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

upstairs during the promenade, both because I wanted to write and because the weather was worse than usual. Ordinarily, no matter how deep the mud in the cour, Jean and I would trot back and forth, resting from time to time under the little shelter out of the drizzle, talking of all things under the sun. I remember on one occasion we were the only ones to brave the rain and slough⁠—Jean in paper-thin soled slippers (which he had recently succeeded in drawing from the Gestionnaire) and I in my huge sabots⁠—hurrying back and forth with the rain pouring on us, and he very proud. On this day, however, I refused the challenge of the mud.

The promenaders had been singularly noisy, I thought. Now they were mounting to the room making a truly tremendous racket. No sooner were the doors opened than in rushed half a dozen frenzied friends, who began telling me all at once about a terrific thing which my friend the noir had just done. It seems that The Trick Raincoat had pulled at Jean’s handkerchief (Lulu’s gift in other days) which Jean wore always conspicuously in his outside breast pocket; that Jean had taken the Raincoat’s head in his two hands, held it steady, abased his own head, and rammed the helpless T. R. as a bull would do⁠—the impact of Jean’s head upon the other’s nose causing that well-known feature to occupy a new position in the neighbourhood of the right ear. B. corroborated this description, adding the Raincoat’s nose was broken and that everyone was down on Jean for fighting in an unsportsmanlike way. I found Jean still very angry, and moreover very hurt because everyone was now shunning him. I told him that I personally was glad of what he’d done; but nothing would cheer him up. The T. R. now entered, very terrible to see, having been patched up by Monsieur Richard with copious plasters. His nose was not broken, he said thickly, but only bent. He hinted darkly of trouble in store for le noir; and received the commiserations of everyone present except Mexique, The Zulu, B. and me.

The Zulu, I remember, pointed to his own nose (which was not unimportant), then to Jean, and made a moue of excruciating anguish, and winked audibly.

Jean’s spirit was broken. The well-nigh unanimous verdict against him had convinced his minutely sensitive soul that it had done wrong. He lay quietly, and would say nothing to anyone.

Some time after the soup, about eight o’clock, the Fighting Sheeney and The Trick Raincoat suddenly set upon Jean le Nègre apropos of nothing; and began pommelling him cruelly. The conscience-stricken pillar of beautiful muscle⁠—who could have easily killed both his assailants at one blow⁠—not only offered no reciprocatory violence but refused even to defend himself. Unresistingly, wincing with pain, his arms mechanically raised and his head bent, he was battered frightfully to the window by his bed, thence into the corner (upsetting the stool in the pissoir), thence along the wall to the door. As the punishment increased he cried out like a child: “Laissez-moi tranquille!”⁠—again and again; and in his voice the insane element gained rapidly. Finally, shrieking in agony, he rushed to the nearest window; and while the Sheeneys together pommelled him yelled for help to the planton beneath.⁠—

The unparalleled consternation and applause produced by this one-sided battle had long since alarmed the authorities. I was still trying to break through the five-deep ring of spectators (among whom was The Messenger Boy, who advised me to desist and got a piece of advice in return)⁠—when with a tremendous crash open burst the door; and in stepped four plantons with drawn revolvers, looking frightened to death, followed by the Surveillant who carried a sort of baton and was crying faintly: “Qu’est-ce que c’est!”

At the first sound of the door the two Sheeneys had fled, and were now playing the part of innocent spectators. Jean alone occupied the stage. His lips were parted. His eyes were enormous. He was panting as if his heart would break. He still kept his arms raised as if seeing everywhere before him fresh enemies. Blood spotted here and there the wonderful chocolate carpet of his skin, and his whole body glistened with sweat. His shirt was in ribbons over his beautiful muscles.

Seven or eight persons at once began explaining the fight to the Surveillant, who could make nothing out of their accounts and therefore called aside a trusted older man in order to get his version. The two retired from the room. The plantons, finding the expected wolf a lamb, flourished their revolvers about Jean and threatened him in the insignificant and vile language which plantons use to anyone whom they can bully. Jean kept repeating dully “laissez-moi tranquille. Ils voulaient me tuer.” His chest shook terribly with vast sobs.

Now the Surveillant returned and made a speech, to the effect that he had received independently of each other the stories of four men, that by all counts le nègre was absolutely to blame, that le nègre had caused an inexcusable trouble to the authorities and to his fellow-prisoners by this wholly unjustified conflict, and that as a punishment the nègre would now suffer the consequences of his guilt in the cabinot.⁠—Jean had dropped his arms to his sides. His face was twisted with anguish. He made a child’s gesture, a pitiful hopeless movement with his slender hands. Sobbing he protested: “It isn’t my fault, monsieur le Surveillant! They attacked me! I didn’t do a thing! They wanted to kill me! Ask him”⁠—he pointed to me desperately. Before I could utter a syllable the Surveillant raised his hand for silence: le nègre had done wrong. He should be placed in the cabinot.

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