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

were always, in other words, eight or ten men waiting in the upper corridor opposite a disagreeably crisp door, which door belonged to that mysterious room wherein la commission transacted its inestimable affairs. Not more than a couple of yards away ten or eight women waited their turns. Conversation between the men and the women had been forbidden in the fiercest terms by Monsieur le Directeur: nevertheless conversation spasmodically occurred, thanks to the indulgent nature of the Wooden Hand. The Wooden Hand must have been cuckoo⁠—he looked it. If he wasn’t I am totally at a loss to account for his indulgence.

B. and I spent a morning in The Enormous Room without results, an astonishing acquisition of nervousness excepted. Après la soupe (noon) we were conducted en haut, told to leave our spoons and bread (which we did) and⁠—in company with several others whose names were within a furlong of the last man called⁠—were descended to the corridor. All that afternoon we waited. Also we waited all next morning. We spent our time talking quietly with a buxom pink-cheeked Belgian girl who was in attendance as translator for one of les femmes. This Belgian told us that she was a permanent inhabitant of La Ferté, that she and another femme honnête occupied a room by themselves, that her brothers were at the front in Belgium, that her ability to speak fluently several languages (including English and German) made her invaluable to Messieurs la commission, that she had committed no crime, that she was held as a suspecte, that she was not entirely unhappy. She struck me immediately as being not only intelligent but alive. She questioned us in excellent English as to our offenses, and seemed much pleased to discover that we were⁠—to all appearances⁠—innocent of wrongdoing.

From time to time our subdued conversation was interrupted by admonitions from the amiable Wooden Hand. Twice the door slammed open, and Monsieur le Directeur bounced out, frothing at the mouth and threatening everyone with infinite cabinot, on the ground that everyone’s deportment or lack of it was menacing the aplomb of the commissioners. Each time, the Black Holster appeared in the background and carried on his master’s bullying until everyone was completely terrified⁠—after which we were left to ourselves and the Wooden Hand once again.

B. and I were allowed by the latter individual⁠—he was that day, at least, an individual not merely a planton⁠—to peek over his shoulder at the men’s list. The Wooden Hand even went so far as to escort our seditious minds to the nearness of their examination by the simple yet efficient method of placing one of his human fingers opposite the name of him who was (even at that moment) within, submitting to the inexorable justice of le gouvernement français. I cannot honestly say that the discovery of this proximity of ourselves to our respective fates wholly pleased us; yet we were so weary of waiting that it certainly did not wholly terrify us. All in all, I think I have never been so utterly un-at-ease as while waiting for the axe to fall, metaphorically speaking, upon our squawking heads.

We were still conversing with the Belgian girl when a man came out of the door unsteadily, looking as if he had submitted to several strenuous fittings of a wooden leg upon a stump not quite healed. The Wooden Hand, nodding at B., remarked hurriedly in a low voice:

“Allez!”

And B. (smiling at La Belge and at me) entered. He was followed by The Wooden Hand, as I suppose for greater security.

The next twenty minutes, or whatever it was, were by far the most nerve-racking which I had as yet experienced. La Belge said to me:

“Il est gentil, votre ami,”

and I agreed. And my blood was bombarding the roots of my toes and the summits of my hair.

After (I need not say) two or three million aeons, B. emerged. I had not time to exchange a look with him⁠—let alone a word⁠—for the Wooden Hand said from the doorway:

“Allez, l’autre américain,”

and I entered in more confusion than can easily be imagined; entered the torture chamber, entered the inquisition, entered the tentacles of that sly and beaming polyp, le gouvernement français.⁠ ⁠…

As I entered I said, half aloud: The thing is this, to look ’em in the eyes and keep cool whatever happens, not for the fraction of a moment forgetting that they are made of merde, that they are all of them composed entirely of merde⁠—I don’t know how many inquisitors I expected to see; but I guess I was ready for at least fifteen, among them President Poincaré Lui-même. I hummed noiselessly:

“si vous passez par ma vil-le
n’oubliez pas ma maison;
on y mang-e de bonne sou-pe Ton Ton Tay-ne;
faite de merde et les onions, Ton Ton Tayne Ton Ton Ton,”

remembering the fine forgeron of Chevancourt who used to sing this, or something very like it, upon a table⁠—entirely for the benefit of les deux américains, who would subsequently render “Eats uh lonje wae to Tee-pear-raer-ee,” wholly for the gratification of a roomful of what Mr. Anderson liked to call “them bastards,” alias “dirty” Frenchmen, alias les poilus, les poilus divins.⁠ ⁠…

A little room. The Directeur’s office? Or The Surveillant’s? Comfort. O yes, very, very comfortable. On my right a table. At the table three persons. Reminds me of Noyon a bit, not unpleasantly of course. Three persons: reading from left to right as I face them⁠—a soggy, sleepy, slumpy lump in a gendarme’s cape and cap, quite old, captain of gendarmes, not at all interested, wrinkled coarse face, only semi-méchant, large hard clumsy hands, floppingly disposed on table; wily tidy man in civilian clothes, pen in hand, obviously lawyer, avocat