The Enormous Room by e. e. cummings

Author:e. e. cummings
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780871402523
Publisher: Liveright
Published: 2014-10-20T00:00:00+00:00

The Lobster

A great cry “OUI!JE VIENS!” floated up—every single noise dropped—Rockyfeller shot out his hand for the candle,seized it in terror,blew it out as if blowing it out were the last thing he would do in this life—and The Enormous Room hung silent;enormously dark,enormously expectant...

BANG! Open flew the door. “Alors,qui m’appelle? Qu’est-ce qu’on fout ici.” And the Black Holster,revolver in hand,flashed his torch into the inky stillness of the chambre. Behind him stood two plantons white with fear;their trembling hands clutching revolvers,the barrels of which shook ludicrously.

“C’est moi,plan-ton!”—Monsieur Auguste explained that no one could sleep because of the noise,and that the noise was because “ce monsieur là” would not extinguish his bougie when everyone wanted to sleep. The Black Holster turned to the room at large and roared : “You children of Merde don’t let this happen again or I’ll fix you every one of you.”—Then he asked if anyone wanted to dispute this assertion( he brandishing his revolver the while )and was answered by peaceful snorings. Then he said by X Y and Z he’d fix the noisemakers in the morning and fix them good—and looked for approbation to his trembling assistants. Then he swore twenty or thirty times for luck,turned,and thundered out on the heels of his fleeing confreres who almost tripped over each other in their haste to escape from The Enormous Room. Never have I seen a greater exhibition of bravery than was afforded by the Black Holster,revolver in hand,holding at bay the snoring and weaponless inhabitants of The Enormous Room. Vive les plantons. He should have been a gendarme.

Of course Rockyfeller,having copiously tipped the officials of La Ferté upon his arrival,received no slightest censure nor any hint of punishment for his deliberate breaking of an established rule—a rule for the breaking of which any one of the common scum( e.g. thank God,myself )would have got cabinot de suite. No indeed. Several of les hommes,however,got pain sec—not because they had been caught in an act of vociferous protestation by the Black Holster,which they had not—but just on principle,as a warning to the rest of us and to teach us a wholesome respect for( one must assume )law and order. One and all,they heartily agreed that it was worth it. Everyone knew,of course,that the Spy had peached. For,by Jove,even in The Enormous Room there was a man who earned certain privileges and acquired a complete immunity from punishments by squealing on his fellow-sufferers at each and every opportunity. A really ugly person,with a hard knuckling face and treacherous hands,whose daughter lived downstairs in a separate room apart from les putains( against which “dirty” “filthy” “whores” he could not say enough—“Hi’d rather die than ’ave my daughter with them stinkin’ ’ores” remarked once to me this strictly moral man,in Cockney English )and whose daughter( aged thirteen )was generally supposed to serve the Directeur in a pleasurable capacity. One did not need to be warned against the Spy( as both B and I were warned,upon our arrival )—a single look at that phiz was enough for anyone partially either intelligent or sensitive. This phiz or mug had,then,squealed.

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