The Enormous Room

by E. E. Cummings

We pricked up our ears.

The balayeur, stuffing a pipe nervously with his tiny thumb said: “You saw the fight 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:

“Monsieur 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 women 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 planton 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. Monsieur Jean— quelque chose.”

I gave him another match. “Merci, Monsieur 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 for 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, Monsieur Jean, it was cold in there. And damp. A fully clothed man would have been dead in the morning. And he was naked…. Monsieur 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 recognised 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 black man who was stronger than six Frenchmen. And B. and I noticed our bed-clothing airing upon the window-sills. When we mounted, Jean was patting and straightening our blankets, and 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 favours. He liked us too well.

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

About 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 and all the remaining miserables of La Ferté descended at the decree of Caesar Augustus to endure our bi-weekly bath. 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 towel was lacking. The Fencer was sent for. He entered; heard the case; and 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 side-lines 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.