The Enormous Room Read online

  At this I am sure my eyes started out of my head. All I could think of to say was : “Attends,un petit moment.” To reach my own bed took but a second. In another second I was back,bearing my great and sacred pelisse I marched up to Jean. “Jean” I remarked with a smile,“Tu vas au cabinot,mais tu vas revenir tout de suite. Je sais bien que tu as parfaitement raison. Mets cela”—and I pushed him gently into my coat. “Voici mes cigarettes,Jean;tu peux fumer comme tu veux”—I pulled out all I had,one full paquet jaune of Marylands and half a dozen loose ones,and deposited them carefully in the right hand pocket of the pelisse. Then I patted him on the shoulder and gave him the immortal salutation—“Bonne chance,mon ami!” He straightened proudly. He stalked like a king through the doorway. The astounded plantons and the embarrassed Surveillant followed,the latter closing the doors behind him. I was left with a cloud of angry witnesses.

  An hour later the doors opened,Jean entered quietly,and the doors shut. As I lay on my bed I could see him perfectly. He was almost naked. He laid my pelisse on his mattress,then walked calmly up to a neighboring bed and skillfully and unerringly extracted a brush from under it. Back to his own bed he tiptoed,sat down on it,and began brushing my coat. He brushed it for a half hour,speaking to no one,spoken to by no one. Finally he put the brush back,disposed the pelisse carefully on his arm,came to my bed,and as carefully laid it down. Then he took from the right hand outside pocket a full pacquet jaune and six loose cigarettes,showed them for my approval,and returned them to their place. “Merci” was his sole remark. B got Jean to sit down beside him on his bed and we talked for a few minutes,avoiding the subject of the recent struggle. Then Jean went back to his own bed and lay down.

  It was not till later that we learned the climax—not till le petit belge avec le bras cassé,le petit balayeur,came hurrying to our end of the room and sat down with us. He was bursting with excitement,his well arm jerked and his sick one stumped about and he seemed incapable of speech. At length words came.

  “M’sieu’Jean”( now that I think of it,I believe someone had told him that all male children in America are named Jean at their birth )“j’ai vu QUELQUE CHOSE! le nègre,vous savez?—il est FORT! M’sieu’Jean,c’est un GEANT,croyez moi! C’est pas un homme,tu sais? Je l’ai vu,moi”—and he indicated his eyes.

  We pricked our ears.

  The balayeur,stuffing a pipe nervously with his tiny thumb said : “You saw the fight up here? So did I. The whole of it. Le noir avait raison. Well,when they took him downstairs,I slipped out too—Je suis le balayeur,savez-vous? and the balayeur can go where other people can’t.”

  —I gave him a match,and he thanked me. He struck it on his trousers with a quick pompous gesture,drew heavily on his squeaky pipe,and at last shot a minute puff of smoke into the air;then another,and another. Satisfied,he went on;his good hand grasping the pipe between its index and second fingers and resting on one little knee,his legs crossed,his small body hunched forward,wee unshaven face close to mine—went on in the confidential tone of one who relates an unbelievable miracle to a couple of intimate friends:

  “M’sieu’Jean,I followed. They got him to the cabinot. The door stood open. At this moment les femmes descendaient,it was their corvée d’eau,vous savez. He saw them,le noir. One of them cried from the stairs,Is a Frenchman stronger than you,Jean? The plantons were standing around him,the Surveillant was behind. He took the nearest planton,and tossed him down the corridor so that he struck against the door at the end of it. He picked up two more,one in each arm,and threw them away. They fell on top of the first. The last tried to take hold of Jean,and so Jean took him by the neck”—(the balayeur strangled himself for our benefit)—“and that planton knocked down the other three,who had got on their feet by this time. You should have seen the Surveillant. He had run away and was saying ‘Capture him,capture him.’ The plantons rushed Jean,all four of them. He caught them as they came and threw them about. One knocked down the Surveillant. The femmes cried ‘Vive Jean’,and clapped their hands. The Surveillant called to the plantons to take Jean,but they wouldn’t go near Jean,they said he was a black devil. The women kidded them. They were so sore. And they could do nothing. Jean was laughing. His shirt was almost off him. He asked the plantons to come and take him,please. He asked the Surveillant,too. The women had set down their pails and were dancing up and down and yelling. The Directeur came down and sent them flying. The Surveillant and his plantons were as helpless as if they had been children. M’sieu’Jean—quelque chose.”

  I gave him another match. “Merci,M’sieu’Jean.” He struck it,drew on his pipe,lowered it,and went on:

  “They were helpless,and men. I am little. I have only one arm,tu sais. I walked up to Jean and said,Jean,you know me,I am your friend. He said,Yes. I said to the plantons,Give me that rope. They gave me the rope that they would have bound him with. He put out his wrists to me. I tied his hands behind his back. He was like a lamb. The plantons rushed up and tied his feet together. Then they tied his hands and feet together. They took the lacings out of his shoes for fear he would use them to strangle himself. They stood him up in an angle between two walls in the cabinot. They left him there for an hour. He was supposed to have been in there all night;but the Surveillant knew that he would have died,for he was almost naked,and vous savez,M’sieu’Jean,it was cold in there. And damp. A fully clothed man would have been dead in the morning. And he was naked...M’sieu’Jean—un géant!”

  —This same petit belge had frequently protested to me that Il est fou,le noir. He is always playing when sensible men try to sleep. The last few hours( which had made of the fou a géant )made of the scoffer a worshipper. Nor did le bras cassé ever from that time forth desert his divinity. If as balayeur he could lay hands on a morceau de pain or de viande,he bore it as before to our beds;but Jean was always called over to partake of the forbidden pleasure.

  As for Jean,one would hardly have recognized him. It was as if the child had fled into the deeps of his soul,never to reappear. Day after day went by,and Jean( instead of courting excitement as before )cloistered himself in solitude;or at most sought the company of B and me and Le Petit Belge for a quiet chat or a cigarette. The morning after the three fights he did not appear in the cour for early promenade along with the rest of us( including The Sheeneys ). In vain did les femmes strain their necks and eyes to find the noir qui était plus fort que six français. And B and I noticed our bed-clothing airing upon the window-sills. When we mounted,Jean was patting and straightening our blankets,looking for the first time in his life guilty of some enormous crime. Nothing however had disappeared. Jean said “Me feeks lits tous les jours.” And every morning he aired and made our beds for us,and we mounted to find him smoothing affectionately some final ruffle,obliterating with enormous solemnity some microscopic crease. We gave him cigarettes when he asked for them( which was almost never )and offered them when we knew he had none or when we saw him borrowing from someone else whom his spirit held in less esteem. Of us he asked no favors. He liked us too well.

  When B went away,Jean was almost as desolate as I.

  After a fortnight later,when the grey dirty snow-slush hid the black filthy world which we saw from our windows,and when people lived in their ill-smelling beds,it came to pass that my particular amis—The Zulu,Jean,Mexique—and I had all the remaining misérables of La Ferté descended at the decree of Caesar Augustus to endure our bi-weekly bain. I remember gazing stupidly at Jean’s chocolate-coloured nakedness as it strode to the tub,a rippling texture of muscular miracle. Tout le monde had baigné( including The Zulu,who tried to escape at the last minute and was nabbed by the planton whose business it was to count heads and see that none escaped the ordeal )and now tout le monde was shivering all together in the anteroom,begging to be allowed to go upstairs and get into bed—when Le Baigneur,Monsieur Richard’s strenuous successor that is,set up a hue and cry that one serviette was lacking. The Fencer was sent for. He entered;heard the case;an
d made a speech. If the guilty party would immediately return the stolen towel,he,the Fencer,would guarantee that party pardon;if not,everyone present should be searched,and the man on whose person the serviette was found va attraper quinze jours de cabinot. This eloquence yielding no results,the Fencer exorted the culprit to act like a man and render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. Nothing happened. Everyone was told to get in single file and make ready to pass out the door. One after one we were searched;but so general was the curiosity that as fast as they were inspected the erstwhile bed-­enthusiasts,myself included,gathered on the sidelines to watch their fellows instead of availing themselves of the opportunity to go upstairs. One after one we came opposite the Fencer,held up our arms,had our pockets run through and our clothing felt over from head to heel,and were exonerated. When Caesar came to Jean,Caesar’s eyes lighted,and Caesar’s hitherto perfunctory proddings and pokings became inspired and methodical. Twice he went over Jean’s entire body,while Jean,his arms raised in a bored gesture,his face completely expressionless,suffered loftily the examination of his person. A third time the desperate Fencer tried;his hands,starting at Jean’s neck,reached the calf of his leg—and stopped. The hands rolled up Jean’s right ­trouser-leg to the knee. They rolled up the underwear on his leg—and there,placed perfectly flat to the skin,appeared the missing serviette. As the Fencer seized it,Jean laughed—the utter laughter of old days—and the onlookers cackled uproariously,while with a broad smile the Fencer proclaimed : “I thought I knew where I should find it.” And he added,more pleased with himself than anyone had ever seen him—“Maintenant,vous pouvez tous monter à la chambre.” We mounted,happy to get back to bed;but none so happy as Jean Le Nègre. It was not that the cabinot threat had failed to materialize—at any minute a planton might call Jean to his punishment : indeed this was what everyone expected. It was that the incident had absolutely removed that inhibition which( from the day when Jean le noir became Jean le géant )had held the child,which was Jean’s soul and destiny,prisoner. From that instant till the day I left him he was the old Jean—joking,fibbing,laughing,and always playing—Jean L’Enfant.

  Pete and Jean

  And I think of Jean Le Nègre....you are something to dream over,Jean;summer and winter( birds and darkness )you go walking into my head;you are a sudden and chocolate-coloured thing,in your hands you have a habit of holding six or eight plantons( which you are about to throw away )and the flesh of your body is like the flesh of a very deep cigar. Which I am still and always quietly smoking : always and still I am inhaling its very fragrant and remarkable muscles. But I doubt if ever I am quite through with you,if ever I will toss you out of my heart into the sawdust of forgetfulness. Kid,Boy,I’d like to tell you : la guerre est finie.

  O yes,Jean : I do not forget,I remember Plenty;the snow’s coming,the snow will throw again a very big and gentle shadow into The Enormous Room and into the eyes of you and me walking always and wonderfully up and down....

  —Boy,Kid,Nigger with the strutting muscles—take me up into your mind once or twice before I die( you know why : just because the eyes of me and you will be full of dirt some day ). Quickly take me up into the bright child of your mind,before we both go suddenly all loose and silly( you know how it will feel ). Take me up( carefully;as if I were a toy )and play carefully with me,once or twice,before I and you go suddenly all limp and foolish. Once or twice before you go into great Jack roses and ivory—(once or twice Boy before we together go wonderfully down into the Big Dirt laughing,bumped with the last darkness ).

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Three Wise Men

  It must have been late in November when la commission arrived. La commission,as I have said,visited La Ferté tous les trois mois. That is to say B and I( by arriving when we did )had just escaped its clutches. I consider this one of the luckiest things in my life.

  La commission arrived one morning,and began working immediately.

  A list was made of les hommes who were to pass la commission,another of les femmes. These lists were given to the planton with the Wooden Hand. In order to avert any delay,those of les hommes whose names fell in the first half of the list were allowed to enjoy the usual stimulating activities afforded by La Ferté’s supreme environment : they were,in fact,confined to The Enormous Room,subject to instant call—moreover they were not called one by one,or as their respective turns came,but in groups of three or four;the idea being that la commission should suffer no smallest annoyance which might be occasioned by loss of time. There were always,in other words,eight or ten men waiting in the upper corridor opposite a disagreeably crisp door,which door belonged to that mysterious room wherein la commission transacted its inestimable affairs. Not more than a couple of yards away ten or eight women waited their turns. Conversation between les hommes and les femmes had been forbidden in the fiercest terms by Monsieur le Directeur : nevertheless conversation spasmodically occurred,thanks to the indulgent nature of the Wooden Hand. The Wooden Hand must have been cuckoo—he looked it. If he wasn’t I am totally at a loss to account for his indulgence.

  B and I spent a morning in The Enormous Room without results,an astonishing acquisition of nervousness excepted. Après la soupe( noon )we were conducted en haut,told to leave our spoons and bread( which we did )and—in company with several others whose names were within a furlong of the last man called—were descended to the corridor. All that afternoon we waited. Also we waited all next morning. We spent our time talking quietly with a buxom pink-cheeked Belgian girl who was in attendance as translator for one of les femmes. This Belgian told us that she was a permanent inhabitant of La Ferté,that she and another femme honnête occupied a room by themselves,that her brothers were at the front in Belgium,that her ability to speak fluently several languages( including English and German )made her invaluable to Messieurs la commission,that she had committed no crime,that she was held as a suspecte,that she was not entirely unhappy. She struck me immediately as being not only intelligent but alive. She questioned us in excellent English as to our offences,and seemed much pleased to discover that we were—to all appearances—innocent of wrong-doing.

  From time to time our subdued conversation was interrupted by admonitions from the amiable Wooden Hand. Twice the door SLAMMED open,and Monsieur le Directeur bounced out frothing at the mouth and threatening everyone with infinite cabinot,on the ground that everyone’s deportment or lack of it was menacing the aplomb of the commissioners. Each time the Black Holster appeared in the background and carried on his master’s bullying until everyone was completely terrified—after which we were left to ourselves and the Wooden Hand once again.

  B and I were allowed by the latter individual—he was that day,at least,an individual and not merely a planton—to peek over his shoulder at the men’s list. The Wooden Hand even went so far as to escort our seditious minds to the nearness of their examination by the simple yet efficient method of placing one of his human fingers opposite the name of him who was( even at that moment )within,submitting to the inexorable justice of le gouvernement français. I cannot honestly say that the discovery of this proximity of ourselves to our respective fates wholly pleased us;yet we were so weary of waiting that it certainly did not wholly terrify us. All in all,I think I have never been so utterly un-at-ease as while waiting for the axe to fall,metaphorically speaking,upon our squawking heads.

  We were still conversing with the Belgian girl when a man came out of the door unsteadily,looking as if he had submitted to several strenuous fittings of a wooden leg upon a stump not quite healed. The Wooden Hand,nodding at B,remarked hurriedly in a low voice:

  “Allez!”

  And B( smiling at La Belge and at me )entered. He was followed by the Wooden Hand,as I suppose for greater security.

  The next twenty minutes or whatever it was were by far the most nerve-wracking which I had as yet experienced. La Belge said to me

  “Il est gentil,votre a
mi”

  and I agreed. And my blood was bombarding the roots of my toes and the summits of my hair.

  After( I need not say )two or three million aeons,B emerged. I had not time to exchange a look with him—let alone a word—for the Wooden Hand said from the doorway

  “Allez,l’autre américain”

  and I entered in more confusion than can easily be imagined;entered the torture chamber,entered the inquisition,entered the tentacles of that sly and beaming polyp,le gouvernement français...

  As I entered I said,half-aloud : The thing is this,to look ’em in the eyes and keep cool whatever happens,not for the fraction of a moment forgetting that they are made of merde,that they are all of them composed entirely of merde—I don’t know how many inquisitors I expected to see;but I guess I was ready for at least fifteen,among them President Poincaré Lui-même. I hummed noiselessly

  “si vous passez par ma vil-le

  n’oubliez pas ma maison:

  on y mang-e de bonne sou-pe Ton Ton Tay-ne;

  faite de merde et les onions,Ton Ton Tayne Ton Ton Ton”

  remembering the fine forgeron of Chevincourt who used to sing this,or something very like it,upon a table.—Entirely for the benefit of les deux américains,who would subsequently render Eats uh lonje wae to Tee-pear-raer-ee,wholly for the gratification of a room-full of what Mr. A. liked to call “them bastards”,alias “dirty” Frenchmen,alias les poilus,les poilus divins...