The Enormous Room E. E. Cummings (snow like ashes TXT) š
- Author: E. E. Cummings
Book online Ā«The Enormous Room E. E. Cummings (snow like ashes TXT) šĀ». Author E. E. Cummings
I was still answering questions, when a gnarled voice suddenly threatened, over our head: āBroom? You. Everybody. Clean. Surveillant says. Not me, no?āā āI started, expecting to see a parrot.
It was the silhouette.
A vulture-like figure stood before me, a demoralised broom clenched in one claw or fist: it had lean legs cased in shabby trousers, muscular shoulders covered with a rough shirt open at the neck, knotted arms, and a coarse insane face crammed beneath the visor of a cap. The face consisted of a rapid nose, droopy moustache, ferocious watery small eyes, a pugnacious chin, and sunken cheeks hideously smiling. There was something in the ensemble at once brutal and ridiculous, vigorous and pathetic.
Again I had not time to speak; for the hooligan in azure trousers hurled his butt at the bearās feet, exclaiming: āThereās another for you, Polak!āā ājumped from the bed, seized the broom, and poured upon the vulture a torrent of Gott-ver-dummers, to which the latter replied copiously and in kind. Then the red face bent within a few inches of my own, and for the first time I saw that it had recently been youngā āāI say I do your sweep for youā it translated pleasantly. I thanked it; and the vulture, exclaiming: āGood. Good. Not me. Surveillant. Harree does it for everybody. Hee, heeāā ārushed off, followed by Harree and the tassel. Out of the corner of my eye I watched the tall, ludicrous, extraordinary, almost proud figure of the bear stoop with quiet dignity, the musical fingers close with a singular delicacy upon the moist indescribable eighth-of-an-inch of tobacco.
I did not know that this was a Delectable Mountain.ā āā ā¦
The clean-shaven man (who appeared to have been completely won over by his smoke), and the fluffy gnome, who had completed the arrangement of my paillasse, now entered into conversation with myself and B.; the clean-shaven one seating himself in Harreeās stead, the gnome declining (on the grounds that the bed was already sufficiently loaded) to occupy the place left vacant by the tasselās exit, and leaning against the drab, sweating, poisonous wall. He managed, however, to call our attention to the shelf at B.ās head which he himself had constructed, and promised me a similar luxury toute de suite. He was a Russian, and had a wife and gosse in Paris. āMy name is Monsieur Au-guste, at your serviceāā āand his gentle pale eyes sparkled. The clean-shaven talked distinct and absolutely perfect English. His name was Fritz. He was a Norwegian, a stoker on a ship. āYou mustnāt mind that feller that wanted you to sweep. Heās crazy. They call him John the Baigneur. He used to be the bathman. Now heās MaĆ®tre de Chambre. They wanted me to take itā āI said, āFā āøŗ it, I donāt want it.ā Let him have it. Thatās no kind of a job, everyone complaining and on top of you morning till night. āLet them that wants the job take itā I said. That crazy Dutchmanās been here for two years. They told him to get out and he wouldnāt, he was too fond of the boozeā (I jumped at the slang) āand the girls. They took it away from John and give it to that little Ree-shar feller, that doctor. That was a swell job he had, baigneur, too. All the bloody liquor you can drink and a girl every time you want one. He aināt never had a girl in his life, that Ree-shar feller.ā His laughter was hard, clear, cynical. āThat Pompom, the little Belgian feller was just here, heās a great one for the girls. He and Harree. Always getting cabinot. I got it twice myself since I been here.ā
All this time the enormous room was filling gradually with dirty light. In the further end six figures were brooming furiously, yelling to each other in the dust like demons. A seventh, Harree, was loping to and fro splashing water from a pail and enveloping everything and everybody in a ponderous and blasphemous fog of Gott-ver-dummers. Along three sides (with the exception, that is, of the nearer end, which boasted the sole door) were laid, with their lengths at right angles to the wall, at intervals of three or four feet, something like forty paillasses. On each, with half a dozen exceptions (where the occupants had not yet finished their coffee or were on duty for the corvƩe) lay the headless body of a man smothered in its blanket, only the boots showing.
The demons were working towards our end of the room. Harree had got his broom and was assisting. Nearer and nearer they came; converging, they united their separate heaps of filth in
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