The Enormous Room Page 10

  “He thinks I’m a German” B explained in a whisper,“and that you are a German too.” Then aloud,to the Cook : “My friend here needs a spoon. He just got here this morning and they haven’t given him one.”

  The excellent person at the bread table hereupon said to me : “You shall go to the window and say I tell you to ask for spoon and you will catch one spoon”—and I broke through the waiting line,approaching the kitchen-window,and demanded of a roguish face within.

  “Une cuiller,s’il vous plaît.”

  The roguish face,which had been singing in a high faint voice to itself,replied critically but not unkindly:

  “Vous êtes un nouveau?”

  I said that I was,that I had arrived late last night.

  It disappeared,reappeared and handed me a tin spoon and cup,saying :

  “Vous n’avez pas de tasse?”—“Non” I said.

  “Tiens. Prends ça. Vite.” Nodding in the direction of the Surveillant,who was standing all this time on the stairs behind me.

  I expected from the Cook’s phrase that something would be thrown at me which I should have to catch,and was accordingly somewhat relieved at the true state of affairs. On reentering the salle à manger I was greeted by many cries and wavings,and looking in their direction perceived tout le monde uproariously seated at wooden benches which were placed on either side of an enormous wooden table. There was a tiny gap in one bench where a place had been saved for me by B,with the assistance of Monsieur Auguste. Count Bragard,Harree and several other fellow-convicts. In a moment I had straddled the bench and was occupying the gap,spoon and cup in hand,and ready for anything.

  The din was perfectly terrific. It had a minutely large quality. Here and there,in a kind of sonal darkness,solid sincere unintelligible absurd wisps of profanity heavily flickered. Optically the phenomenon was equally remarkable : seated waggingly swaying corpselike figures,swaggering,pounding with their little spoons,roaring hoarse unkempt. Evidently Monsieur le Surveillant had been forgotten. All at once the roar bulged unbearably. The roguish man,followed by the chef himself,entered with a suffering waddle,each of them bearing a huge bowl of steaming something. At least six people immediately rose,gesturing and imploring : “Ici”—“Mais non,ici”—“Mettez par ici”—

  The bearers plumped their burdens carefully down,one at the head of the table and one in the middle. The men opposite the bowls stood up. Every man seized the empty plate in front of him and shoved it into his neighbor’s hand;the plates moved toward the bowls,were filled amid uncouth protestations and accusations—“Mettez plus que ça”—“C’est pas juste,alors”—“Donnez-moi encore des pommes”—“Nom de Dieu,il n’y a pas assez”—“Cohon,qu’est-ce qu’il veut?”—“Shut up”—“Gottverdummer”—and returned one by one. As each man received his own,he fell upon it with a sudden guzzle.

  Eventually,in front of me,solemnly sat a faintly-smoking urine-coloured circular broth,in which soggily hung half-­suspended slabs of raw potato. Following the example of my neighbors,I too addressed myself to La Soupe. I found her luke-warm,completely flavorless. I examined the hunk of bread. It was almost bluish in colour;in taste mouldy,slightly sour. “If you crumb some into the soup” remarked B,who had been studying my reactions from the corner of his eye,“they both taste better.” I tried the experiment. It was a complete success. At least one felt as if one were getting nourishment. Between gulps I smelled the bread furtively. It smelled rather much like an old attic in which kites and other toys gradually are forgotten in a gentle darkness.

  B and I were finishing our soup together when behind and somewhat to the left there came the noise of a lock being manipulated. I turned and saw in one corner of the salle à manger a little door,shaking mysteriously. Finally it was thrown open,revealing a sort of minute bar and a little closet filled with what appeared to be groceries and tobacco;and behind the bar,standing in the closet,a husky competent-looking lady. “It’s the canteen” B said. We rose,spoon in hand and breadhunk stuck on spoon,and made our way to the lady. I had,naturally,no money;but B reassured me that before the day was over I should see the Gestionnaire and make arrangements for drawing on the supply of ready cash which the gendarmes who took me from Creil had confided to the Surveillant’s care;eventually I could also draw on my account with Norton-Harjes in Paris;meantime he had quelques sous which might well go into chocolat and cigarettes. The large lady had a pleasant quietness about her,a sort of simplicity,which made me extremely desirous of complying with B’s suggestion. Incidentally I was feeling somewhat uncertain in the region of the stomach,due to the unique quality of the lunch which I had just enjoyed,and I brightened at the thought of anything as solid as chocolat. Accordingly we purchased( or rather B did )a paquet jaune and a cake of something which was not Menier. And the remaining sous we squandered on a glass apiece of red acrid pinard,gravely and with great happiness pledging the hostess of the occasion and then each other.

  With the exception of ourselves hardly anyone patronized the canteen,noting which I felt somewhat conspicuous. When,however,Harree Pompom and John the Bathman came rushing up and demanded cigarettes my fears were dispelled. Moreover the pinard was excellent.

  “Come on! Arrange yourselves!” the bull-neck cried hoarsely as the five of us were lighting up;and we joined the line of ­fellow-prisoners with their breads and spoons,gaping belching trumpeting fraternally,by the doorway.

  “Tout le monde en haut!” the planton roared.

  Slowly we filed through the tiny hall,past the stairs( empty now of their Napoleonic burden ),down the corridor,up the creaking gnarled damp flights,and( after the inevitable pause in which the escort rattled chains and locks )into The Enormous Room.

  This would be about ten thirty.

  Just what I tasted,did,smelled,saw,and heard,not to mention touched,between ten thirty and the completion of the evening meal( otherwise the four o’clock soup )I am quite at a loss to say. Whether it was that glass of pinard( plus or rather times the astonishing exhaustion bequeathed me by my journey of the day before )which caused me to enter temporarily the gates of forgetfulness,or whether the sheer excitement attendant upon my ultra-novel surroundings proved too much for an indispensable part of my so-called mind—I do not in the least know. I am fairly certain that I went on afternoon promenade. After which I must surely have mounted to await my supper in The Enormous Room. Whence( after the due and proper interval )I doubtless descended to the clutches of La Soupe Extraordinaire....yes,for I perfectly recall the cry which made me suddenly to reenter the dimension of distinctness....and by Jove I had just finished a glass of pinard....somebody must have treated me....we were standing together,spoon in hand....when we heard—

  “A la promenade”....we issued en queue,firmly grasping our spoons and bread,through the dining-room door. Turning right we were emitted,by the door opposite the kitchen,from the building itself into the open air. A few steps and we passed through the little gate in the barbed-wire fence of the cour.

  Greatly refreshed by my second introduction to the canteen,and with the digestion of the somewhat extraordinary evening meal apparently assured,I gazed almost intelligently around me. Count Bragard had declined the evening promenade in favor of The Enormous Room,but I perceived in the crowd the now familiar faces of the three Hollanders—John Harree and ­Pompom—likewise of The Bear,Monsieur Auguste,and Fritz. In the course of the next hour I had become if not personally at least optically acquainted with nearly a dozen others.

  Jan

  One was a queer-looking almost infantile man of perhaps thirty-five who wore a black vest,a pair of thread-bare pants,a collarless stripped shirt open at the neck with a gold stud therein,a cap slightly too large pulled down so that the visor almost hid his prominent eyebrows if not his tiny eyes,and something approximating sneakers. His expression was imitative and vacant. He stuck to Fritz most of the time,and took pains—when a girl leaned from her window—to betray a manliness of demea
nor which contrasted absurdly with his mentor’s naturally athletic bearing. He tried to speak( and evidently thought he spoke )English,or rather English words;but with the exception of a few obscenities pronounced in a surprisingly natural manner his vocabulary gave him considerable difficulty. Even when he and Fritz exchanged views,as they frequently did,in Danish,a certain linguistic awkwardness persisted;yielding the impression that to give or receive an idea entailed a tremendous effort of the intelligence. He was extremely vain,and indeed struck poses whenever he got a chance. He was also good-natured—stupidly so. It might be said of him that he never knew defeat;since if,after staggering a few moments under the weight of the bar which Fritz raised and lowered with ease fourteen times under the stimulus of a female gaze,the little man fell suddenly to earth with his burden,not a trace of discomfiture could be seen upon his small visage—he seemed,on the contrary,well pleased with himself,and the subsequent pose which his small body adopted demanded congratulations. When he stuck his chest up or out,he looked a trifle like a bantam rooster. When he tagged Fritz he resembled a rather brittle monkey,a monkey on a stick perhaps,capable of brief and stiff antics. His name was Jan.

  On the huge beam of iron,sitting somewhat beautifully all by himself,I noticed somebody with pink cheeks and blue eyes,in a dark suit of neatly kept clothes,with a small cap on his head. His demeanor,in contrast to the other occupants of the cour,was noticeably inconspicuous. In his poise lived an almost brilliant quietness. His eyes were remarkably sensitive. They were apparently anxious not to see people and things. He impressed me at once by a shyness which was completely deerlike. Possibly he was afraid. Nobody knew him or anything about him. I do not remember when we devised the name,but B and I referred to him as The Silent Man.

  Silente

  Somewhat overawed by the animals Harree and Pompom( but nevertheless managing to overawe a goodly portion of his fellow-captives )an extraordinary human being paced the cour. On gazing for the first time directly at him I experienced a feeling of nausea. A figure inclined to corpulence,dressed with care,remarkable only above the neck—and then what a head! It was large,and had a copious mop of limp hair combed back from the high forehead—hair of a disagreeable blond tint,dutch-cut behind,falling over the pinkish soft neck almost to the shoulders. In this pianist’s or artist’s hair,which shook en masse when the owner walked,two large and outstanding and altogether brutal white ears tried to hide themselves. The face,a cross between classic Greek and Jew,had a Reynard expression,something distinctly wily and perfectly disagreeable. An equally with the hair blond mustache—or rather mustachios projectingly important—waved beneath the prominent nostrils,and served to partially conceal the pallid mouth,weak and large,whose lips assumed from time to time a smile which had something almost foetal about it. Over the even weaker chin was disposed a blond goatee. The cheeks were fatty. The continually perspiring forehead exhibited innumerable pinkish pock-marks. In conversing with a companion this being emitted a disgusting smoothness,his very gestures were oily like his skin. He wore a pair of bloated wristless hands,the knuckles lost in fat,with which he smoothed the air from time to time. He was speaking low and effortless French,completely absorbed in the developing ideas which issued fluently from his mustachios. About him there clung an aura of cringing. His hair whiskers and neck looked as if they were trick neck whiskers and hair,as if they might at any moment suddenly disintegrate,as if the smoothness of his eloquence alone kept them in place.

  We called him Judas.

  Beside him,clumsily keeping the pace but not the step,was a tallish effeminate person whose immaculate funereal suit hung loosely upon an aged and hurrying anatomy. He wore a black big cap on top of his haggard and remarkably clean-shaven face,the most prominent feature of which was a red nose which sniffed a little now and then as if its owner was suffering from a severe cold. This person emanated age neatness and despair. Aside from the nose which compelled immediate attention,his face consisted of a few large planes loosely juxtaposed and registering pathos. His motions were without grace. He had a certain refinement. He could not have been more than forty-five. There was worry on every inch of him. Possibly he thought that he might die. B said “He’s a Belgian,a friend of Count Bragard,and his name is Monsieur Pet-airs.” From time to time Monsieur Pet-airs remarked something delicately and pettishly in a gentle and weak voice. His adam’s-apple,at such moments,jumped about in a longish slack wrinkled skinny neck which was like the neck of a turkey. To this turkey the approach of Thanksgiving inspired dread. From time to time M. Pet-airs looked about him sidewise as if he expected to see a hatchet. His hands were claws,kind awkward and nervous. They twitched. The bony and wrinkled things looked as if they would like to close quickly upon a throat.

  B called my attention to a figure squatting in the middle of the cour with his broad back against one of the more miserable trees. This figure was clothed in a remarkably picturesque manner : it wore a dark sombrero-like hat with a large drooping brim,a bright red gipsy shirt of some remarkably fine material with huge sleeves loosely falling,and baggy corduroy trousers whence escaped two brown shapely naked feet. On moving a little I discovered a face—perhaps the handsomest face that I have ever seen,of a gold brown colour,framed in an amazingly large and beautiful black beard. The features were finely formed and almost fluent,the eyes soft and extraordinarily sensitive,the mouth delicate and firm beneath a black mustache which fused with the silky and wonderful darkness falling upon the breast. This face contained a beauty and dignity which,as I first saw it,annihilated the surrounding tumult without an effort. Around the carefully formed nostrils there was something almost of contempt. The cheeks had known suns of which I might not think. The feet had travelled nakedly in countries not easily imagined. Seated gravely in the mud and noise of the cour,under the pitiful and scraggly pommier....behind the eyes lived a world of complete strangeness and silence. The composure of the body was graceful and Jovelike. This being might have been a prophet come out of a country nearer to the sun. Perhaps a god who had lost his road and allowed himself to be taken prisoner by le gouvernement français. At least a prince of a dark and desirable country,a king over a gold-skinned people,who would return when he wished to his fountains and his houris. I learned upon inquiry that he travelled in various countries with a horse and cart and his wife and children,selling bright colours to the women and men of these countries. As it turned out,he was one of The Delectable Mountains;to discover which I had come a long and difficult way. Wherefore I shall tell you no more about him for the present,except that his name was Josef Demestre.

  Judas

  We called him The Wanderer.

  I was still wondering at my good luck in occupying the same miserable yard with this exquisite personage when a hoarse rather thick voice shouted from the gate : “L’américain!”

  It was a planton,in fact the chief planton for whom all ordinary plantons had unutterable respect and whom all mere men unutterably hated. It was the planton into whom I had had the distinguished honour of bumping shortly after my visit to le bain.

  The Hollanders and Fritz were at the gate in a mob,all shouting “Which” in four languages.

  This planton did not deign to notice them. He repeated roughly “L’américain.” Then,yielding a point to their frenzied entreaties : “Le nouveau.”

  B said to me “Probably he’s going to take you to the Gestionnaire. You’re supposed to see him when you arrive. He’s got your money and will keep it for you,and give you an allowance twice a week. You can’t draw more than 20 francs. I’ll hold your bread and spoon.”

  “Where the devil is the American” cried the planton.

  “Me voici.”

  “Follow me.”

  I followed his back and rump and holster through the little gate in the barbed-wire fence and into the building,at which point he commanded “Proceed.”

  I asked “Where?”

  “Straight ahead” he said angrily.

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p; I proceeded. “Left!” he cried. I turned. A door confronted me. “Entrez” he commanded. I did. An unremarkable looking gentleman in a French uniform,sitting at a sort of table. “Monsieur le médecin,le nouveau.” The doctor got up. “Open your shirt.” I did. Take down your pants.” I did. “All right.” Then,as the planton was about to escort me from the room : “English?” he asked with curiosity. “No” I said,“American.” “Vraiment”—he contemplated me with attention. “South American are you?” “United States” I explained. “Vraiment”—he looked curiously at me,not disagreeably in the least. “Pourquoi vous êtes ici?” “I don’t know” I said smiling pleasantly,“except that my friend wrote some letters which were intercepted by the French censor.” “Ah!” he remarked. “C’est tout.”

  And I departed. “Proceed!” cried the Black Holster. I retraced my steps,and was about to exit through the door leading to the cour,when “Stop! Nom de Dieu! Proceed!”

  I asked “Where?” completely bewildered.

  “Up” he said angrily.

  I turned to the stairs on the left,and climbed.