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

whither I went in a fiacre and the driver didn’t know where it was. Wonderful. This is the American embassy. I must look funny in my pelisse. Thank God for the breakfast I ate somewhere⁠ ⁠… good-looking girl, Parisienne, at the switchboard upstairs. “Go right in, sir.” A1 English by God. So this is the person to whom Edward E. Cummings is immediately to report.

“Is this Mr. Cummings?”

“Yes.” Rather a young man, very young in fact. Jove I must look queer.

“Sit down! We’ve been looking all over creation for you.”

“Yes?”

“Have some cigarettes?”

“Yes.”

By God he gives me a sac of Bull. Extravagant they are at the American Embassy. Can I roll one? I can. I do.

Conversation. Pleased to see me. Thought I was lost for good. Tried every means to locate me. Just discovered where I was. What was it like? No, really? You don’t mean it! Well I’ll be damned! Look here; this man B., what sort of a fellow is he? Well I’m interested to hear you say that. Look at this correspondence. It seemed to me that a fellow who could write like that wasn’t dangerous. Must be a little queer. Tell me, isn’t he a trifle foolish? That’s what I thought. Now I’d advise you to leave France as soon as you can. They’re picking up ambulance men left and right, men who’ve got no business to be in Paris. Do you want to leave by the next boat? I’d advise it. Good. Got money? If you haven’t we’ll pay your fare. Or half of it. Plenty, eh? Norton-Harjes, I see. Mind going second class? Good. Not much difference on this line. Now you can take these papers and go to.⁠ ⁠… No time to lose, as she sails tomorrow. That’s it. Grab a taxi, and hustle. When you’ve got those signatures bring them to me and I’ll fix you all up. Get your ticket first, here’s a letter to the manager of the Compagnie Générale. Then go through the police department. You can do it if you hurry. See you later. Make it quick, eh? Goodbye!

The streets. Les rues de Paris. I walked past Notre Dame. I bought tobacco. Jews are peddling things with American trademarks on them, because in a day or two it’s Christmas I suppose. Jesus it is cold. Dirty snow. Huddling people. La guerre. Always la guerre. And chill. Goes through these big mittens. Tomorrow I shall be on the ocean. Pretty neat the way that passport was put through. Rode all day in a taxi, two cylinders, running on one. Everywhere waiting lines. I stepped to the head and was attended to by the officials of the great and good French Government. Gad that’s a good one. A good one on le gouvernement français. Pretty good. Les rues sont tristes. Perhaps there’s no Christmas, perhaps the French Government has forbidden Christmas. Clerk at Norton-Harjes seemed astonished to see me. O God it is cold in Paris. Everyone looks hard under lamplight, because it’s winter I suppose. Everyone hurried. Everyone hard. Everyone cold. Everyone huddling. Everyone alive; alive: alive.

Shall I give this man five francs for dressing my hand? He said “anything you like, monsieur.” Ship’s doctor’s probably well-paid. Probably not. Better hurry before I put my lunch. Awe-inspiring stink, because it’s in the bow. Little member of the crew immersing his guess-what in a can of some liquid or other, groaning from time to time, staggers when the boat tilts. “Merci bien, Monsieur!” That was the proper thing. Now for the⁠—never can reach it⁠—here’s the première classe one⁠—any port in a storm.⁠ ⁠… Feel better now. Narrowly missed American officer but just managed to make it. Was it yesterday or day before saw the Vaterland, I mean the what deuce is it⁠—the biggest afloat in the world boat. Damned rough. Snow falling. Almost slid through the railing that time. Snow. The snow is falling into the sea; which quietly receives it: into which it utterly and peacefully disappears. Man with a college degree returning from Spain, not disagreeable sort, talks Spanish with that fat man who’s an Argentinian.⁠—Tinian?⁠—Tinish, perhaps. All the same. In other words Tin. Nobody at the table knows I speak English or am American. Hell, that’s a good one on nobody. That’s a pretty fat kind of a joke on nobody. Think I’m French. Talk mostly with those three or four Frenchmen going on permission to somewhere via New York. One has an accordion. Like second class. Wait till you see the gratte-ciel, I tell ’em. They say “Oui?” and don’t believe. I’ll show them. America. The land of the flea and the home of the dag’⁠—short for dago of course. My spirits are constantly improving. Funny Christmas, second day out. Wonder if we’ll dock New Year’s Day. My God what a list to starboard. They say a waiter broke his arm when it happened, ballast shifted. Don’t believe it. Something wrong. I know I nearly fell downstairs.⁠ ⁠…

My God what an ugly island. Hope we don’t stay here long. All the red-bloods first-class much excited about land. Damned ugly, I think.

Hullo.

The tall, impossibly tall, incomparably tall, city shoulderingly upward into hard sunlight leaned a little through the octaves of its parallel edges, leaningly strode upward into firm hard snowy sunlight; the noises of America nearingly throbbed with smokes and hurrying dots which are men and which are women and which are things new and curious and hard and strange and vibrant and immense, lifting with a great ondulous stride firmly into immortal sunlight.⁠ ⁠…

Colophon

The Enormous Room
was published in 1922 by
E. E. Cummings.

This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Robin Whittleton,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2005 by
Eric Eldred, Thomas Berger, and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans available at the