The Enormous Room Read online

  “Not so fast there” he roared behind me.

  I slowed up. We reached the landing. I was sure that the Gestionnaire was a very fierce man—probably a lean slight person who would rush at me from the nearest door saying “Hands up” in French,whatever that may be. The door opposite me stood open. I looked in. There was the Surveillant standing,hands behind back,approvingly regarding my progress. I was asking myself,Should I bow? when a scurrying and a tittering made me look left,along a dark and particularly dirty hall. Women’s voices...I almost fell with surprise. Were not these shadows faces peering a little boldly at me from doors? How many girls were there—it sounded as if there were a hundred—

  “Qu’est-ce que vous foutez” etc. and the planton gave me a good shove in the direction of another flight of stairs. I obligingly ascended;thinking of the Surveillant as a spider,elegantly poised in the centre of his nefarious web,waiting for a fly to make too many struggles....

  At the top of this flight I was confronted by a second hall. A shut door indicated the existence of a being directly over the Surveillant’s holy head. Upon this door,lest I should lose time in speculating,was in ample letters inscribed:

  GESTIONNAIRE.

  I felt unutterably lost. I approached the door. I even started to push it.

  “Attends,Nom de Dieu.” The planton gave me another shove,faced the door,knocked twice,and cried in accents of profound respect : “Monsieur le Gestionnaire”—after which he gazed at me with really supreme contempt,his neat piglike face becoming almost circular.

  I said to myself : This Gestionnaire,whoever he is,must be a very terrible person,a frightful person,a person utterly without mercy.

  From within a heavy stupid pleasant voice lazily remarked :

  “Entrez.”

  The planton threw the door open,stood stiffly on the threshold,and gave me the look which plantons give to eggs when plantons are a little hungry.

  I crossed the threshold,trembling with( let us hope )anger.

  Before me,seated at a table,was a very fat personage with a black skull cap perched upon its head. Its face was possessed of an enormous nose,on which pince-nez precariously roosted;otherwise said face was large whiskered very German and had three chins. Extraordinary creature. Its belly,as it sat,was slightly dented by the table-top,on which table-top rested several enormous tomes similar to those employed by the recording angel on the Day of Judgment,an inkstand or two,innumerable pens and pencils,and some positively fatal looking papers. The person was dressed in worthy and semi-dismal clothes amply cut to afford a promenade for the big stomach. The coat was of that extremely thin black material which occasionally is affected by clerks and dentists and more often by librarians. If ever I looked upon an honest German jowl,or even upon caricature thereof,I looked upon one now. Such a round fat red pleasant beer-drinking face as reminded me only and immediately of huge meerschaum pipes,Deutsche Verein mottos,sudsy seidels of Wurtzburger,and Jacob Wirth’s( once upon a time )brachwurst. Such pinlike pink merry eyes as made me think of Kris Kringle himself. Such extraordinarily huge reddish hands as might have grasped six seidels together in the Deutsche Küchen on 13th street. I gasped with pleasurable relief.

  Monsieur le Gestionnaire looked as if he was trying very hard,with the aid of his beribboned glasses and librarian’s jacket( not to mention a very ponderous gold watch-chain and locket that were supported by his copious equator )to appear possessed of the solemnity necessarily emanating from his lofty and responsible office. This solemnity,however,met its Waterloo in his frank and stupid eyes,not to say his trilogy of cheerful chins—so much so that I felt like crying Wie geht’s and cracking him on his huge back. Such an animal! A contented animal,a bulbous animal;the only living hippopotamus in captivity,fresh from the Nile.

  He contemplated me with a natural,under the circumstances,curiosity. He even naïvely contemplated me. As if I were hay. My hay-coloured head perhaps pleased him,as a hippopotamus. He would perhaps eat me. He grunted,exposing tobacco-yellow tusks,and his tiny eyes twittered. Finally he gradually uttered,with a thick accent,the following extremely impressive dictum:

  “C’est l’américain.”

  I felt much pleased,and said “Oui,j’suis américain,Monsieur.”

  He rolled half over backwards in his creaking chair with wonderment at such an unexpected retort. He studied my face with a puzzled air,appearing slightly embarrassed that before him should stand l’américain and that l’américain should admit it,and that it should all be so wonderfully clear. I saw a second dictum,even more profound than the first,ascending from his black vest. The chain and fob trembled with anticipation. I was wholly fascinated. What vast blob of wisdom would find its difficult way out of him? The bulbous lips wiggled in a pleasant smile.

  “Voo parlez français.”

  This was delightful. The planton behind me was obviously angered by the congenial demeanor of Monsieur le Gestionnaire,and rasped with his boot upon the threshold. The maps to my right and left,maps of France,maps of the Mediterranean,of Europe even were abashed. A little anaemic biped whom I had not previously noted,as he stood in one corner with a painfully deferential expression,looked all at once relieved. I guessed,and correctly guessed,that this little thing was the translator of La Ferté. His weak face wore glasses of the same type as the hippopotamus’s,but without a huge black ribbon. I decided to give him a tremor;and said to the hippo “Un peu,Monsieur”, at which the little thing looked sickly.

  The hippopotamus benevolently remarked “Voo parlez bien”, and his glasses fell off. He turned to the watchful planton:

  “Voo poovez aller. Je vooz appelerai.”

  The watchful planton did a sort of salute and closed the door after him. The skullcapped dignitary turned to his papers and began mouthing them with his huge hands,grunting pleasantly. Finally he found one,and said lazily

  “De quel endroit que vooz êtes?”

  “De Massachusetts” said I.

  He wheeled round and stared dumbly at the weak-faced one,who looked at a complete loss,but managed to stammer simperingly that it was a part of the United States.

  “UH.” The hippopotamus said.

  Then he remarked that I had been arrested,and I agreed that I had been arrested.

  Then he said “Have you got any money?” and before I could answer clambered heavily to his feet and,leaning over the table before which I stood,punched me gently.

  “Uh.” Said the hippopotamus,sat down,and put on his glasses.

  “I have your money here” he said. “You are allowed to draw a little from time to time. You may draw 20 francs,if you like. You may draw it twice a week.”

  “I should like to draw 20 francs now” I said,“in order to buy something at the canteen.”

  “You will give me a receipt” said the hippopotamus. “You want to draw 20 francs now,quite so.” He began,puffing and grunting,to make handwriting of a peculiarly large and somewhat loose variety.

  The weak face now stepped forward,and asked me gently : “Hugh er a merry can?”—so I carried on a brilliant conversation in pidgin English about my relatives and America until interrupted by

  “Uh.”

  The hip had finished.

  “Sign you name,here” he said,and I did. He looked about in one of the tomes and checked something opposite my name,which I enjoyed seeing in the list of inmates. It had been spelled,erased,and re-spelled several times.

  Monsieur le Gestionnaire contemplated my signature. Then he looked up,smiled,and nodded recognition to someone behind me. I turned. There stood( having long since noiselessly entered )The Fencer Himself,nervously clasping and unclasping his hands behind his back and regarding me with approval,or as a keeper regards some rare monkey newly forwarded from its habitat by Hagenbeck.

  The hip pulled out a drawer. He found,after hunting,some notes. He counted two off,licking his big thumb with a pompous gesture,and having recounted them passed them heavily to me. I took them as a monk
ey takes a cocoanut.

  “Do you wish?”—the Gestionnaire nodded toward me,add­ressing the Fencer.

  “No,no” the Fencer said bowingly. “I have talked to him already.”

  “Call that planton!” cried Monsieur le Gestionnaire,to the little thing. The little thing ran out dutifully and called in a weak voice “Planton!”

  A gruff but respectful “Oui” boomed from below-stairs. In a moment the planton of plantons had respectfully entered.

  “The promenade being over,you can take him to the men’s room” said the Surveillant,as the hippo( immensely relieved and rather proud of himself )collapsed in his creaking chair.

  Feeling like a suit-case in the clutches of a porter,I obediently preceded my escort down two flights,first having bowed to the hippopotamus and said “Merci”—to which courtesy the Hippo paid no attention. As we went along the dank hall on the ground floor I regretted that no whispers and titters had greeted my descent. Probably the furious planton had seen to it that les femmes kept their rooms in silence. We ascended the three flights at the farther end of the corridor,the planton of all plantons unlocked and unbolted the door at the top landing,and I was swallowed by The Enormous Room.

  I made for B,in my excitement allowing myself to wave the bank-notes. Instantly a host had gathered at my side. On my way to my bed—a distance of perhaps thirty feet—I was patted on the back by Harree Pompom and Bathhouse John,congratulated by Monsieur Auguste,and saluted by Fritz. Arriving,I found myself the centre of a stupendous crowd. People who had previously had nothing to say to me,who had even sneered at my unwashed and unshaven exterior,now addressed me in terms of more than polite interest. Judas himself stopped in a promenade of the room,eyed me a moment,hastened smoothly to my vicinity,and made a few oily remarks of a pleasant nature. Simultaneously by Monsieur Auguste Harree and Fritz I was advised to hide my money and hide it well. There were people,you know...who didn’t hesitate,you understand...I understood,and to the vast disappointment of the clamorous majority reduced my wealth to its lowest terms and crammed it in my trousers,stuffing several trifles of a bulky nature on top of it. Then I gazed quietly around with a William S. Hart expression calculated to allay any undue excitement. One by one the curious and enthusiastic faded from me,and I was left with the few whom I already considered my friends;with which few B and myself proceeded to while away the time remaining before Lumières Eteintes.

  Incidentally,I exchanged( in the course of the next two hours )a considerable mass of two-legged beings for a number of extremely interesting individuals. Also,in that somewhat limited period of time,I gained all sorts of highly enlightening information concerning the lives habits and likes of half a dozen of as fine companions as it has ever been my luck to meet or,so far as I can now imagine,ever will be. In prison one learns several million things—if one is l’américain from Mass-a-chu-setts. When the ominous and awe-inspiring rattle on the further side of the locked door announced that the captors were come to bid the captives good night,I was still in the midst of conversation and had been around the world a number of times. At the clanking sound our little circle centripetally disintegrated,as if by sheer magic;and I was left somewhat dizzily to face a renewal of reality.

  The door shot wide. The planton’s almost indistinguishable figure in the doorway told me that the entire room was dark. I had not noticed the darkness. Somebody had placed a candle( which I recalled having seen on a table in the middle of the room when I looked up once or twice during the conversation )on a little shelf hard by the cabinet. There had been men playing at cards by this candle—now everybody was quietly reposing upon the floor along three sides of The Enormous Room. The planton entered. Walked over to the light. Said something about everybody being present,and was answered by a number of voices in a more or less profane affirmative. Strutted to and fro,kicked the cabinet,flashed an electric torch,and walked up the room examining each paillasse to make sure it had an occupant. Crossed the room at the upper end. Started down on my side. The white circle was in my eyes. The planton stopped. I stared stupidly and wearily into the glare. The light moved all over me and my bed. The rough voice behind the glare said:

  “Vous êtes le nouveau?”

  Monsieur Auguste,from my left,said quietly:

  “Oui,c’est le nouveau.”

  The holder of the torch grunted,and( after pausing a second at B’s bed to inspect a picture of perfect innocence )banged out through the door,which whanged to behind him and another planton of whose presence I had been hitherto unaware. A perfect symphony of “Bonne-nuit’s” “Dormez-bien’s” and other affectionate admonitions greeted the exeunt of the authorities. They were advised by various parts of the room in divers tongues to dream of their wives,to be careful of themselves in bed,to avoid catching cold,and to attend to a number of personal wants before retiring. The symphony gradually collapsed,leaving me sitting in a state of complete wonderment,dead tired and very happy,upon my paillasse.

  “I think I’ll turn in” I said to the neighboring darkness.

  “That’s what I’m doing” B’s voice said.

  “By God” I said,“this is the finest place I’ve ever been in my life.”

  “It’s the finest place in the world” said B’s voice.

  “Thank Heaven,we’re out of A.’s way and the—Section Sanitaire” I grunted as I placed my boots where a pillow might have been imagined.

  “Amen” B’s voice said.

  “Si vous met-tez vos chaus-sures au des-sous de la pail-lasse” Monsieur Auguste’s voice said,“vous al-lez bien dor-mir.”

  I thanked him for the suggestion,and did so. I reclined in an ecstasy of happiness and weariness. There could be nothing better than this. To sleep.

  “Got a Gottverdummer cigarette?” Harree’s voice asked of Fritz.

  “No bloody fear” Frit’s voice replied coolly.

  Snores had already begun in various keys at various distances in various directions. The candle flickered a little;as if darkness and itself were struggling to the death,and darkness were winning.

  “I’ll get a chew from John” Harree’s voice said.

  Three or four paillasses away,a subdued conversation was proceeding. I found myself listening sleepily.

  “Et puis” a voice said,“je suis réformé....”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A Group of Portraits

  With the reader’s permission I beg,at this point of my narrative,to indulge in one or two extrinsic observations.

  In the preceding pages I have described my Pilgrim’s Progress from the Slough of Despond,commonly known at Section Sanitaire Vingt-et-Un( then located at Germaine )through the mysteries of Noyon Creil and Paris to the Porte de Triage de La Ferté-Macé,Orne. With the end of my first day as a certified inhabitant of the latter institution a definite progression is brought to a close. Beginning with my second day at La Ferté a new period opens. This period extends to the moment of my departure and includes the discovery of The Delectable Mountains,two of which—The Wanderer and I shall not say the other—have already been sighted. It is like a vast grey box in which are laid helter-skelter a great many toys,each of which is itself completely significant apart from the always unchanging temporal dimension which merely contains it along with the rest. I make this point clear for the benefit of any of my readers who have not had the distinguished privilege of being in jail. To those who have been in jail my meaning is at once apparent;particularly if they have had the highly enlightening experience of being in jail with a perfectly indefinite sentence. How,in such a case,could events occur and be remembered otherwise than as individualities distinct from Time Itself? Or,since one day and the next are the same to such a prisoner,where does Time come in at all? Obviously,once the prisoner is habituated to his environment,once he accepts the fact that speculation as to when he will regain his liberty cannot possibly shorten the hours of his incarceration and may very well drive him into a state of unhappiness( not to say morbidity�
�),events can no longer succeed each other : whatever happens,while it may happen in connection with some other perfectly distinct happening,does not happen in a scale of temporal priorities—each happening is self-sufficient,irrespective of minutes months and the other treasures of freedom.

  It is for this reason that I do not purpose to inflict upon the reader a diary of my alternative aliveness and non-existence at La Ferté—not because such a diary would unutterably bore him,but because the diary or time method is a technique which cannot possibly do justice to timelessness. I shall( on the contrary )lift from their grey box at random certain( to me )more or less astonishing toys;which may or may not please the reader,but whose colours and shapes and textures are a part of the actual Present—without future and past—whereof they alone are cognizant who—so to speak—have submitted to an amputation of the world.

  I have already stated that La Ferté was a Porte de Triage—that is to say,a place where suspects of all varieties were herded by le gouvernement français preparatory to their being judged as to their guilt by a Commission. If the Commission found that they were wicked persons,or dangerous persons,or undesirable persons,or puzzling persons,or persons in some way insusceptible of analysis,they were sent from La Ferté to a “regular” prison,called Précigné,in the province of Sarthe. About Précigné the most awful rumors were spread. It was whispered that it had a huge moat about it,with an infinity of barbed-wire fences thirty-feet high,and lights trained on the walls all night to discourage the escape of prisoners. Once in Précigné you were “in” for good and all,pour la durée de la guerre,which durée was a subject of occasional and dismal speculation—occasional for reasons( as I have mentioned )of mental health;dismal for unreasons of diet,privation,filth,and other trifles. La Ferté was,then,a stepping stone either to freedom or to Précigné,the chances in the former case being—no speculation here—something less than the now celebrated formula made famous by the 18th amendment. But the excellent and inimitable and altogether benignant French government was not satisfied with its own generosity in presenting one merely with Précigné—beyond that lurked a cauchemar called by the singularly poetic name : Ile de Groix. A man who went to Ile de Groix was done.