The Enormous Room
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Edward Estlin Cummings >> The Enormous Room
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"You are hungry?"
It was the erstwhile-ferocious speaking. A criminal, I remembered, is
somebody against whom everything he says and does is very cleverly made
use of. After weighing the matter in my mind for some moments I decided
at all cost to tell the truth, and replied:
"I could eat an elephant."
Hereupon t-d lead me to the Kitchen Itself, set me to eat upon a stool,
and admonished the cook in a fierce voice:
"Give this great criminal something to eat in the name of the French
Republic!"
And for the first time in three months I tasted Food.
T-d seated himself beside me, opened a huge jack-knife, and fell to,
after first removing his tin derby and loosening his belt.
One of the pleasantest memories connected with that irrevocable meal is
of a large, gentle, strong woman who entered in a hurry, and seeing me
cried out:
"What is it?"
"It's an American, my mother," t-d answered through fried potatoes.
"Why is he here?" the woman touched me on the shoulder, and satisfied
herself that I was real.
"The good God is doubtless acquainted with the explanation," said t-d
pleasantly. "Not myself being the--"
"Ah, _mon pauvre_" said this very beautiful sort of woman. "You are going
to be a prisoner here. Everyone of the prisoners has a _marraine_, do you
understand? I am their _marraine_. I love them and look after them. Well,
listen: I will be your _marraine_, too."
I bowed and looked around for something to pledge her in. T-d was
watching. My eyes fell on a huge glass of red pinard. "Yes, drink," said
my captor, with a smile. I raised my huge glass.
"_A la sante de ma marraine charmante!_"
--This deed of gallantry quite won the cook (a smallish, agile Frenchman)
who shovelled several helps of potatoes on my already empty plate. The
tin derby approved also: "That's right, eat, drink, you'll need it later
perhaps." And his knife guillotined another delicious hunk of white
bread.
At last, sated with luxuries, I bade adieu to my _marraine_ and allowed
t-d to conduct me (I going first, as always) upstairs and into a little
den whose interior boasted two mattresses, a man sitting at the table,
and a newspaper in the hands of the man.
"_C'est un Americain_," t-d said by way of introduction. The newspaper
detached itself from the man who said: "He's welcome indeed: make
yourself at home, Mr. American"--and bowed himself out. My captor
immediately collapsed on one mattress.
I asked permission to do the same on the other, which favor was sleepily
granted. With half-shut eyes my Ego lay and pondered: the delicious meal
it had just enjoyed; what was to come; the joys of being a great criminal
... then, being not at all inclined to sleep, I read _Le Petit Parisien_
quite through, even to _Les Voies Urinaires._
Which reminded me--and I woke up t-d and asked: "May I visit the
_vespasienne_?"
"Downstairs," he replied fuzzily, and readjusted his slumbers.
There was no one moving about in the little court. I lingered somewhat on
the way upstairs. The stairs were abnormally dirty. When I reentered, t-d
was roaring to himself. I read the journal through again. It must have
been about three o'clock.
Suddenly t-d woke up, straightened and buckled his personality, and
murmured: "It's time, come on."
_Le bureau de_ Monsieur le Ministre was just around the corner, as it
proved. Before the door stood the patient F.I.A.T. I was ceremoniously
informed by t-d that we would wait on the steps.
Well! Did I know any more?--the American driver wanted to know.
Having proved to my own satisfaction that my fingers could still roll a
pretty good cigarette, I answered: "No," between puffs.
The American drew nearer and whispered spectacularly: "Your friend is
upstairs. I think they're examining him."
T-d got this; and though his rehabilitated dignity had accepted the
"makin's" from its prisoner, it became immediately incensed:
"That's enough," he said sternly.
And dragged me _tout-a-coup_ upstairs, where I met B. and his t-d coming
out of the _bureau_ door. B. looked peculiarly cheerful. "I think we're
going to prison all right," he assured me.
Braced by this news, poked from behind by my t-d, and waved on from
before by M. le Ministre himself, I floated vaguely into a very washed,
neat, business-like and altogether American room of modest proportions,
whose door was immediately shut and guarded on the inside by my escort.
Monsieur le Ministre said:
"Lift your arms."
Then he went through my pockets. He found cigarettes, pencils, a
jack-knife and several francs. He laid his treasures on a clean table and
said: "You are not allowed to keep these. I shall be responsible." Then
he looked me coldly in the eye and asked if I had anything else?
I told him that I believed I had a handkerchief.
He asked me: "Have you anything in your shoes?"
"My feet," I said, gently.
"Come this way," he said frigidly, opening a door which I had not
remarked. I bowed in acknowledgment of the courtesy, and entered room
number 2.
I looked into six eyes which sat at a desk.
Two belonged to a lawyerish person in civilian clothes, with a bored
expression, plus a moustache of dreamy proportions with which the owner
constantly imitated a gentleman ringing for a drink. Two appertained to a
splendid old dotard (a face all ski-jumps and toboggan slides), on whose
protruding chest the rosette of the Legion pompously squatted. Numbers
five and six had reference to Monsieur, who had seated himself before I
had time to focus my slightly bewildered eyes.
Monsieur spoke sanitary English, as I have said.
"What is your name?"--"Edward E. Cummings."
--"Your second name?"--"E-s-t-l-i-n," I spelled it for him.--"How do you
say that?"--I didn't understand.--"How do you say your name?"--"Oh," I
said; and pronounced it. He explained in French to the moustache that my
first name was Edouard, my second "A-s-tay-l-ee-n," and my third
"Kay-umm-ee-n-gay-s"--and the moustache wrote it all down. Monsieur then
turned to me once more:
"You are Irish?"--"No," I said, "American."--"You are Irish by
family?"--"No, Scotch."--"You are sure that there was never an Irishman
in your parents?"--"So far as I know," I said, "there never was an
Irishman there."--"Perhaps a hundred years back?" he insisted.--"Not a
chance," I said decisively. But Monsieur was not to be denied: "Your name
it is Irish?"--"Cummings is a very old Scotch name," I told him fluently,
"it used to be Comyn. A Scotchman named The Red Comyn was killed by
Robert Bruce in a church. He was my ancestor and a very well-known
man."--"But your second name, where have you got that?"--"From an
Englishman, a friend of my father." This statement seemed to produce a
very favorable impression in the case of the rosette, who murmured: "_Un
ami de son pere, un Anglais, bon!_" several times. Monsieur, quite
evidently disappointed, told the moustache in French to write down that I
denied my Irish parentage; which the moustache did.
"What does your father in America?"--"He is a minister of the gospel," I
answered. "Which church?"--"Unitarian." This puzzled him. After a moment
he had an inspiration: "That is the same as a Free Thinker?"--I explained
in French that it wasn't and that _mon pere_ was a holy man. At last
Monsieur told the moustache to write: Protestant; and the moustache
obediently did so.
From this point on our conversation was carried on in French, somewhat to
the chagrin of Monsieur, but to the joy of the rosette and with the
approval of the moustache. In answer to questions, I informed them that I
was a student for five years at Harvard (expressing great surprise that
they had never heard of Harvard), that I had come to New York and studied
painting, that I had enlisted in New York as _conducteur voluntaire_,
embarking for France shortly after, about the middle of April.
Monsieur asked: "You met B---- on the _paquebot_?" I said I did.
Monsieur glanced significantly around. The rosette nodded a number of
times. The moustache rang.
I understood that these kind people were planning to make me out the
innocent victim of a wily villain, and could not forbear a smile. _C'est
rigoler_, I said to myself; they'll have a great time doing it.
"You and your friend were together in Paris?" I said "yes." "How long?"
"A month, while we were waiting for our uniforms."
A significant look by Monsieur, which is echoed by his _confreres_.
Leaning forward Monsieur asked coldly and carefully: "What did you do in
Paris?" to which I responded briefly and warmly: "We had a good time."
This reply pleased the rosette hugely. He wagged his head till I thought
it would have tumbled off. Even the mustache seemed amused. Monsieur le
Ministre de la Surete de Noyon bit his lip. "Never mind writing that
down," he directed the lawyer. Then, returning to the charge:
"You had a great deal of trouble with Lieutenant A.?"
I laughed outright at this complimentary nomenclature. "Yes, we certainly
did."
He asked: "Why?"--so I sketched "Lieutenant" A. in vivid terms, making
use of certain choice expressions with which one of the "dirty Frenchmen"
attached to the section, a Parisien, master of argot, had furnished me.
My phraseology surprised my examiners, one of whom (I think the
moustache) observed sarcastically that I had made good use of my time in
Paris.
Monsieur le Ministre asked: Was it true (a) that B. and I were always
together and (b) preferred the company of the attached Frenchmen to that
of our fellow-Americans?--to which I answered in the affirmative. Why? he
wanted to know. So I explained that we felt that the more French we knew
and the better we knew the French the better for us; expatiating a bit on
the necessity for a complete mutual understanding of the Latin and
Anglo-Saxon races if victory was to be won.
Again the rosette nodded with approbation.
Monsieur le Ministre may have felt that he was losing his case, for he
played his trump card immediately: "You are aware that your friend has
written to friends in America and to his family very bad letters." "I am
not," I said.
In a flash I understood the motivation of Monsieur's visit to
_Vingt-et-Un_: the French censor had intercepted some of B.'s letters,
and had notified Mr. A. and Mr. A.'s translator, both of whom had
thankfully testified to the bad character of B. and (wishing very
naturally to get rid of both of us at once) had further averred that we
were always together and that consequently I might properly be regarded
as a suspicious character. Whereupon they had received instructions to
hold us at the section until Noyon could arrive and take charge--hence
our failure to obtain our long-overdue permission.
"Your friend," said Monsieur in English, "is here a short while ago. I
ask him if he is up in the aeroplane flying over Germans will he drop the
bombs on Germans and he say no, he will not drop any bombs on Germans."
By this falsehood (such it happened to be) I confess that I was
nonplussed. In the first place, I was at the time innocent of
third-degree methods. Secondly, I remembered that, a week or so since,
B., myself and another American in the section had written a
letter--which, on the advice of the _sous-lieutenant_ who accompanied
_Vingt-et-Un_ as translator, we had addressed to the Under-Secretary of
State in French Aviation--asking that inasmuch as the American Government
was about to take over the Red Cross (which meant that all the Sanitary
Sections would be affiliated with the American, and no longer with the
French, Army) we three at any rate might be allowed to continue our
association with the French by enlisting in l'Esquadrille Lafayette. One
of the "dirty Frenchmen" had written the letter for us in the finest
language imaginable, from data supplied by ourselves.
"You write a letter, your friend and you, for French aviation?"
Here I corrected him: there were three of us; and why didn't he have the
third culprit arrested, might I ask? But he ignored this little
digression, and wanted to know: Why not American aviation?--to which I
answered: "Ah, but as my friend has so often said to me, the French are
after all the finest people in the world."
This double-blow stopped Noyon dead, but only for a second.
"Did your friend write this letter?"--"No," I answered truthfully.--"Who
did write it?"--"One of the Frenchmen attached to the section."--"What is
his name?"--"I'm sure I don't know," I answered; mentally swearing that,
whatever might happen to me the scribe should not suffer. "At my urgent
request," I added.
Relapsing into French, Monsieur asked me if I would have any hesitation
in dropping bombs on Germans? I said no, I wouldn't. And why did I
suppose I was fitted to become aviator? Because, I told him, I weighed
135 pounds and could drive any kind of auto or motorcycle. (I hoped he
would make me prove this assertion, in which case I promised myself that
I wouldn't stop till I got to Munich; but no.)
"Do you mean to say that my friend was not only trying to avoid serving
in the American Army but was contemplating treason as well?" I asked.
"Well, that would be it, would it not?" he answered coolly. Then, leaning
forward once more, he fired at me: "Why did you write to an official so
high?"
At this I laughed outright. "Because the excellent _sous-lieutenant_ who
translated when Mr. Lieutenant A. couldn't understand advised us to do
so."
Following up this _sortie_, I addressed the mustache: "Write this down in
the testimony--that I, here present, refuse utterly to believe that my
friend is not as sincere a lover of France and the French people as any
man living!--Tell him to write it," I commanded Noyon stonily. But Noyon
shook his head, saying: "We have the very best reason for supposing your
friend to be no friend of France." I answered: "That is not my affair. I
want my opinion of my friend written in; do you see?" "That's
reasonable," the rosette murmured; and the moustache wrote it down.
"Why do you think we volunteered?" I asked sarcastically, when the
testimony was complete.
Monsieur le Ministre was evidently rather uncomfortable. He writhed a
little in his chair, and tweaked his chin three or four times. The
rosette and the moustache were exchanging animated phrases. At last
Noyon, motioning for silence and speaking in an almost desperate tone,
demanded:
"_Est-ce-que vous detestez les boches?_"
I had won my own case. The question was purely perfunctory. To walk out
of the room a free man I had merely to say yes. My examiners were sure of
my answer. The rosette was leaning forward and smiling encouragingly. The
moustache was making little _ouis_ in the air with his pen. And Noyon had
given up all hope of making me out a criminal. I might be rash, but I was
innocent; the dupe of a superior and malign intelligence. I would
probably be admonished to choose my friends more carefully next time and
that would be all....
Deliberately, I framed the answer:
"_Non. J'aime beaucoup les francais._"
Agile as a weasel, Monsieur le Ministre was on top of me: "It is
impossible to love Frenchmen and not to hate Germans."
I did not mind his triumph in the least. The discomfiture of the rosette
merely amused me. The surprise of the moustache I found very pleasant.
Poor rosette! He kept murmuring desperately: "Fond of his friend, quite
right. Mistaken of course, too bad, meant well."
With a supremely disagreeable expression on his immaculate face the
victorious minister of security pressed his victim with regained
assurance: "But you are doubtless aware of the atrocities committed by
the boches?"
"I have read about them," I replied very cheerfully.
"You do not believe?"
"_Ca ce peut._"
"And if they are so, which of course they are" (tone of profound
conviction) "you do not detest the Germans?"
"Oh, in that case, of course anyone must detest them," I averred with
perfect politeness.
And my case was lost, forever lost. I breathed freely once more. All my
nervousness was gone. The attempt of the three gentlemen sitting before
me to endow my friend and myself with different fates had irrevocably
failed.
At the conclusion of a short conference I was told by Monsieur:
"I am sorry for you, but due to your friend you will be detained a little
while."
I asked: "Several weeks?"
"Possibly," said Monsieur.
This concluded the trial.
Monsieur le Ministre conducted me into room number 1 again. "Since I have
taken your cigarettes and shall keep them for you, I will give you some
tobacco. Do you prefer English or French?"
Because the French (_paquet bleu_) are stronger and because he expected
me to say English, I said "French."
With a sorrowful expression Noyon went to a sort of bookcase and took
down a blue packet. I think I asked for matches, or else he had given
back the few which he found on my person.
Noyon, t-d and the grand criminal (alias I) now descended solemnly to the
F.I.A.T. The more and more mystified _conducteur_ conveyed us a short
distance to what was obviously a prison-yard. Monsieur le Ministre
watched me descend my voluminous baggage.
This was carefully examined by Monsieur at the _bureau_, of the prison.
Monsieur made me turn everything topsy-turvy and inside out. Monsieur
expressed great surprise at a huge shell: where did I get it?--I said a
French soldier gave it to me as a souvenir.--And several _tetes
d'obus_?--also souvenirs, I assured him merrily. Did Monsieur suppose I
was caught in the act of blowing up the French Government, or what
exactly?--But here are a dozen sketch-books, what is in them?--Oh,
Monsieur, you flatter me: drawings.--Of fortifications? Hardly; of
poilus, children, and other ruins.--Ummmm. (Monsieur examined the
drawings and found that I had spoken the truth.) Monsieur puts all these
trifles into a small bag, with which I had been furnished (in addition to
the huge duffle-bag) by the generous Red Cross. Labels them (in French):
"Articles found in the baggage of Cummings and deemed _inutile_ to the
case at hand." This leaves in the duffle-bag aforesaid: my fur coat,
which I brought from New York; my bed and blankets and bed-roll, my
civilian clothes, and about twenty-five pounds of soiled linen. "You may
take the bed-roll and the folding bed into your cell"--the rest of my
_affaires_ would remain in safe keeping at the _bureau_.
"Come with me," grimly croaked a lank turnkey creature.
Bed-roll and bed in hand, I came along.
We had but a short distance to go; several steps in fact. I remember we
turned a corner and somehow got sight of a sort of square near the
prison. A military band was executing itself to the stolid delight of
some handfuls of ragged _civiles_. My new captor paused a moment; perhaps
his patriotic soul was stirred. Then we traversed an alley with locked
doors on both sides, and stopped in front of the last door on the right.
A key opened it. The music could still be distinctly heard.
The opened door showed a room, about sixteen feet short and four feet
narrow, with a heap of straw in the further end. My spirits had been
steadily recovering from the banality of their examination; and it was
with a genuine and never-to-be-forgotten thrill that I remarked, as I
crossed what might have been the threshold: "_Mais, on est bien ici_."
A hideous crash nipped the last word. I had supposed the whole prison to
have been utterly destroyed by earthquake, but it was only my door
closing....
II
EN ROUTE
I put the bed-roll down. I stood up.
I was myself.
An uncontrollable joy gutted me after three months of humiliation, of
being bossed and herded and bullied and insulted. I was myself and my own
master.
In this delirium of relief (hardly noticing what I did) I inspected the
pile of straw, decided against it, set up my bed, disposed the roll on
it, and began to examine my cell.
I have mentioned the length and breadth. The cell was ridiculously high;
perhaps ten feet. The end with the door in it was peculiar. The door was
not placed in the middle of this end, but at one side, allowing for a
huge iron can waist-high which stood in the other corner. Over the door
and across the end, a grating extended. A slit of sky was always visible.
Whistling joyously to myself, I took three steps which brought me to the
door-end. The door was massively made, all of iron or steel I should
think. It delighted me. The can excited my curiosity. I looked over the
edge of it. At the bottom reposefully lay a new human turd.
I have a sneaking mania for wood-cuts, particularly when used to
illustrate the indispensable psychological crisis of some outworn
romance. There is in my possession at this minute a masterful depiction
of a tall, bearded, horrified man who, clad in an anonymous rig of goat
skins, with a fantastic umbrella clasped weakly in one huge paw, bends to
examine an indication of humanity in the somewhat cubist wilderness
whereof he had fancied himself the owner....
It was then that I noticed the walls. Arm-high they were covered with
designs, mottos, pictures. The drawing had all been done in pencil. I
resolved to ask for a pencil at the first opportunity.
There had been Germans and Frenchmen imprisoned in this cell. On the
right wall, near the door-end, was a long selection from Goethe,
laboriously copied. Near the other end of this wall a satiric landscape
took place. The technique of this landscape frightened me. There were
houses, men, children. And there were trees. I began to wonder what a
tree looks like, and laughed copiously.
The back wall had a large and exquisite portrait of a German officer.
The left wall was adorned with a yacht, flying a number 13. "My beloved
boat" was inscribed in German underneath. Then came a bust of a German
soldier, very idealized, full of unfear. After this, a masterful
crudity--a doughnut-bodied rider, sliding with fearful rapidity down the
acute backbone of a totally transparent sausage-shaped horse, who was
moving simultaneously in five directions. The rider had a bored
expression as he supported the stiff reins in one fist. His further leg
assisted in his flight. He wore a German soldier's cap and was smoking. I
made up my mind to copy the horse and rider at once, so soon, that is, as
I should have obtained a pencil.
Last, I found a drawing surrounded by a scrolled motto. The drawing was a
potted plant with four blossoms. The four blossoms were elaborately dead.
Their death was drawn with a fearful care. An obscure deliberation was
exposed in the depiction of their drooping petals. The pot tottered very
crookedly on a sort of table, as near as I could see. All around ran a
funereal scroll. I read: "My farewell to my beloved wife, Gaby." A fierce
hand, totally distinct from the former, wrote in proud letters above:
"Punished for desertion. Six years of prison--military degradation."
It must have been five o'clock. Steps. A vast cluttering of the exterior
of the door--by whom? Whang opens the door. Turnkey-creature extending a
piece of chocolate with extreme and surly caution. I say "_Merci_" and
seize chocolate. Klang shuts the door.
I am lying on my back, the twilight does mistily bluish miracles through
the slit over the whang-klang. I can just see leaves, meaning tree.
Then from the left and way off, faintly, broke a smooth whistle, cool
like a peeled willow-branch, and I found myself listening to an air from
Petroushka, Petroushka, which we saw in Paris at the _Chatelet, mon ami
et moi_....
The voice stopped in the middle--and I finished the air. This code
continued for a half-hour.
It was dark.
I had laid a piece of my piece of chocolate on the window-sill. As I lay
on my back a little silhouette came along the sill and ate that piece of
a piece, taking something like four minutes to do so. He then looked at
me, I then smiled at him, and we parted, each happier than before.
My _cellule_ was cool, and I fell asleep easily.
(Thinking of Paris.)
... Awakened by a conversation whose vibrations I clearly felt through
the left wall:
Turnkey-creature: "What?"
A moldly moldering molish voice, suggesting putrifying tracts and
orifices, answers with a cob-webbish patience so far beyond despair as to
be indescribable: "_La soupe_."
"Well, the soup, I just gave it to you, Monsieur Savy."
"Must have a little something else. My money is _chez le directeur_.
Please take my money which is _chez le directeur_ and give me anything
else."
"All right, the next time I come to see you to-day I'll bring you a
salad, a nice salad, Monsieur."
"Thank you, Monsieur," the voice moldered.
Klang!!--and says the turnkey-creature to somebody else; while turning
the lock of Monsieur Savy's door; taking pains to raise his voice so that
Monsieur Savy will not miss a single word through the slit over Monsieur
Savy's whang-klang:
"That old fool! Always asks for things. When supposest thou will he
realize that he's never going to get anything?"
Grubbing at my door. Whang!
The faces stood in the doorway, looking me down. The expression of the
faces identically turnkeyish, i.e., stupidly gloating, ponderously and
imperturbably tickled. Look who's here, who let that in?
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