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

the spilled sawdust from a spittoon-box knocked over by the heel of the omnipotent planton; and smiling as he smiled at la messe when Monsieur le Curé told him that there was always Hell.⁠ ⁠…

He told us one day a great and huge story of an important incident in his life, as follows:

“Monsieur, disabled me⁠—yes, monsieur⁠—disabled⁠—I work, many people, house, very high, third floor, everybody, planks up there⁠—planks no good⁠—all shake⁠ ⁠…” (here he began to stagger and rotate before us) “begins to fall⁠ ⁠… falls, falls, all, all twenty-seven men⁠—bricks⁠—planks⁠—wheelbarrows⁠—all⁠—ten metres⁠ ⁠… zuhzuhzuhzuhzuhpoom!⁠ ⁠… everybody hurt, everybody killed, not me, injured⁠ ⁠… oui monsieur”⁠—and he smiled, rubbing his head foolishly. Twenty-seven men, bricks, planks and wheelbarrows. Ten metres. Bricks and planks. Men and wheelbarrows.⁠ ⁠…

Also he told us, one night, in his gentle, crazy, shrugging voice, that once upon a time he played the fiddle with a big woman in Alsace-Lorraine for fifty francs a night; “c’est la misère”⁠—adding quietly, “I can play well, I can play anything, I can play n’importe quoi.”

Which I suppose and guess I scarcely believed⁠—until one afternoon a man brought up a harmonica which he had purchased en ville; and the man tried it; and everyone tried it; and it was perhaps the cheapest instrument and the poorest that money can buy, even in the fair country of France; and everyone was disgusted⁠—but, about six o’clock in the evening, a voice came from behind the last experimenter; a timid hasty voice:

“monsieur, monsieur, permettez?”

the last experimenter turned and to his amazement saw Chaude Pisse the Pole, whom everyone had (of course) forgotten.

The man tossed the harmonica on the table with a scornful look (a menacingly scornful look) at the object of universal execration; and turned his back. Surplice, trembling from the summit of his filthy and beautiful head to the naked soles of his filthy and beautiful feet, covered the harmonica delicately and surely with one shaking paw; seated himself with a surprisingly deliberate and graceful gesture; closed his eyes, upon whose lashes there were big filthy tears⁠ ⁠… and played.⁠ ⁠…

… and suddenly:

He put the harmonica softly upon the table. He rose. He went quickly to his paillasse. He neither moved nor spoke nor responded to the calls for more music, to the cries of “Bis!”⁠—“Bien joué!”⁠—“Allez!”⁠—“Va-z-y!” He was crying, quietly and carefully, to himself⁠ ⁠… quietly and carefully crying, not wishing to annoy anyone⁠ ⁠… hoping that people could not see that Their Fool had temporarily failed in his part.

The following day he was up as usual before anyone else, hunting for chewed cigarette ends on the spitty slippery floor of The Enormous Room; ready for insult, ready for ridicule, for buffets, for curses.

Alors⁠—

One evening, some days after everyone who was fit for la commission had enjoyed the privilege of examination by that inexorable and delightful body⁠—one evening very late, in fact, just before lumières éteintes, a strange planton arrived in The Enormous Room and hurriedly read a list of five names, adding:

“demain partir, à bonne heure,”

and shut the door behind him. Surplice was, as usual, very interested, enormously interested. So were we: for the names respectively belonged to Monsieur Auguste, Monsieur Pet-airs, The Wanderer, Surplice and The Spoonman. These men had been judged. These men were going to Précigne. These men would be prisonniers pour la durée de la guerre.

I have already told how Monsieur Pet-airs sat with the frantically weeping Wanderer writing letters, and sniffing with his big red nose, and saying from time to time: “Be a man, Demestre, don’t cry, crying does no good.”⁠—Monsieur Auguste was brokenhearted. We did our best to cheer him; we gave him a sort of Last Supper at our bedside, we heated some red wine in the tin cup and he drank with us. We presented him with certain tokens of our love and friendship, including⁠—I remember⁠—a huge cheese⁠ ⁠… and then, before us, trembling with excitement, stood Surplice⁠—

We asked him to sit down. The onlookers (there were always onlookers at every function, however personal, which involved Food or Drink) scowled and laughed. Le con, Surplice, chaude pisse⁠—how could he sit with men and gentlemen? Surplice sat down gracefully and lightly on one of our beds, taking extreme care not to strain the somewhat capricious mechanism thereof; sat very proudly; erect; modest but unfearful. We offered him a cup of wine. A kind of huge convulsion gripped, for an instant, fiercely his entire face: then he said in a whisper of sheer and unspeakable wonderment, leaning a little toward us without in any way suggesting that the question might have an affirmative answer,

“pour moi, monsieur?”

We smiled at him and said “Prenez, monsieur.” His eyes opened. I have never seen eyes since. He remarked quietly, extending one hand with majestic delicacy:

“Merci, monsieur.”

… Before he left, B. gave him some socks and I presented him with a flannel shirt, which he took softly and slowly and simply and otherwise not as an American would take a million dollars.

“I will not forget you,” he said to us, as if in his own country he were a more than very great king⁠ ⁠… and I think I know where that country is, I think I know this; I, who never knew Surplice, know.

For he has the territory of harmonicas, the acres of flutes, the meadows of clarinets, the domain of violins. And God says: Why did they put you in prison? What did you do to the people? “I made them dance and they put me in prison. The soot-people hopped; and to twinkle like sparks on a chimney-back and I made eighty francs every dimanche, and beer and wine, and to eat well. Maintenant⁠ ⁠… c’est fini⁠ ⁠… Et tout de suite (gesture of cutting himself