downstairs, along
the hall, and up one flight--where he encountered the Directeur,
Surveillant and Handsome Stranger all amicably and pleasantly conversing.
Judas set the pail down; bowed; and begged, as spokesman for the united
male gender of La Ferte Mace, that the quality of the coffee be examined.
"We won't any of us drink it, begging your pardon, Messieurs," he claims
that he said. What happened then is highly amusing. The _petit balayeur_,
an eye-witness of the proceeding, described it to me as follows:
"The Directeur roared '_COMMENT?_' He was horribly angry. '_Oui,
Monsieur_,' said the _maitre de chambre_ humbly--'_Pourquoi?_' thundered
the Directeur.--'Because it's undrinkable,' the _maitre de chambre_ said
quietly.--'Undrinkable? Nonsense!' cried the Directeur furiously.--'Be so
good as to taste it, Monsieur le Directeur.'--'_I_ taste it? Why should I
taste it? The coffee is perfectly good, plenty good for you men. This is
ridiculous--'--'Why don't we all taste it?' suggested the Surveillant
ingratiatingly.--'Why, yes,' said the Visitor mildly.--'Taste it? Of
course not. This is ridiculous and I shall punish--'--'I should like, if
you don't mind, to try a little,' the Visitor said.--'Oh, well, of
course, if you like,' the Directeur mildly agreed. 'Give me a cup of that
coffee, you!'--'With pleasure, sir,' said the _maitre de chambre._ The
Directeur--M'sieu' Jean, you would have burst laughing--seized the cup,
lifted it to his lips, swallowed with a frightful expression (his eyes
almost popping out of his head) and cried fiercely, 'DELICIOUS!' The
Surveillant took a cupful; sipped; tossed the coffee away, looking as if
he had been hit in the eyes, and remarked, 'Ah.' The _maitre de
chambre_--M'sieu' Jean he is clever--scooped the third cupful from the
bottom of the pail, and very politely, with a big bow, handed it to the
Visitor; who took it, touched it to his lips, turned perfectly green, and
cried out 'Impossible!' M'sieu' Jean, we all thought--the Directeur and
the Surveillant and the _maitre de chambre_ and myself--that he was going
to vomit. He leaned against the wall a moment, quite green; then
recovering said faintly--'The Kitchen.' The Directeur looked very nervous
and shouted, trembling all over, 'Yes, indeed! We'll see the cook about
this perfectly impossible coffee. I had no idea that my men were getting
such coffee. It's abominable! That's what it is, an outrage!'--And they
all tottered downstairs to The Cook; and M'sieu Jean, they searched the
kitchen; and what do you think? They found ten pounds of coffee and
twelve pounds of sugar all neatly hidden away, that The Cook had been
saving for himself out of our allowance. He's a beast, the Cook!"
I must say that, although the morning coffee improved enormously for as
much as a week, it descended afterwards to its original level of
excellence.
The Cook, I may add, officiated three times a week at a little table to
the left as you entered the dining-room. Here he stood, and threw at
everyone (as everyone entered) a hunk of the most extraordinary meat
which I have ever had the privilege of trying to masticate--it could not
be tasted. It was pale and leathery. B. and myself often gave ours away
in our hungriest moments; which statement sounds as if we were generous
to others, whereas the reason for these donations was that we couldn't
eat, let alone stand the sight of this staple of diet. We had to do our
donating on the sly, since the _chef_ always gave us choice pieces and we
were anxious not to hurt the _chef's_ feelings. There was a good deal of
spasmodic protestation _apropos la viande_, but the Cook always bullied
it down--nor was the meat his fault; since, from the miserable carcases
which I have often seen carried into the kitchen from without, the Cook
had to select something which would suit the meticulous stomach of the
Lord of Hell, as also the less meticulous digestive organs of his
minions; and it was only after every _planton_ had got a piece of viande
to his plantonic taste that the captives, female and male, came in for
consideration.
On the whole, I think I never envied the Cook his strange and difficult,
not to say gruesome, job. With the men en masse he was bound to be
unpopular. To the good-will of those above he was necessarily more or
less a slave. And on the whole, I liked the Cook very much, as did
B.--for the very good and sufficient reason that he liked us both.
About the _plantons_ I have something to say, something which it gives me
huge pleasure to say. I have to say, about the _plantons_, that as a
bunch they struck me at the time and will always impress me as the next
to the lowest species of human organism; the lowest, in my experienced
estimation, being the _gendarme_ proper. The _plantons_ were, with one
exception--he of the black holster with whom I collided on the first
day--changed from time to time. Again with this one exception, they were
(as I have noted) apparently disabled men who were enjoying a vacation
from the trenches in the lovely environs of Orne. Nearly all of them were
witless. Every one of them had something the matter with him physically
as well. For instance, one _planton_ had a large wooden hand. Another was
possessed of a long unmanageable left leg made, as nearly as I could
discover, of tin. A third had a huge glass eye.
These peculiarities of physique, however, did not inhibit the _plantons_
from certain essential and normal desires. On the contrary. The
_plantons_ probably realised that, in competition with the male world at
large, their glass legs and tin hands and wooden eyes would not stand a
Chinaman's chance of winning the affection and admiration of the fair
sex. At any rate they were always on the alert for opportunities to
triumph over the admiration and affection of _les femmes_ at La Ferte,
where their success was not endangered by competition. They had the bulge
on everybody; and they used what bulge they had to such good advantage
that one of them, during my stay, was pursued with a revolver by their
sergeant, captured, locked up and shipped off for court-martial on the
charge of disobedience and threatening the life of a superior officer. He
had been caught with the goods--that is to say, in the girl's
_cabinot_--by said superior: an incapable, strutting, undersized,
bepimpled person in a bright uniform who spent his time assuming the
poses of a general for the benefit of the ladies; of his admiration for
whom and his intentions toward whom he made no secret. By all means one
of the most disagreeable petty bullies whom I ever beheld. This arrest of
a _planton_ was, so long as I inhabited La Ferte, the only case in which
abuse of the weaker sex was punished. That attempts at abuse were
frequent I know from allusions and direct statements made in the letters
which passed by way of the sweeper from the girls to their captive
admirers. I might say that the senders of these letters, whom I shall
attempt to portray presently, have my unmitigated and unqualified
admiration. By all odds they possessed the most terrible vitality and
bravery of any human beings, women or men, whom it has ever been my
extraordinary luck to encounter, or ever will be (I am absolutely sure)
in this world.
The duties of the _plantons_ were those simple and obvious duties which
only very stupid persons can perfectly fulfill, namely: to take turns
guarding the building and its inhabitants; not to accept bribes, whether
in the form of matches, cigarettes or conversation, from their prisoners;
to accompany anyone who went anywhere outside the walls (as did
occasionally the _balayeurs_, to transport baggage; the men who did
_corvee_; and the catchers of water for the cook, who proceeded as far as
the hydrant situated on the outskirts of the town--a momentous distance
of perhaps five hundred feet); and finally to obey any and all orders
from all and any superiors without thinking. _Plantons_ were
supposed--but only supposed--to report any schemes for escaping which
they might overhear during their watch upon _les femmes et les hommes en
promenade_. Of course they never overheard any, since the least
intelligent of the watched was a paragon of wisdom by comparison with the
watchers. B. and I had a little ditty about _plantons_, of which I can
quote (unfortunately) only the first line and refrain:
"A _planton_ loved a lady once
(Cabbages and cauliflowers!)"
It was a very fine song. In concluding my remarks upon _plantons_ I must,
in justice to my subject, mention the three prime plantonic virtues--they
were (1) beauty, as regards face and person and bearing, (2) chivalry, as
regards women, (3) heroism, as regards males.
The somewhat unique and amusing appearance of the _plantons_ rather
militated against than served to inculcate Fear--it was therefore not
wonderful that they and the desired emotion were supported by two
strictly enforced punishments, punishments which were meted out with
equal and unflinching severity to both sexes alike. The less undesirable
punishment was known as _pain sec_--which Fritz, shortly after my
arrival, got for smashing a window-pane by accident; and which Harree and
Pom Pom, the incorrigibles, were getting most of the time. This
punishment consisted in denying to the culprit all nutriment save two
stone-hard morsels of dry bread per diem. The culprit's intimate friends,
of course, made a point of eating only a portion of their own morsels of
soft, heavy, sour bread (we got two a day, with each _soupe_) and
presenting the culprit with the rest. The common method of getting _pain
sec_ was also a simple one--it was for a man to wave, shout or make other
signs audible or visual to an inhabitant of the women's quarters; and,
for a girl, to be seen at her window by the Directeur at any time during
the morning and afternoon promenades of the men. The punishment for
sending a letter to a girl might possibly be _pain sec_, but was more
often--I pronounce the word even now with a sinking of the heart, though
curiously enough I escaped that for which it stands--_cabinot_.
There were (as already mentioned) a number of _cabinots_, sometimes
referred to as _cachots_ by persons of linguistic propensities. To repeat
myself a little: at least three were situated on the ground floor; and
these were used whenever possible in preference to the one or ones
upstairs, for the reason that they were naturally more damp and chill and
dark and altogether more dismal and unhealthy. Dampness and cold were
considerably increased by the substitution, for a floor, of two or three
planks resting here and there in mud. I am now describing what my eyes
saw, not what was shown to the inspectors on their rare visits to the
Directeur's little shop for making criminals. I know what these
occasional visitors beheld, because it, too, I have seen with my own
eyes: seen the two _balayeurs_ staggering downstairs with a bed
(consisting of a high iron frame, a huge mattress of delicious thickness,
spotless sheets, warm blankets, and a sort of quilt neatly folded over
all); seen this bed placed by the panting sweepers in the thoroughly
cleaned and otherwise immaculate _cabinot_ at the foot of the stairs and
opposite the kitchen, the well-scrubbed door being left wide open. I saw
this done as I was going to dinner. While the men were upstairs
recovering from _la soupe_, the gentleman-inspectors were invited
downstairs to look at a specimen of the Directeur's kindness--a kindness
which he could not restrain even in the case of those who were guilty of
some terrible wrong. (The little Belgian with the Broken Arm, alias the
Machine-Fixer, missed not a word nor a gesture of all this; and described
the scene to me with an indignation which threatened his sanity.) Then,
while _les hommes_ were in the _cour_ for the afternoon, the sweepers
were rushed to The Enormous Room, which they cleaned to beat the band
with the fear of Hell in them; after which, the Directeur led his amiable
guests leisurely upstairs and showed them the way the men kept their
quarters; kept them without dictation on the part of the officials, so
fond were they of what was to them one and all more than a delightful
temporary residence--was in fact a home. From The Enormous Room the
procession wended a gentle way to the women's quarters (scrubbed and
swept in anticipation of their arrival) and so departed; conscious--no
doubt--that in the Directeur France had found a rare specimen of
whole-hearted and efficient generosity.
Upon being sentenced to _cabinot_, whether for writing an intercepted
letter, fighting, threatening a _planton_, or committing some minor
offense for the _n_th time, a man took one blanket from his bed, carried
it downstairs to the _cachot_, and disappeared therein for a night or
many days and nights as the case might be. Before entering he was
thoroughly searched and temporarily deprived of the contents of his
pockets, whatever they might include. It was made certain that he had no
cigarettes nor tobacco in any other form upon his person, and no matches.
The door was locked behind him and double and triple locked--to judge by
the sound--by a _planton_, usually the Black Holster, who on such
occasions produced a ring of enormous keys suggestive of a burlesque
jailer. Within the stone walls of his dungeon (into which a beam of light
no bigger than a ten-cent piece, and in some cases no light at all,
penetrated) the culprit could shout and scream his or her heart out if he
or she liked, without serious annoyance to His Majesty King Satan. I
wonder how many times, en route to _la soupe_ or The Enormous Room or
promenade, I have heard the unearthly smouldering laughter of girls or of
men entombed within the drooling greenish walls of La Ferte Mace. A dozen
times, I suppose, I have seen a friend of the entombed stoop adroitly and
shove a cigarette or a piece of chocolate under the door, to the girls or
the men or the girl or man screaming, shouting, and pommeling faintly
behind that very door--but, you would say by the sound, a good part of a
mile away.... Ah well, more of this later, when we come to _les femmes_
on their own account.
The third method employed to throw Fear into the minds of his captives
lay, as I have said, in the sight of the Captor Himself. And this was by
far the most efficient method.
He loved to suddenly dash upon the girls when they were carrying their
slops along the hall and downstairs, as (in common with the men) they had
to do at least twice every morning and twice every afternoon. The
_corvee_ of girls and men were of course arranged so as not to coincide;
yet somehow or other they managed to coincide on the average about once a
week, or if not coincide, at any rate approach coincidence. On such
occasions, as often as not under the _planton's_ very stupid nose, a kiss
or an embrace would be stolen--provocative of much fierce laughter and
some scurrying. Or else, while the moneyed captives (including B. and
Cummings) were waiting their turn to enter the bureau de M. le
Gestionnaire, or even were ascending the stairs with a _planton_ behind
them, en route to Mecca, along the hall would come five or six women
staggering and carrying huge pails full to the brim of everyone knew
what; five or six heads lowered, ill-dressed bodies tense with effort,
free arms rigidly extended from the shoulder downward and outward in a
plane at right angles to their difficult progress and thereby helping to
balance the disconcerting load--all embarrassed, some humiliated, others
desperately at ease--along they would come under the steady sensual gaze
of the men, under a gaze which seemed to eat them alive ... and then one
of them would laugh with the laughter which is neither pitiful nor
terrible, but horrible....
And BANG! would a door fly open, and ROAR! a well-dressed animal about
five feet six inches in height, with prominent cuffs and a sportive tie,
the altogether decently and neatly clothed thick-built figure squirming
from top to toe with anger, the large head trembling and white-faced
beneath a flourishing mane of coarse blackish bristly perhaps hair, the
arm crooked at the elbow and shaking a huge fist of pinkish
well-manicured flesh, the distinct, cruel, brightish eyes sprouting from
their sockets under bushily enormous black eyebrows, the big, weak,
coarse mouth extended almost from ear to ear, and spouting invective, the
soggily brutal lips clinched upward and backward, showing the huge
horse-like teeth to the froth-shot gums--
And I saw once a little girl eleven years old scream in terror and drop
her pail of slops, spilling most of it on her feet; and seize it in a
clutch of frail child's fingers, and stagger, sobbing and shaking, past
the Fiend--one hand held over her contorted face to shield her from the
Awful Thing of Things--to the head of the stairs, where she collapsed,
and was half-carried, half-dragged by one of the older ones to the floor
below while another older one picked up her pail and lugged this and her
own hurriedly downward.
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