The Enormous Room E. E. Cummings (snow like ashes TXT) đ
- Author: E. E. Cummings
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Women, to him at least, were of two kinds and two kinds only. There were les femmes honnĂȘtes and there were les putains. In La FertĂ©, he informed usâ âand as balayeur he ought to have known whereof he spokeâ âthere were as many as three ladies of the former variety. One of them he talked with often. She told him her story. She was a Russian, of a very fine education, living peacefully in Paris up to the time that she wrote to her relatives a letter containing the following treasonable sentiment:
âJe mâennuie pour les neiges de Russie.â
The letter had been read by the French censor, as had B.âs letter; and her arrest and transference from her home in Paris to La FertĂ© MacĂ© promptly followed. She was as intelligent as she was virtuous and had nothing to do with her frailer sisters, so the Machine-Fixer informed us with a quickly passing flash of joy. Which sisters (his little forehead knotted itself and his big bushy eyebrows plunged together wrathfully) were wicked and indecent and utterly despicable disgraces to their sexâ âand this relentless Joseph fiercely and jerkily related how only the day before he had repulsed the painfully obvious solicitations of a Madame Potiphar by turning his back, like a good Christian, upon temptation and marching out of the room, broom tightly clutched in virtuous hand.
âMâsieu Jeanâ (meaning myself) âsavez-vousââ âwith a terrific gesture which consisted in snapping his thumbnail between his teethâ ââĂa pue!â
Then he added: âAnd what would my wife say to me if I came home to her and presented her with that which this creature had presented to me? They are animals,â cried the little Machine-Fixer; âall they want is a man. They donât care who he is; they want a man. But they wonât get me!â And he warned us to beware.
Especially interesting, not to say valuable, was the Machine-Fixerâs testimony concerning the more or less regular âinspectionsâ (which were held by the very same doctor who had âexaminedâ me in the course of my first day at La FertĂ©) for les femmes; presumably in the interest of public safety. Les femmes, quoth the Machine-Fixer, who had been many times an eyewitness of this proceeding, lined up talking and laughing andâ âcrime of crimesâ âsmoking cigarettes, outside the bureau of M. le MĂ©decin Major. âUne femme entre. Elle se lĂšve les jupes jusquâau menton et se met sur le banc. Le mĂ©decin major la regarde. Il dit de suite âBon. Câest tout.â Elle sort. Une autre entre. La mĂȘme chose. âBon. Câest fini.ââ ââ ⊠Mâsieuâ Jean: prenez garde!â
And he struck a match fiercely on the black, almost square boot which lived on the end of his little worn trouser-leg, bending his small body forward as he did so, and bringing the flame upward in a violent curve. The flame settled on his little black pipe, his cheeks sucked until they must have met, and a slow unwilling noise arose, and with the return of his cheeks a small colorless wisp of possibly smoke came upon the air.â ââThatâs not tobacco. Do you know what it is? Itâs wood! And I sit here smoking wood in my pipe when my wife is sick with worrying.â ââ ⊠Mâsieu! Jeanââ âleaning forward with jaw protruding and a oneness of bristly eyebrows, âCes grands messieurs qui ne foutent pas mal si lâon creve de faim, savez-vous ils croient chacun quâil est Le Bon Dieu Lui-MĂȘme. Et Mâsieuâ Jean, savez-vous, ils sont tousââ âleaning right in my face, the withered hand making a pitiful fist of itselfâ ââils. Sont. Des. Crapules!â
And his ghastly and toylike wizened and minute arm would try to make a pass at their lofty lives. O gouvernement français, I think it was not very clever of you to put this terrible doll in La Ferté; I should have left him in Belgium with his little doll-wife if I had been You; for when governments are found dead there is always a little doll on top of them, pulling and tweaking with his little hands to get back the microscopic knife which sticks firmly in the quiet meat of their hearts.
One day only did I see him happy or nearly happyâ âwhen a Belgian baroness for some reason arrived, and was bowed and fed and wined by the delightfully respectful and perfectly behaved Official Captorsâ ââand I know of her in Belgium, she is a great lady, she is
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