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

mechanism; or to the demonstration of a collection of vivid and unlovely toys around and around which, guarding them with impossible heroism, funnily moved purely unreal plantons always absurdly marching, the maimed and stupid dolls of my imagination. Once I was sitting alone on the long beam of silent iron and suddenly had the gradual complete unique experience of death.⁠ ⁠…

It became amazingly cold.

One evening B. and myself and, I think it was the Machine-Fixer, were partaking of the warmth of a bougie hard by and, in fact, between our ambulance beds, when the door opened, a planton entered, and a list of names (none of which we recognized) was hurriedly read off with (as in the case of the last partis, including The Wanderer and Surplice) the admonition:

“Be ready to leave early tomorrow morning.”

—and the door shut loudly and quickly. Now one of the names which had been called sounded somewhat like “Broom,” and a strange inquietude seized us on this account. Could it possibly have been “B.”? We made inquiries of certain of our friends who had been nearer the planton than ourselves. We were told that Pete and The Trick Raincoat and The Fighting Sheeney and Rockyfeller were leaving⁠—about “B.” nobody was able to enlighten us. Not that opinions in this matter were lacking. There were plenty of opinions⁠—but they contradicted each other to a painful extent. Les hommes were in fact about equally divided; half considering that the occult sound had been intended for “B.,” half that the somewhat asthmatic planton had unwittingly uttered a spontaneous grunt or sigh, which sigh or grunt we had mistaken for a proper noun. Our uncertainty was augmented by the confusion emanating from a particular corner of The Enormous Room, in which corner The Fighting Sheeney was haranguing a group of spectators on the pregnant topic: What I won’t do to Précigne when I get there. In deep converse with Bathhouse John we beheld the very same youth who, some time since, had drifted to a place beside me at la soupe⁠—Pete The Ghost, white and determined, blond and fragile: Pete the Shadow.⁠ ⁠…

I forget who, but someone⁠—I think it was the little Machine-Fixer⁠—established the truth that an American was to leave the next morning. That, moreover, said American’s name was B.

Whereupon B. and I became extraordinarily busy.

The Zulu and Jean le Nègre, upon learning that B. was among the partis, came over to our beds and sat down without uttering a word. The former, through a certain shy orchestration of silence, conveyed effortlessly and perfectly his sorrow at the departure; the latter, by his bowed head and a certain very delicate restraint manifested in the wholly exquisite poise of his firm alert body, uttered at least a universe of grief.

The little Machine-Fixer was extremely indignant; not only that his friend was going to a den of thieves and ruffians, but that his friend was leaving in such company as that of cette crapule (meaning Rockyfeller) and les deux mangeurs de blanc (to wit, The Trick Raincoat and The Fighting Sheeney). “c’est malheureux,” he repeated over and over, wagging his poor little head in rage and despair⁠—“it’s no place for a young man who has done no wrong, to be shut up with pimps and cutthroats, pour la durée de la guerre; le gouvernement français a bien fait!” and he brushed a tear out of his eye with a desperate rapid brittle gesture.⁠ ⁠… But what angered the Machine-Fixer most was that B. and I were about to be separated⁠—“M’sieu’ Jean” (touching me gently on the knee) “they have no hearts, la commission; they are not simply unjust, they are cruel, savez-vous? Men are not like these; they are not men, they are Name of God I don’t know what, they are worse than the animals; and they pretend to Justice” (shivering from top to toe with an indescribable sneer) “Justice! My God, Justice!”

All of which, somehow or other, did not exactly cheer us.

And, the packing completed, we drank together for The Last Time. The Zulu and Jean Le Nègre and the Machine-Fixer and B. and I⁠—and Pete The Shadow drifted over, whiter than I think I ever saw him, and said simply to me:

“I’ll take care o’ your friend, Johnny.”

… and then at last it was lumières éteintes; and les deux américains lay in their beds in the cold rotten darkness, talking in low voices of the past, of Petroushka, of Paris, of that brilliant and extraordinary and impossible something: Life.

Morning. Whitish. Inevitable. Deathly cold.

There was a great deal of hurry and bustle in The Enormous Room. People were rushing hither and thither in the heavy half-darkness. People were saying goodbye to people. Saying goodbye to friends. Saying goodbye to themselves. We lay and sipped the black evil dull certainly not coffee; lay on our beds, dressed, shuddering with cold, waiting. Waiting. Several of les hommes whom we scarcely knew came up to B. and shook hands with him and said good luck and goodbye. The darkness was going rapidly out of the dull black evil stinking air. B. suddenly realized that he had no gift for The Zulu; he asked a fine Norwegian to whom he had given his leather belt if he, the Norwegian, would mind giving it back, because there was a very dear friend who had been forgotten. The Norwegian, with a pleasant smile, took off the belt and said “Certainly”⁠ ⁠… he had been arrested at Bordeaux, where he came ashore from his ship, for stealing three cans of sardines when he was drunk⁠ ⁠… a very great and dangerous criminal⁠ ⁠… he said “Certainly,” and gave B. a pleasant smile, the pleasantest smile in the world.