The Enormous Room. E. E. Cummings

very idealized, full of unfear. After this, a masterful crudity—a doughnut-bodied rider, sliding with fearful rapidity down the acute backbone of a totally transparent sausage-shaped horse, who was moving simultaneously in five directions. The rider had a bored expression as he supported the stiff reins in one fist. His further leg assisted in his flight. He wore a German soldier's cap and was smoking. I made up my mind to copy the horse and rider at once, so soon, that is, as I should have obtained a pencil.

      Last, I found a drawing surrounded by a scrolled motto. The drawing was a potted plant with four blossoms. The four blossoms were elaborately dead. Their death was drawn with a fearful care. An obscure deliberation was exposed in the depiction of their drooping petals. The pot tottered very crookedly on a sort of table, as near as I could see. All around ran a funereal scroll. I read: "My farewell to my beloved wife, Gaby." A fierce hand, totally distinct from the former, wrote in proud letters above: "Punished for desertion. Six years of prison—military degradation."

      It must have been five o'clock. Steps. A vast cluttering of the exterior of the door—by whom? Whang opens the door. Turnkey-creature extending a piece of chocolate with extreme and surly caution. I say "Merci" and seize chocolate. Klang shuts the door.

      I am lying on my back, the twilight does mistily bluish miracles through the slit over the whang-klang. I can just see leaves, meaning tree.

      Then from the left and way off, faintly, broke a smooth whistle, cool like a peeled willow-branch, and I found myself listening to an air from Petroushka, Petroushka, which we saw in Paris at the Châtelet, mon ami et moi. …

      The voice stopped in the middle—and I finished the air. This code continued for a half-hour.

      It was dark.

      I had laid a piece of my piece of chocolate on the window-sill. As I lay on my back a little silhouette came along the sill and ate that piece of a piece, taking something like four minutes to do so. He then looked at me, I then smiled at him, and we parted, each happier than before.

      My cellule was cool, and I fell asleep easily.

      (Thinking of Paris.)

      … Awakened by a conversation whose vibrations I clearly felt through the left wall:

      Turnkey-creature: "What?"

      A moldly moldering molish voice, suggesting putrifying tracts and orifices, answers with a cob-webbish patience so far beyond despair as to be indescribable: "La soupe."

      "Well, the soup, I just gave it to you, Monsieur Savy."

      "Must have a little something else. My money is chez le directeur. Please take my money which is chez le directeur and give me anything else."

      "All right, the next time I come to see you to-day I'll bring you a salad, a nice salad, Monsieur."

      "Thank you, Monsieur," the voice moldered.

      Klang!!—and says the turnkey-creature to somebody else; while turning

       the lock of Monsieur Savy's door; taking pains to raise his voice so that

       Monsieur Savy will not miss a single word through the slit over Monsieur

       Savy's whang-klang:

      "That old fool! Always asks for things. When supposest thou will he realize that he's never going to get anything?"

      Grubbing at my door. Whang!

      The faces stood in the doorway, looking me down. The expression of the faces identically turnkeyish, i.e., stupidly gloating, ponderously and imperturbably tickled. Look who's here, who let that in?

      The right body collapsed sufficiently to deposit a bowl just inside.

      I smiled and said: "Good morning, sirs. The can stinks."

      They did not smile and said: "Naturally." I smiled and said: "Please give me a pencil. I want to pass the time." They did not smile and said: "Directly."

      I smiled and said: "I want some water, if you please."

      They shut the door, saying "Later."

      Klang and footsteps.

      I contemplate the bowl which contemplates me. A glaze of greenish grease seals the mystery of its content, I induce two fingers to penetrate the seal. They bring me up a flat sliver of cabbage and a large, hard, thoughtful, solemn, uncooked bean. To pour the water off (it is warmish and sticky) without committing a nuisance is to lift the cover off Ça Pue. I did.

      Thus leaving beans and cabbage-slivers. Which I ate hurryingly, fearing a ventral misgiving.

      I pass a lot of time cursing myself about the pencil, looking at my walls, my unique interior.

      Suddenly I realize the indisputable grip of nature's humorous hand. One evidently stands on Ça Pue in such cases. Having finished, panting with stink, I tumble on the bed and consider my next move.

      The straw will do. Ouch, but it's Dirty.—Several hours elapse. …

      Steps and fumble. Klang. Repetition of promise to Monsieur Savy, etc.

      Turnkeyish and turnkeyish. Identical expression. One body collapses sufficiently to deposit a hunk of bread and a piece of water.

      "Give your bowl."

      I gave it, smiled and said: "Well, how about that pencil?"

      "Pencil?" T-c looked at T-c.

      They recited then the following word: "To-morrow." Klang and footsteps.

      So I took matches, burnt, and with just 60 of them wrote the first stanza of a ballade. To-morrow I will write the second. Day after to-morrow the third. Next day the refrain. After—oh, well.

      My whistling of Petroushka brought no response this evening.

      So I climbed on Ça Pue, whom I now regarded with complete friendliness; the new moon was unclosing sticky wings in dusk, a far noise from near things.

      I sang a song the "dirty Frenchmen" taught us, mon ami et moi. The song says Bon soir, Madame de la Lune. … I did not sing out loud, simply because the moon was like a mademoiselle, and I did not want to offend the moon. My friends: the silhouette and la lune, not counting Ça Pue, whom I regarded almost as a part of me.

      Then I lay down, and heard (but could not see the silhouette eat something or somebody) … and saw, but could not hear, the incense of Ça Pue mount gingerly upon the taking air of twilight.

      The next day.—Promise to M. Savy. Whang. "My pencil?"—"You don't need any pencil, you're going away."—"When?"—"Directly."—"How directly?"—"In an hour or two: your friend has already gone before. Get ready."

      Klang and steps.

      Everyone very sore about me. I should worry, however.

      One hour, I guess.

      Steps. Sudden throwing of door open. Pause.

      "Come out, American."

      As I came out, toting bed and bed-roll, I remarked: "I'm sorry to leave you," which made T-c furiously to masticate his insignificant moustache.

      Escorted to bureau, where I am turned over to a very fat gendarme.

      "This is the American." The v-f-g eyed me, and I read my sins in his porklike orbs. "Hurry, we have to walk," he ventured sullenly and commandingly.

      Himself stooped puffingly to pick up the segregated sack. And I placed my bed, bed-roll, blankets and ample pélisse under one arm, my 150-odd pound duffle-bag under the other; then I paused. Then I said, "Where's my cane?"

      The v-f-g hereat had a sort of fit, which perfectly became him.

      I repeated gently: "When I came to the bureau I had a cane."

      "I don't give a damn