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

should say that, as a painter, the Pyrenees particularly appealed to me. “Et qu’il fait beau, là-bas! The snow on the mountains! And it’s not cold. And what mountains! You can live there very cheaply. As a suspect you will merely have to report once a month to the chief of police of Oloron Sainte Marie; he’s an old friend of mine! He’s a fine, fat, red-cheeked man, very kindly. He will make it easy for you, M’sieu’ Jean, and will help you out in every way, when you tell him you are a friend of the little Belgian with the broken arm. Tell him I sent you. You will have a very fine time, and you can paint: such scenery to paint! My God⁠—not like what you see from these windows. I advise you by all means to ask to go to Oloron.”

So thinking I lathered my face, standing before Judas’ mirror.

“You don’t rub enough,” the Alsatian advised, “il faut frotter bien!” A number of fellow-captives were regarding my toilet with surprise and satisfaction. I discovered in the mirror an astounding beard and a good layer of dirt. I worked busily, counselled by several voices, censured by the Alsatian, encouraged by Judas himself. The shave and the wash completed I felt considerably refreshed.

Whang!

“L’américain en bas!” It was the Black Holster. I carefully adjusted my tunic and obeyed him.

The Directeur and the Surveillant were in consultation when I entered the latter’s office. Apollyon, seated at a desk, surveyed me very fiercely. His subordinate swayed to and fro, clasping and unclasping his hands behind his back, and regarded me with an expression of almost benevolence. The Black Holster guarded the doorway.

Turning on me ferociously: “Your friend is wicked, very wicked, savez-vous?” Le Directeur shouted.

I answered quietly: “Oui? Je ne le savait pas.”

“He is a bad fellow, a criminal, a traitor, an insult to civilization,” Apollyon roared into my face.

“Yes?” I said again.

“You’d better be careful!” the Directeur shouted. “Do you know what’s happened to your friend?”

“Sais pas,” I said.

“He’s gone to prison where he belongs!” Apollyon roared. “Do you understand what that means?”

“Perhaps,” I answered, somewhat insolently I fear.

“You’re lucky not to be there with him! Do you understand?” Monsieur Le Directeur thundered, “and next time pick your friends better, take more care, I tell you, or you’ll go where he is⁠—to prison for the rest of the war!”

“With my friend I should be well content in prison!” I said evenly, trying to keep looking through him and into the wall behind his black, big, spidery body.

“In God’s Name, what a fool!” the Directeur bellowed furiously⁠—and the Surveillant remarked pacifyingly: “He loves his comrade too much, that’s all.”⁠—“But his comrade is a traitor and a villain!” objected the Fiend, at the top of his harsh voice⁠—“Comprenez-vous; votre ami est un salop!” he snarled at me.

He seems afraid that I don’t get his idea, I said to myself. “I understand what you say,” I assured him.

“And you don’t believe it?” he screamed, showing his fangs and otherwise looking like an exceedingly dangerous maniac.

“Je ne le crois pas, Monsieur.”

“O God’s name!” he shouted. “What a fool, quel idiot, what a beastly fool!” And he did something through his froth-covered lips, something remotely suggesting laughter.

Hereupon the Surveillant again intervened. I was mistaken. It was lamentable. I could not be made to understand. Very true. But I had been sent for⁠—“Do you know, you have been decided to be a suspect?” Monsieur le Surveillant turned to me, “and now you may choose where you wish to be sent.” Apollyon was blowing and wheezing and muttering⁠ ⁠… clenching his huge pinkish hands.

I addressed the Surveillant, ignoring Apollyon. “I should like, if I may, to go to Oloron Sainte Marie.”

“What do you want to go there for?” the Directeur exploded threateningly.

I explained that I was by profession an artist, and had always wanted to view the Pyrenees. “The environment of Oloron would be most stimulating to an artist⁠—”

“Do you know it’s near Spain?” he snapped, looking straight at me.

I knew it was, and therefore replied with a carefully childish ignorance: “Spain? Indeed! Very interesting.”

“You want to escape from France, that’s it?” the Directeur snarled.

“Oh, I hardly should say that!” the Surveillant interposed soothingly; “he is an artist, and Oloron is a very pleasant place for an artist. A very nice place, I hardly think his choice of Oloron a cause for suspicion. I should think it a very natural desire on his part.”⁠—His superior subsided snarling.

After a few more questions I signed some papers which lay on the desk, and was told by Apollyon to get out.

“When can I expect to leave?” I asked the Surveillant.

“Oh, it’s only a matter of days, of weeks perhaps,” he assured me benignantly.

“You’ll leave when it’s proper for you to leave!” Apollyon burst out. “Do you understand?”

“Yes, indeed. Thank you very much,” I replied with a bow, and exited. On the way to The Enormous Room the Black Holster said to me sharply:

“Vous allez partir?”

“Oui.”

He gave me such a look as would have turned a mahogany piano leg into a mound of smoking ashes, and slammed the key into the lock.

—Everyone gathered about me. “What news?”

“I have asked to go to Oloron as a suspect,” I answered.

“You should have taken my advice and asked to go to Cannes,” the fat Alsatian reproached me. He had indeed spent a great while advising me; but I trusted the little Machine-Fixer.

“Parti?” Jean le Nègre said with huge eyes, touching me gently.

“No, no. Later, perhaps; not now,” I assured him. And he patted my shoulder and smiled, “Bon!” And we smoked a cigarette in honour of the snow, of which Jean⁠—in contrast to the majority of les hommes⁠—highly and unutterably approved. “C’est jolie!” he would say, laughing wonderfully. And next morning he and I