The Enormous Room

by E. E. Cummings

Rain did, from time to time, not fall: from time to time a sort of unhealthy almost-light leaked from the large uncrisp corpse of the sky, returning for a moment to our view the ruined landscape. From time to time the eye, travelling carefully with a certain disagreeable suddenly fear no longer distances of air, coldish and sweet, stopped upon the incredible clearness of the desolate, without-motion, Autumn. Awkward and solemn clearness, making louder the unnecessary cries, the hoarse laughter of the invisible harlots in their muddy yard, pointing a cool actual finger at the silly and ferocious group of man-shaped beings huddled in the mud under four or five little trees, came strangely in my own mind pleasantly to suggest the ludicrous and hideous and beautiful antics of the insane. Frequently I would discover so perfect a command over myself as to reduce la promenade easily to a recently invented mechanism; or to the demonstration of a collection of vivid and unlovely toys around and around which, guarding them with impossible heroism, funnily moved purely unreal plantons always absurdly marching, the maimed and stupid dolls of my imagination. Once I was sitting alone on the long beam of silent iron and suddenly had the gradual complete unique experience of death….

It became amazingly cold.

One evening B. and myself and, I think it was the Machine-Fixer, were partaking of the warmth of a bougie hard by and, in fact, between our ambulance beds, when the door opened, a planton entered, and a list of names (none of which we recognized) was hurriedly read off with (as in the case of the last partis, including The Wanderer and Surplice) the admonition:

“Be ready to leave early to-morrow morning.”

—and the door shut loudly and quickly. Now one of the names which had been called sounded somewhat like “Broom,” and a strange inquietude seized us on this account. Could it possibly have been “B.”? We made inquiries of certain of our friends who had been nearer the planton than ourselves. We were told that Pete and The Trick Raincoat and The Fighting Sheeney and Rockyfeller were leaving—about “B.” nobody was able to enlighten us. Not that opinions in this matter were lacking. There were plenty of opinions—but they contradicted each other to a painful extent. Les hommes were in fact about equally divided; half considering that the occult sound had been intended for “B.,” half that the somewhat asthmatic planton had unwittingly uttered a spontaneous grunt or sigh, which sigh or grunt we had mistaken for a proper noun. Our uncertainty was augmented by the confusion emanating from a particular corner of The Enormous Room, in which corner The Fighting Sheeney was haranguing a group of spectators on the pregnant topic: What I won’t do to Précigne when I get there. In deep converse with Bathhouse John we beheld the very same youth who, some time since, had drifted to a place beside me at la soupe—Pete The Ghost, white and determined, blond and fragile: Pete the Shadow….

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 B.

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.