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

It struck me at the time as intensely interesting that, in the case of a certain type of human being, the more cruel are the miseries inflicted upon him the more cruel does he become toward anyone who is so unfortunate as to be weaker or more miserable than himself. Or perhaps I should say that nearly every human being, given sufficiently miserable circumstances, will from time to time react to those very circumstances (whereby his own personality is mutilated) through a deliberate mutilation on his own part of a weaker or already more mutilated personality. I daresay that this is perfectly obvious. I do not pretend to have made a discovery. On the contrary, I merely state what interested me peculiarly in the course of my sojourn at La Ferté: I mention that I was extremely moved to find that, however busy sixty men may be kept suffering in common, there is always one man or two or three men who can always find time to make certain that their comrades enjoy a little extra suffering. In the case of Surplice, to be the butt of everyone’s ridicule could not be called precisely suffering; inasmuch as Surplice, being unspeakably lonely, enjoyed any and all insults for the simple reason that they constituted or at least implied a recognition of his existence. To be made a fool of was, to this otherwise completely neglected individual, a mark of distinction; something to take pleasure in; to be proud of. The inhabitants of The Enormous Room had given to Surplice a small but essential part in the drama of La Misère: he would play that part to the utmost of his ability; the cap-and-bells should not grace a head unworthy of their high significance. He would be a great fool, since that was his function; a supreme entertainer, since his duty was to amuse. After all, men in La Misère as well as anywhere else rightly demand a certain amount of amusement; amusement is, indeed, peculiarly essential to suffering; in proportion as we are able to be amused we are able to suffer; I, Surplice, am a very necessary creature after all.

I recall one day when Surplice beautifully demonstrated his ability to play the fool. Someone had crept up behind him as he was stalking to and fro, head in air proudly, hands in pockets, pipe in teeth, and had (after several heartbreaking failures) succeeded in attaching to the back of his jacket by means of a pin a huge placard carefully prepared beforehand, bearing the numerical inscription

606

in vast writing. The attacher, having accomplished his difficult feat, crept away. So soon as he reached his paillasse a volley of shouts went up from all directions, shouts in which all nationalities joined, shouts or rather jeers which made the pillars tremble and the windows rattle⁠—

“Six cent six! Syph’lis!”

Surplice started from his reverie, removed his pipe from his lips, drew himself up proudly, and⁠—facing one after another the sides of The Enormous Room⁠—blustered in his bad and rapid French accent:

“Pas syph’lis! Pas syph’lis!”

at which, rocking with mirth, everyone responded at the top of his voice:

“Six cent six!”

Whereat, enraged, Surplice made a dash at Pete The Shadow and was greeted by

“Get away, you bloody Polak, or I’ll give you something you’ll be sorry for”⁠—this from the lips of America Lakes. Cowed, but as majestic as ever, Surplice attempted to resume his promenade and his composure together. The din bulged:

“Six cent six! Syph’lis! Six cent Six!”

—increasing in volume with every instant. Surplice, beside himself with rage, rushed another of his fellow-captives (a little old man, who fled under the table) and elicited threats of:

“Come on now, you Polak hoor, and quit that business or I’ll kill you,” upon which he dug his hands into the pockets of his almost transparent pantaloons and marched away in a fury, literally frothing at the mouth.⁠—

“Six Cent Six!”

everyone cried. Surplice stamped with wrath and mortification. “C’est dommage,” Monsieur Auguste said gently beside me. “C’est un bon-homme, le pauvre, il ne faut pas l’em-merd-er.”

“Look behind you!”

somebody yelled. Surplice wheeled, exactly like a kitten trying to catch its own tail, and provoked thunders of laughter. Nor could anything at once more pitiful and ridiculous, more ludicrous and horrible, be imagined.

“On your coat! Look on your jacket!”

Surplice bent backward, staring over his left, then his right, shoulder, pulled at his jacket first one way then the other⁠—thereby making his improvised tail to wag, which sent The Enormous Room into spasms of merriment⁠—finally caught sight of the incriminating appendage, pulled his coat to the left, seized the paper, tore it off, threw it fiercely down, and stamped madly on the crumpled 606; spluttering and blustering and waving his arms; slavering like a mad dog. Then he faced the most prominently vociferous corner and muttered thickly and crazily:

“Wuhwuhwuhwuhwuh.⁠ ⁠…”

Then he strode rapidly to his paillasse and lay down; in which position I caught him, a few minutes later, smiling and even chuckling⁠ ⁠… very happy⁠ ⁠… as only an actor is happy whose efforts have been greeted with universal applause.⁠ ⁠…

In addition to being called “Syph’lis” he was popularly known as “Chaude Pisse, the Pole.” If there is anything particularly terrifying about prisons, or at least imitations of prisons such as La Ferté, it is possibly the utter obviousness with which (quite unknown to themselves) the prisoners demonstrate willy-nilly certain fundamental psychological laws. The case of Surplice is a very exquisite example: everyone, of course, is afraid of les maladies vénériennes⁠—accordingly all pick an individual (of whose inner life they know and desire to know nothing, whose external appearance satisfies the requirements of the mind apropos what is foul and disgusting) and, having tacitly agreed upon this individual as a Symbol of all that is evil, proceed to heap insults upon him and enjoy his very natural discomfiture⁠ ⁠… but I shall remember Surplice on his both knees sweeping sacredly together