The Enormous Room

by E. E. Cummings

In this chapter I shall pretend briefly to describe certain aspects and attributes of an IS. Which IS we have called The Zulu, who Himself intrinsically and indubitably escapes analysis. Allons!

Let me first describe a Sunday morning when we lifted our heads to the fight of the stove-pipes.

I was awakened by a roar, a human roar, a roar such as only a Hollander can make when a Hollander is honestly angry. As I rose from the domain of the subconscious, the idea that the roar belonged to Bill The Hollander became conviction. Bill The Hollander, alias America Lakes, slept next to The Young Pole (by whom I refer to that young stupid-looking farmer with that peaches-and-cream complexion and those black puttees who had formed the rear rank, with the aid of The Zulu Himself, upon the arrival of Babysnatcher, Bill, Box, Zulu, and Young Pole aforesaid). Now this same Young Pole was a case. Insufferably vain and self-confident was he. Monsieur Auguste palliated most of his conceited offensiveness on the ground that he was un garçon; we on the ground that he was obviously and unmistakably The Zulu’s friend. This Young Pole, I remember, had me design upon the wall over his paillasse (shortly after his arrival) a virile soldat clutching a somewhat dubious flag—I made the latter from descriptions furnished by Monsieur Auguste and The Young Pole himself—intended, I may add, to be the flag of Poland. Underneath which beautiful picture I was instructed to perpetrate the flourishing inscription

“Vive la Pologne”

which I did to the best of my limited ability and for Monsieur Auguste’s sake. No sooner was the photographie complete than The Young Pole, patriotically elated, set out to demonstrate the superiority of his race and nation by making himself obnoxious. I will give him this credit: he was pas méchant, he was, in fact, a stupid boy. The Fighting Sheeney temporarily took him down a peg by flooring him in the nightly “Boxe” which The Fighting Sheeney instituted immediately upon the arrival of The Trick Raincoat—a previous acquaintance of The Sheeney’s at La Santé; the similarity of occupations (or non-occupation; I refer to the profession of pimp) having cemented a friendship between these two. But, for all that The Young Pole’s Sunday-best clothes were covered with filth, and for all that his polished puttees were soiled and scratched by the splintery floor of The Enormous Room (he having rolled well off the blanket upon which the wrestling was supposed to occur), his spirit was dashed but for the moment. He set about cleaning and polishing himself, combing his hair, smoothing his cap—and was as cocky as ever next morning. In fact I think he was cockier; for he took to guying Bill The Hollander in French, with which tongue Bill was only faintly familiar and of which, consequently, he was doubly suspicious. As The Young Pole lay in bed of an evening after lumières éteintes, he would guy his somewhat massive neighbour in a childish almost girlish voice, shouting with laughter when The Triangle rose on one arm and volleyed Dutch at him, pausing whenever The Triangle’s good-nature threatened to approach the breaking point, resuming after a minute or two when The Triangle appeared to be on the point of falling into the arms of Morpheus. This sort of blague had gone on for several nights without dangerous results. It was, however, inevitable that sooner or later something would happen—and as we lifted our heads on this particular Sunday morn we were not surprised to see The Hollander himself standing over The Young Pole, with clenched paws, wringing shoulders, and an apocalyptic face whiter than Death’s horse.

The Young Pole seemed incapable of realising that the climax had come. He lay on his back, cringing a little and laughing foolishly. The Zulu (who slept next to him on our side) had, apparently, just lighted a cigarette which projected upward from a slender holder. The Zulu’s face was as always absolutely expressionless. His chin, with a goodly growth of beard, protruded tranquilly from the blanket which concealed the rest of him with the exception of his feet—feet which were ensconced in large, somewhat clumsy, leather boots. As The Zulu wore no socks, the Xs of the rawhide lacings on his bare flesh (blue, of course, with cold) presented a rather fascinating design. The Zulu was, to all intents and purposes, gazing at the ceiling….

Bill The Hollander, clad only in his shirt, his long lean muscled legs planted far apart, shook one fist after another at the recumbent Young Pole, thundering (curiously enough in English):

“Come on you Gottverdummer son-of-a-bitch of a Polak bastard and fight! Get up out o’ there you Polak hoor and I’ll kill you, you Gottverdummer bastard you! I stood enough o’ your Gottverdummer nonsense you Gottverdummer” etc.

As Bill The Hollander’s thunder crescendoed steadily, cramming the utmost corners of The Enormous Room with Gottverdummers which echoingly telescoped one another, producing a dim huge shaggy mass of vocal anger, The Young Pole began to laugh less and less; began to plead and excuse and palliate and demonstrate—and all the while the triangular tower in its naked legs and its palpitating chemise brandished its vast fists nearer and nearer, its ghastly yellow lips hurling cumulative volumes of rhythmic profanity, its blue eyes snapping like fire-crackers, its enormous hairy chest heaving and tumbling like a monstrous hunk of sea-weed, its flat soiled feet curling and uncurling their ten sour mutilated toes.

The Zulu puffed gently as he lay.