The Enormous Room, E. E. Cummings [beautiful books to read txt] 📗

it and fifty in addition tomorrow. He accepts opponents without distinction⁠—the stupid, the wily, the vain, the cautious, the desperate, the hopeless. He has not the slightest pity, not the least fear. In one of my numerous notebooks I have this perfectly direct paragraph:

Card table: 4 stares play banque with 2 cigarettes (1 dead) & A pipe the clashing faces yanked by a leanness of one candle bottle-stuck (Birth of X) where sits The Clever Man who pyramids, sings (mornings) “Meet Me⁠ ⁠…”

which specimen of telegraphic technique, being interpreted, means: Judas, Garibaldi, and The Holland Skipper (whom the reader will meet de suite)⁠—Garibaldi’s cigarette having gone out, so greatly is he absorbed⁠—play banque with four intent and highly focused individuals who may or may not be The Schoolmaster, Monsieur Auguste, The Barber, and Même; with The Clever Man (as nearly always) acting as banker. The candle by whose somewhat uncorpulent illumination the various physiognomies are yanked into a ferocious unity is stuck into the mouth of a bottle. The lighting of the whole, the rhythmic disposition of the figures, construct a sensuous integration suggestive of The Birth of Christ by one of the Old Masters. The Clever Man, having had his usual morning warble, is extremely quiet. He will win, he pyramids⁠—and he pyramids because he has the cash and can afford to make every play a big one. All he needs is the rake of a croupier to complete his disinterested and wholly nerveless poise. He is a born gambler, is The Clever Man⁠—and I dare say that to play cards in time of war constituted a heinous crime and I am certain that he played cards before he arrived at La Ferté; moreover, I suppose that to win at cards in time of war is an unutterable crime, and I know that he has won at cards before in his life⁠—so now we have a perfectly good and valid explanation of the presence of The Clever Man in our midst. The Clever Man’s chief opponent was Judas. It was a real pleasure to us whenever of an evening Judas sweated and mopped and sweated and lost more and more and was finally cleaned out.

But The Skipper, I learned from certain prisoners who escorted the baggage of The Clever Man from The Enormous Room when he left us one day (as he did for some reason, to enjoy the benefits of freedom), paid the mastermind of the card table 150 francs at the gate⁠—poor Skipper! upon whose vacant bed lay down luxuriously the Lobster, immediately to be wheeled fiercely all around The Enormous Room by the Guard Champêtre and Judas, to the boisterous plaudits of tout le monde⁠—but I started to tell about the afternoon when the mastermind lost his knife; and tell it I will forthwith. B. and I were lying prone upon our respective beds when⁠—presto, a storm arose at the further end of The Enormous Room. We looked, and beheld The Clever Man, thoroughly and efficiently angry, addressing, threatening and frightening generally a constantly increasing group of fellow-prisoners. After dismissing with a few sharp linguistic cracks of the whip certain theories which seemed to be advanced by the bolder auditors with a view to palliating, persuading and tranquilizing his just wrath, he made for the nearest paillasse, turned it topsy-turvy, slit it neatly and suddenly from stem to stem with a jackknife, banged the hay about, and then went with careful haste through the pitifully minute baggage of the paillasse’s owner. Silence fell. No one, least of all the owner, said anything. From this bed The Clever Man turned to the next, treated it in the same fashion, searched it thoroughly, and made for the third. His motions were those of a perfectly oiled machine. He proceeded up the length of the room, varying his procedure only by sparing an occasional mattress, throwing paillasses about, tumbling sacs and boxes inside out; his face somewhat paler than usual but otherwise immaculate and expressionless. B. and I waited with some interest to see what would happen to our belongings. Arriving at our beds he paused, seemed to consider a moment, then, not touching our paillasses proper, proceeded to open our duffle bags and hunt half-heartedly, remarking that “somebody might have put it in;” and so passed on. “What in hell is the matter with that guy?” I asked of Fritz, who stood near us with a careless air, some scorn and considerable amusement in his eyes. “The bloody fool’s lost his knife,” was Fritz’s answer. After completing his rounds The Clever Man searched almost everyone except ourselves and Fritz, and absolutely subsided on his own paillasse muttering occasionally “if he found it” what he’d do. I think he never did find it. It was a “beautiful” knife, John the Baigneur said. “What did it look like?” I demanded with some curiosity. “It had a naked woman on the handle,” Fritz said, his eyes sharp with amusement.

And everyone agreed that it was a great pity that The Clever Man had lost it, and everyone began timidly to restore order and put his personal belongings back in place and say nothing at all.

But what amused me was to see the little tot in a bluish-grey French uniform, Garibaldi, who⁠—about when the search approached his paillasse⁠—suddenly hurried over to B. (his perspiring forehead more perspiring than usual, his kepi set at an angle of insanity) and hurriedly presented B. with a long-lost German silver folding camp-knife, purchased by B. from a fellow-member of Vingt-et-Un who was known to us as “Lord Algie”⁠—a lanky, effeminate, brittle, spotless creature who was en route to becoming an officer and to whose finicky tastes the fat-jowled A. tirelessly pandered, for, doubtless, financial considerations⁠—which knife according to the trembling and altogether miserable Garibaldi had “been found” by him that day in the cour; which was eminently and above all things curious,