The Enormous Room

by E. E. Cummings

Of all Jean’s extraordinary selves, the moral one was at once the most rare and most unreasonable. In the matter of les femmes he could hardly have been accused by his bitterest enemy of being a Puritan. Yet the Puritan streak came out one day, in a discussion which lasted for several hours. Jean as in the case of France, spoke in dogma. His contention was very simple: “The woman who smokes is not a woman.” He defended it hotly against the attacks of all the nations represented; in vain did Belgian and Hollander, Russian and Pole, Spaniard and Alsatian, charge and counter-charge—Jean remained unshaken. A woman could do anything but smoke—if she smoked she ceased automatically to be a woman and became something unspeakable. As Jean was at this time sitting alternately on B.’s bed and mine, and as the alternations became increasingly frequent as the discussion waxed hotter, we were not sorry when the planton’s shout “A la promenade les hommes!” scattered the opposing warriors. Then up leaped Jean (who had almost come to blows innumerable times) and rushed laughing to the door, having already forgotten the whole thing.

Now we come to the story of Jean’s undoing, and may the gods which made Jean le Nègre give me grace to tell it as it was.

The trouble started with Lulu. One afternoon, shortly after the telephoning, Jean was sick at heart and couldn’t be induced either to leave his couch or to utter a word. Everyone guessed the reason—Lulu had left for another camp that morning. The planton told Jean to come down with the rest and get soupe. No answer. Was Jean sick? “Oui, me seek.” And steadfastly he refused to eat, till the disgusted planton gave it up and locked Jean in alone. When we ascended after la soupe we found Jean as we had left him, stretched on his couch, big tears on his cheeks. I asked him if I could do anything for him; he shook his head. We offered him cigarettes—no, he did not wish to smoke. As B. and I went away we heard him moaning to himself “Jawnee no see LooLoo no more.” With the exception of ourselves, the inhabitants of La Ferté Macé took Jean’s desolation as a great joke. Shouts of Lulu! rent the welkin on all sides. Jean stood it for an hour; then he leaped up, furious; and demanded (confronting the man from whose lips the cry had last issued)—“Feeneesh LooLoo?” The latter coolly referred him to the man next to him; he in turn to someone else; and round and round the room Jean stalked, seeking the offender, followed by louder and louder shouts of Lulu! and Jawnee! the authors of which (so soon as he challenged them) denied with innocent faces their guilt and recommended that Jean look closer next time. At last Jean took to his couch in utter misery and disgust. The rest of les hommes descended as usual for the promenade—not so Jean. He ate nothing for supper. That evening not a sound issued from his bed.

Next morning he awoke with a broad grin, and to the salutations of Lulu! replied, laughing heartily at himself “FEENEESH Loo Loo.” Upon which the tormentors (finding in him no longer a victim) desisted; and things resumed their normal course. If an occasional Lulu! upraised itself, Jean merely laughed, and repeated (with a wave of his arm) “FEENEESH.” Finished Lulu seemed to be.

But un jour I had remained upstairs during the promenade, both because I wanted to write and because the weather was worse than usual. Ordinarily, no matter how deep the mud in the cour, Jean and I would trot back and forth, resting from time to time under the little shelter out of the drizzle, talking of all things under the sun. I remember on one occasion we were the only ones to brave the rain and slough—Jean in paper-thin soled slippers (which he had recently succeeded in drawing from the Gestionnaire) and I in my huge sabots—hurrying back and forth with the rain pouring on us, and he very proud. On this day, however, I refused the challenge of the mud.

The promenaders had been singularly noisy, I thought. Now they were mounting to the room making a truly tremendous racket. No sooner were the doors opened than in rushed half a dozen frenzied friends, who began telling me all at once about a terrific thing which my friend the noir had just done. It seems that The Trick Raincoat had pulled at Jean’s handkerchief (Lulu’s gift in other days) which Jean wore always conspicuously in his outside breast pocket; that Jean had taken the Raincoat’s head in his two hands, held it steady, abased his own head, and rammed the helpless T.R. as a bull would do—the impact of Jean’s head upon the other’s nose causing that well-known feature to occupy a new position in the neighbourhood of the right ear. B. corroborated this description, adding the Raincoat’s nose was broken and that everyone was down on Jean for fighting in an unsportsmanlike way. I found Jean still very angry, and moreover very hurt because everyone was now shunning him. I told him that I personally was glad of what he’d done; but nothing would cheer him up. The T.R. now entered, very terrible to see, having been patched up by Monsieur Richard with copious plasters. His nose was not broken, he said thickly, but only bent. He hinted darkly of trouble in store for le noir; and received the commiserations of everyone present except Mexique, The Zulu, B. and me.

The Zulu, I remember, pointed to his own nose (which was not unimportant), then to Jean, and made a moue of excruciating anguish, and winked audibly.

Jean’s spirit was broken. The well-nigh unanimous verdict against him had convinced his minutely sensitive soul that it had done wrong. He lay quietly, and would say nothing to anyone.

Some time after the soup, about eight o’clock, the Fighting Sheeney and The Trick Raincoat suddenly set upon Jean le Nègre à propos of nothing; and began pommelling him cruelly. The conscience-stricken pillar of beautiful muscle—who could have easily killed both his assailants at one blow—not only offered no reciprocatory violence but refused even to defend himself. Unresistingly, wincing with pain, his arms mechanically raised and his head bent, he was battered frightfully to the window by his bed, thence into the corner (upsetting the stool in the pissoir), thence along the wall to the door. As the punishment increased he cried out like a child: “Laissez-moi tranquille!”—again and again; and in his voice the insane element gained rapidly. Finally, shrieking in agony, he rushed to the nearest window; and while the Sheeneys together pommelled him yelled for help to the planton beneath.—

The unparalleled consternation and applause produced by this one-sided battle had long since alarmed the authorities. I was still trying to break through the five-deep ring of spectators (among whom was The Messenger Boy, who advised me to desist and got a piece of advice in return)—when with a tremendous crash open burst the door; and in stepped four plantons with drawn revolvers, looking frightened to death, followed by the Surveillant who carried a sort of baton and was crying faintly: “Qu’est-ce que c’est!”