The Enormous Room Read online

  I forget who,but someone—I think it was the little Machine-Fixer—established the truth that an American was to leave the next morning. That,moreover,said American’s name was Brun.

  Whereupon B and I became extraordinarily busy.

  The Zulu and Jean Le Nègre,upon learning that B was among the partis,came over to our beds and sat down without uttering a word. The former,through a certain shy orchestration of silence,conveyed effortlessly and perfectly his sorrow at the departure;the latter,by his bowed head and a certain very delicate restraint manifested in the wholly exquisite poise of his firm alert body,uttered at least a universe of grief.

  The little Machine-Fixer was extremely indignant;not only that his friend was going to a den of thieves and ruffians,but that his friend was leaving in such company as that of cette crapule( meaning Rockyfeller )and les deux mangeurs de blanc( to wit,The Trick Raincoat and The Fighting Sheeney ). “C’est malheureux” he repeated over and over,wagging his poor little head in rage and despair—“it’s no place for a young man who has done no wrong,to be shut up with pimps and cutthroats,pour la durée de la guerre : le gouvernement français a bien fait!” and he brushed a tear out of his eye with a desperate rapid brittle gesture...But what angered the Machine-Fixer most was that B and I were about to be separated—“M’sieu’Jean”( touching me gently on the knee )“they have no hearts,la commission;they are not simply unjust,they are cruel,savez-vous? Men are not like these;they are not men,they are Name of God I don’t know what,they are worse than the animals;and they pretend to Justice”( shivering from top to toe with an indescribable sneer )“Justice! My God,Justice!”

  All of which,somehow or other,did not exactly cheer us.

  And,the packing completed,we drank together for The Last Time. The Zulu and Jean Le Nègre and the Machine-Fixer and B and I—and Pete The Shadow drifted over,whiter than I think I ever saw him,and said simply to me

  “I’ll take care o’your friend,Johnny”

  ....and then at last it was lumières éteintes;and les deux améri­cains lay in their beds in the cold rotten darkness,talking in low voices of the past,of Pétrouchka,of Paris,of that brilliant and extraordinary and impossible something : Life.

  Morning. Whitish. Inevitable. Deathly cold.

  There was a great deal of hurry and bustle in The Enormous Room. People were rushing hither and thither in the heavy half-darkness. People were saying good-bye to people. Saying good-bye to friends. Saying good-bye to themselves. We lay and sipped the black evil dull certainly not coffee;lay on our beds,dressed,shuddering with cold,waiting. Waiting. Several of les hommes whom we scarcely knew came up to B and shook hands with him and said good-luck and good-bye. The darkness was going rapidly out of the dull black evil stinking air. B suddenly realized that he had no gift for The Zulu;he asked a fine Norwegian to whom he had given his leather belt if he,the Norwegian,would mind giving it back because there was a very dear friend who had been forgotten. The Norwegian,with a pleasant smile,took off the belt and said “Certainly”...he had been arrested at Bordeaux,where he came ashore from his ship,for stealing three cans of sardines when he was drunk...a very great and dangerous criminal...he said “Certainly” and gave B a pleasant smile,the pleasantest smile in the world. B wrote his own address and name in the inside of the belt,explained in French to The Young Pole that anytime The Zulu wanted to reach him all he had to do was to consult the belt;The Young Pole translated;The Zulu nodded;the Norwegian smiled appreciatively;The Zulu received the belt with a gesture to which words cannot do the faintest justice—

  A planton was standing in The Enormous Room,a planton roaring and cursing and crying “Dépêchez-vous,ceux qui vont partir.”—B shook hands with Jean and Mexique and the Machine-Fixer and The Young Skipper,and Bathhouse John( to whom he had given his ambulance tunic,and who was crazy-proud in consequence )and the Norwegian and the Washing-Machine Man and The Hat and many of les hommes whom we scarcely knew.—The Black Holster was roaring

  “Allez,nom de dieu,l’américain!”

  I went down the room with B and Pete,and shook hands with both at the door. The other parties,alias The Trick Raincoat and The Fighting Sheeney,were already on the way downstairs. The Black Holster cursed us and me in particular and slammed the door angrily in my face—

  through the little peephole I caught a glimpse of them,entering the street. I went to my bed and lay down quietly in my great pelisse. The clamor and filth of the room brightened and became distant and faded. I heard the voice of the jolly Alsatian saying

  “Courage,mon ami,votre camarade n’est pas mort;vous le verrez plus tard”

  and after that,nothing. In front of and on and within my eyes lived suddenly a violent and gentle and dark silence.

  The Three Wise Men had done their work. But wisdom cannot rest...

  Probably at that very moment they were holding their court in another La Ferté committing to incomparable anguish some few merely perfectly wretched criminals : little and tall,tremulous and brave—all of them white and speechless,all of them with tight bluish lips and large whispering eyes,all of them with fingers weary and mutilated and extraordinarily old...desperate fingers,closing,to feel the final luke-warm fragment of life glide neatly and softly into forgetfulness.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I Say Good-Bye to La Misère

  To convince the reader that this history is mere fiction( and rather vulgarly violent fiction at that )nothing perhaps is needed save that ancient standby of sob-story writers and thrill-artists alike—the Happy Ending. As a matter of fact,it makes not the smallest difference to me whether anyone who has thus far participated in my travels does or does not believe that they and I are( as that mysterious animal “the public” would say )“real”. I do however very strenuously object to the assumption,on the part of anyone,that the heading of this my final chapter stands for anything in the nature of happiness. In the course of recalling( in God knows a rather clumsy and perfectly inadequate way )what happened to me between the latter part of August 1917 and the first day of January 1918,I have proved to my own satisfaction( if not to anyone else’s )that I was happier in La Ferté-Macé,with The Delectable Mountains about me,than the very keenest words can pretend to express. I dare say it all comes down to a definition of happiness. And a definition of happiness I most certainly do not intend to attempt;but I can and will say this : to leave La Misère with the knowledge,and worse than that the feeling,that some of the finest people in the world are doomed to remain prisoners thereof for no one knows how long—are doomed to continue,possibly for years and tens of years and all the years which terribly are between them and their deaths,the grey and indivisible Non-existence which without apology you are quitting for Reality—cannot by any stretch of the imagination be conceived as constituting a Happy Ending to a great and personal adventure. That I write this chapter at all is due,purely and simply,to the I dare say unjustified hope on my part that—by recording certain events—it may hurl a little additional light into a very tremendous darkness...

  At the outset let me state that what occurred subsequent to the departure for Précigné of B and Pete and The Sheeneys and Rockyfeller is shrouded in a rather ridiculous indistinctness;due,I have to admit,to the depression which this departure inflicted upon my altogether too human nature. The judgment of the Three Wise Men had—to use a peculiarly vigorous( not to say vital )expression of my own day and time—knocked me for a loop. I spent the days intervening between the separation from “votre camarade” and my somewhat supernatural departure for freedom in attempting to partially straighten myself. When finally I made my exit,the part of me popularly referred to as “mind” was still in a slightly bent if not twisted condition. Not until some weeks of American diet had revolutionized my exterior did my interior completely resume the contours of normality. I am particularly neither ashamed nor proud of this( one might nearly say )mental catastrophe. No more ashamed or proud,in fact,t
han of the infection of three fingers which I carried to America as a little token of La Ferté’s good-will. In the latter case I certainly have no right to boast,even should I find myself so inclined;for B took with him to Précigné a case of what his father,upon B’s arrival in The Home of The Brave,diagnosed as scurvy—which scurvy made my mutilations look like thirty cents or even less. One of my vividest memories of La Ferté consists in a succession of crackling noises associated with the disrobing of my friend. I recall that we appealed to Monsieur Ree-shar together,B in behalf of his scurvy and I in behalf of my hand plus a queer little row of sores,the latter having proceeded to adorn that part of my face which was trying hard to be graced with a mustache. I recall that Monsieur Ree-shar decreed a bain for B,which bain meant immersion in a large tin tub partially filled with not quite luke-warm water. I,on the contrary,obtained a speck of zinc ointment on a minute piece of cotton,and considered myself peculiarly fortunate. Which details cannot possibly offend the reader’s aesthetic sense to a greater degree than have already certain minutiae connected with the sanitary arrangements of the Directeur’s little home for homeless boys and girls—therefore I will not trouble to beg the reader’s pardon;but will proceed with my story proper or improper.

  “Mais qu’est-ce que vous avez” Monsieur le Surveillant demanded,in a tone of profound if kindly astonishment,as I wended my lonely way to la soupe some days after the disappearance of les partis.

  I stood and stared at him very stupidly without answering,having indeed nothing at all to say.

  “But why are you so sad?” he asked.

  “I suppose I miss my friend” I ventured.

  “Mais—mais—” he puffed and panted like a very old and fat person trying to persuade a bicycle to climb a hill—“mais—vous avez de la chance!”

  “I suppose I have” I said without enthusiasm.

  “Mais-mais-parfaitement—vous avez de la chance—uh-ah—uh-ah—parce que—comprenez-vous—votre camarade—uh-ah—a attrapé prison!”

  “Uh-ah” I said wearily.

  “Whereas” continued Monsieur,“you haven’t. You ought to be extraordinarily thankful and particularly happy!”

  “I should rather have gone to prison with my friend” I stated briefly;and went into the dining-room,leaving the Surveillant uh-ahing in nothing short of complete amazement.

  I really believe that my condition worried him,incredible as this may seem. At the time I gave neither an extraordinary nor a particular damn about Monsieur le Surveillant;nor indeed about “l’autre américain”,alias myself. Dimly,through a fog of disinterested inapprehension,I realized that—with the exception of the plantons and of course Apollyon—everyone was trying very hard to help me;that The Zulu,Jean,the Machine-Fixer,Mexique,The Young Skipper,even the Washing-Machine Man( with whom I promenaded frequently when no one else felt like taking the completely unagreeable air )were kind,very kind,kinder than I can possibly say. As for Afrique and the Cook—there was nothing too good for me at this time. I asked the latter’s permission to cut wood,and was not only accepted as a sawyer but encouraged with assurances of the best coffee there was,with real sugar dedans. In the little space outside the cuisine,between the building and la cour,I sawed away of a morning to my great satisfaction;from time to time clumping my saboted way into the Chef’s domain in answer to a subdued signal from Afrique. Of an afternoon I sat with Jean or Mexique or The Zulu on the long beam of silent iron,pondering very carefully nothing at all,replying to their questions or responding to their observations in a highly mechanical manner. I felt myself to be,at last,a doll—taken out occasionally and played with and put back into its house and told to go to sleep...

  One afternoon I was lying on my couch,thinking of the usual Nothing,when a sharp cry sung through The Enormous Room

  “Il tombe de la neige—Noël! Noël!”

  I sat up. The Garde Champêtre was at the nearest window,dancing a little horribly and crying

  “Noël! Noël!”

  I went to another window and looked out. Sure enough. Snow was falling,gradually and wonderfully falling,silently falling through the thick soundless autumn...It seemed to me supremely beautiful,the snow. There was about it something unspeakably crisp and exquisite,something perfect and minute and gentle and fatal...The Garde Champêtre’s cry began a poem in the back of my head,a poem about the snow,a poem in French,beginning Il tombe de la neige,Noël,Noël. I watched the snow. After a long time I returned to my bunk and I lay down,closing my eyes;feeling the snow’s minute and crisp touch falling gently and exquisitely,falling perfectly and suddenly,through the thick soundless autumn of my imagination...

  “L’américain! L’américain!”

  Someone is speaking to me.

  “Le petit belge avec le bras cassé est là-bas,à la porte,il veut parler...”

  I marched the length of the room. The Enormous Room is filled with a new and beautiful darkness,the darkness of the snow outside,falling and falling and falling with the silent and actual gesture which has touched the soundless country of my mind as a child touches a toy it loves...

  Through the locked door I heard a nervous whisper : “Dis à l’américain que je veux parler avec lui”—“Me voici” I said.

  “Put your ear to the key-hole,M’sieu’Jean” said the Machine-Fixer’s voice. The voice of the little Machine-Fixer,tremendously excited. I obey—“Alors. Qu’est-ce que c’est,mon ami?”

  “M’sieu’Jean! Le Directeur va vous appeler tout de suite! You must get ready instantly! Wash and shave,eh? He’s going to call you right away. And don’t forget! Oloron! You will ask to go to Oloron-Sainte-Marie,where you can paint! Oloron-Sainte-Marie,Basses-Pyrenées! N’oubliez pas,M’sieu’Jean! Et dépêchez-vous!”

  “Merci bien,mon ami!”—I remember now. The little Machine-Fixer and I had talked. It seemed that la commission had decided that I was not a criminal,but only a suspect. As a suspect I would be sent to some place in France,any place I wanted to go provided it was not on or near the sea-coast. That was in order that I should not perhaps try to escape from France. The Machine-Fixer had advised me to ask to go to Oloron-Sainte-Marie. I should say that,as a painter,the Pyrenées 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’s 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,counseled 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—“Votre ami est mauvais,très mauvais,SAVEZ-VOUS?” le Directeur shouted.

  I answered quietly “Oui? Je ne le savais 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?”

  “Peut-être” 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 pacifying “Il aime trop son camarade,c’est tout.”—“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 SALAUD!” he snarled at me.