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

in a professorial manner, tremulously extract a journal from his left coat pocket, tremblingly produce a large magnifying glass from his upper right vest pocket, and forget everything. Subsequently, I discovered him promenading the room with an enormous expenditure of feeble energy, taking tiny steps flat-footedly and leaning in when he rounded a corner as if he were travelling at terrific speed. He suffered horribly from rheumatism, could scarcely move after a night on the floor, and must have been at least sixty-seven years old.

Second, a palish, foppish, undersized, prominent-nosed creature who affected a deep musical voice and the cut of whose belted raincoat gave away his profession⁠—he was a pimp, and proud of it, and immediately upon his arrival boasted thereof, and manifested altogether as disagreeable a species of bullying vanity as I ever (save in the case of The Fighting Sheeney) encountered. He got his from Jean le Nègre, as the reader will learn later.

Third, a super-Western-Union-Messenger type of ancient-youth, extraordinarily unhandsome if not positively ugly. He had a weak pimply grey face, was clad in a brownish uniform, puttees (on pipestem calves), and a regular Messenger Boy cap. Upon securing a place he instantly went to the card-table, seated himself hurriedly, pulled out a batch of blanks, and wrote a telegram to (I suppose) himself. Then he returned to his paillasse, lay down with apparently supreme contentment, and fell asleep.

Fourth, a tiny old man who looked like a caricature of an East Side secondhand clothes dealer⁠—having a long beard, a long, worn and dirty coat reaching just to his ankles, and a small derby hat on his head. The very first night his immediate neighbour complained that “Le Chapeau” (as he was christened by The Zulu) was guilty of fleas. A great tempest ensued immediately. A planton was hastily summoned. He arrived, heard the case, inspected The Hat (who lay on his paillasse with his derby on, his hand far down the neck of his shirt, scratching busily and protesting occasionally his entire innocence), uttered (being the Black Holster) an oath of disgust, and ordered The Frog to “couper les cheveux de suite et la barbe aussi; après il va au bain, le vieux.” The Frog approached and gently requested The Hat to seat himself upon a chair⁠—the better of two chairs boasted by The Enormous Room. The Frog, successor to The Barber, brandished his scissors. The Hat lay and scratched. “Allez, Nom de Dieu” the planton roared. The poor Hat arose trembling, assumed a praying attitude; and began to talk in a thick and sudden manner. “Asseyez-vous là, tête de cochon.” The pitiful Hat obeyed, clutching his derby to his head in both withered hands. “Take off your hat, you son of a bitch,” the planton yelled. “I don’t want to,” the tragic Hat whimpered. Bang! the derby hit the floor, bounded upward and lay still. “Proceed,” the orderly thundered to The Frog, who regarded him with a perfectly inscrutable expression on his extremely keen face, then turned to his subject, snickered with the scissors, and fell to. Locks ear-long fell in crisp succession. Pete the Shadow, standing beside the barber, nudged me; and I looked; and I beheld upon the floor the shorn locks rising and curling with a movement of their own.⁠ ⁠… “Now for the beard,” said the Black Holster.⁠—“No, no, Monsieur, s’il vous plaît, pas ma barbe, monsieur”⁠—The Hat wept, trying to kneel.⁠—“Ta gueule or I’ll cut your throat,” the planton replied amiably; and The Frog, after another look, obeyed. And lo, the beard squirmed gently upon the floor, alive with a rhythm of its own; squirmed and curled crisply as it lay.⁠ ⁠… When The Hat was utterly shorn, he was bathed and became comparatively unremarkable, save for the worn long coat which he clutched about him, shivering. And he borrowed five francs from me twice, and paid me punctually each time when his own money arrived, and presented me with chocolate into the bargain, tipping his hat quickly and bowing (as he always did whenever he addressed anyone). Poor Old Hat, B. and I and the Zulu were the only men at La Ferté who liked you.

Fifth, a fat, jolly, decently dressed man.⁠—He had been to a camp where everyone danced, because an entire ship’s crew was interned there, and the crew were enormously musical, and the captain (having sold his ship) was rich and tipped the Director regularly; so everyone danced night and day, and the crew played, for the crew had brought their music with them.⁠—He had a way of borrowing the paper (Le Matin) which we bought from one of the lesser plantons who went to the town and got Le Matin there; borrowing it before we had read it⁠—by the sunset. And his favourite observations were:

“It’s a rotten country. Dirty weather.”

Fifth and sixth, a vacillating, staggering, decrepit creature with wildish white beard and eyes, who had been arrested⁠—incredibly enough⁠—for “rape.” With him his son, a pleasant youth quiet of demeanour, inquisitive of nature, with whom we sometimes conversed on the subject of the English Army.

Such were the individuals whose concerted arrival taxed to its utmost the capacity of The Enormous Room. And now for my incident:

In the doorway, one day shortly after the arrival of the gentlemen mentioned, quietly stood a well-dressed handsomely middle-aged man, with a sensitive face culminating in a groomed Van Dyck beard. I thought for a moment that the Mayor of Orne, or whatever his title is, had dropped in for an informal inspection of The Enormous Room. Thank God, I said to myself, it has never looked so chaotically filthy since I have had the joy of inhabiting it. And sans blague, The Enormous Room was in a state of really supreme disorder; shirts were thrown everywhere, a few twine clothes lines supported various