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

In spite of which he gathered himself to rise upward, catching as he did so a swish of The Hollander’s pipe-length which made his cigarette leap neatly, holder and all, upward and outward. The Young Pole had by this time recovered sufficiently to get upon his hands and knees behind the Zulu; who was hurriedly but calmly propelling himself in the direction of the cherished cigarette-holder, which had rolled under the remains of the stove. Bill The Hollander made for his enemy, raising perpendicularly ten feet in air the unrecognisably dented summit of the pipe which his colossal fists easily encompassed, the muscles in his treelike arms rolling beneath the chemise like balloons. The Young Pole with a shriek of fear climbed the Zulu⁠—receiving just as he had compassed this human hurdle a crack on the seat of his black pants that stood him directly upon his head. Pivoting slightly for an instant he fell loosely at full length on his own paillasse, and lay sobbing and roaring, one elbow protectingly raised, interspersing the inarticulations of woe with a number of sincerely uttered “Assez!”s. Meanwhile The Zulu had discovered the whereabouts of his treasure, had driftingly resumed his original position; and was quietly inserting the also-captured cigarette which appeared somewhat confused by its violent aerial journey. Over The Young Pole stood toweringly Bill The Hollander, his shirt almost in ribbons about his thick bulging neck, thundering as only Hollanders thunder

“Have you got enough you Gottverdummer Polak?”

and The Young Pole, alternating nursing the mutilated pulp where his face had been and guarding it with futile and helpless and almost infantile gestures of his quivering hands, was sobbing

“Oui, Oui, Oui, Assez!”

And Bill The Hollander hugely turned to The Zulu, stepping accurately to the paillasse of that individual, and demanded,

“And you, you Gottverdummer Polaker, do you want t’ fight?”

at which The Zulu gently waved in recognition of the compliment and delicately and hastily replied, between slow puffs,

“Mog.”

Whereat Bill The Hollander registered a disgusted kick in The Young Pole’s direction and swearingly resumed his paillasse.

All this, the reader understands, having taken place in the terribly cold darkness of the half-dawn.

That very day, after a great deal of examination (on the part of the Surveillant) of the participants in this Homeric struggle⁠—said examination failing to reveal the particular guilt or the particular innocence of either⁠—Judas, immaculately attired in a white coat, arrived from downstairs with a step ladder and proceeded with everyone’s assistance to reconstruct the original pipe. And a pretty picture Judas made. And a pretty bum job he made. But anyway the stovepipe drew; and everyone thanked God and fought for places about le poêle. And Monsieur Pet-airs hoped there would be no more fights for a while.

One might think that The Young Pole had learned a lesson. But no. He had learned (it is true) to leave his immediate neighbour, America Lakes, to himself; but that is all he had learned. In a few days he was up and about, as full of la blague as ever. The Zulu seemed at times almost worried about him. They spoke together in Polish frequently and⁠—on The Zulu’s part⁠—earnestly. As subsequent events proved, whatever counsel The Zulu imparted was wasted upon his youthful friend. But let us turn for a moment to The Zulu himself.

He could not, of course, write any language whatever. Two words of French he knew: they were fromage and chapeau. The former he pronounced “grumidge.” In English his vocabulary was even more simple, consisting of the single word “po-lees-man.” Neither B. nor myself understood a syllable of Polish (tho’ we subsequently learned Jin-dobri, nima-Zatz, zampni-pisk and shimay pisk, and used to delight The Zulu hugely by giving him

“Jin-dobri, pan”

every morning, also by asking him if he had a “papierosa”); consequently in that direction the path of communication was to all intents shut. And withal⁠—I say this not to astonish my reader but merely in the interests of truth⁠—I have never in my life so perfectly understood (even to the most exquisite nuances) whatever idea another human being desired at any moment to communicate to me, as I have in the case of The Zulu. And if I had one-third the command over the written word that he had over the unwritten and the unspoken⁠—not merely that; over the unspeakable and the unwritable⁠—God knows this history would rank with the deepest art of all time.

It may be supposed that he was master of an intricate and delicate system whereby ideas were conveyed through signs of various sorts. On the contrary. He employed signs more or less, but they were in every case extraordinarily simple. The secret of his means of complete and unutterable communication lay in that very essence which I have only defined as an is; ended and began with an innate and unlearnable control over all which one can only describe as the homogeneously tactile. The Zulu, for example communicated the following facts in a very few minutes, with unspeakable ease, one day shortly after his arrival:

He had been formerly a Polish farmer, with a wife and four children. He had left Poland to come to France, where one earned more money. His friend (The Young Pole) accompanied him. They were enjoying life placidly in, it may have been, Brest⁠—I forget⁠—when one night the gendarmes suddenly broke into their room, raided it, turned it bottomside up, handcuffed the two arch-criminals wrist to wrist, and said “Come with us.” Neither The Zulu nor The Young Pole had the ghost of an idea what all this meant or where they were going. They had no choice but to obey, and obey they did. Everyone boarded a train. Everyone got out. Bill The Hollander and The Babysnatcher appeared under escort, handcuffed