The Enormous Room E. E. Cummings (snow like ashes TXT) đ
- Author: E. E. Cummings
Book online «The Enormous Room E. E. Cummings (snow like ashes TXT) đ». Author E. E. Cummings
But one dayâ âas I started to inform the readerâ âsomebody and I were catching water, and, in fact, had caught our last load, and were returning with it down the street; when I, who was striding rapidly behind trying to lessen with both hands the impetus of the machine, suddenly tripped and almost fell with surpriseâ â
On the curb of the little unbeautiful street a figure was sitting, a female figure dressed in utterly barbaric pinks and vermilions, having a dark shawl thrown about her shoulders; a positively Arabian face delimited by a bright coif of some tenuous stuff, slender golden hands holding with extraordinary delicacy what appeared to be a baby of not more than three months old; and beside her a black-haired child of perhaps three years and beside this child a girl of fourteen, dressed like the woman in crashing hues, with the most exquisite face I had ever known.
Nom de Dieu, I thought vaguely. Am I or am I not completely asleep? And the man in the shafts craned his neck in stupid amazement, and the planton twirled his moustache and assumed that intrepid look which only a planton (or a gendarme) perfectly knows how to assume in the presence of female beauty.
That night The Wanderer was absent from la soupe, having been called by Apollyon to the latterâs office upon a matter of superior import. Everyone was abuzz with the news. The gypsyâs wife and three children, one a baby at the breast, were outside demanding to be made prisoners. Would the Directeur allow it? They had been told a number of times by plantons to go away, as they sat patiently waiting to be admitted to captivity. No threats, pleas nor arguments had availed. The wife said she was tired of living without her husbandâ âroars of laughter from all the Belgians and most of the Hollanders, I regret to say Pete includedâ âand wanted merely and simply to share his confinement. Moreover, she said, without him she was unable to support his children! and it was better that they should grow up with their father as prisoners than starve to death without him. She would not be moved. The Black Holster told her he would use forceâ âshe answered nothing. Finally she had been admitted pending judgment. Also sprach, highly excited, the balayeur.
âLooks like aâ âhoor,â was the Belgian-Dutch verdict, a verdict which was obviously due to the costume of the lady in question almost as much as to the untemperamental natures sojourning at La FertĂ©. B. and I agreed that she and her children were the most beautiful people we had ever seen, or would ever be likely to see. So la soupe ended, and everybody belched and gasped and trumpeted up to The Enormous Room as usual.
That evening, about six oâclock, I heard a man crying as if his heart were broken. I crossed The Enormous Room. Half-lying on his paillasse, his great beard pouring upon his breast, his face lowered, his entire body shuddering with sobs, lay The Wanderer. Several of the men were about him, standing in attitudes ranging from semi-amusement to stupid sympathy, listening to the anguish whichâ âas from time to time he lifted his majestic headâ âpoured slowly and brokenly from his lips. I sat down beside him. And he told me: âI bought him for six hundred francs, and I sold him for four hundred and fiftyâ ââ ⊠it was not a horse of this race, but of the raceâ (I could not catch the word) âas long as from here to that post. I cried for a quarter of an hour just as if my child were deadâ ââ ⊠and it is seldom I weep over horsesâ âI say: you are going, Jewel, au râoir et bon jour.ââ ââ âŠ
The vain little dancer interrupted about âbroken-down horsesââ ââ ⊠âExcuses doncâ âthis was no disabled horse, such as goes to the frontâ âthese are some horsesâ âpardon, whom you give eat, this, it is colique, that, the other, itâs coliqueâ âthis neverâ âhe could go forty kilometres a day.â ââ âŠâ
One of the strongest men I have seen in my life is crying because he has had to sell his favourite horse. No wonder les hommes in general are not interested. Someone said: âBe of good cheer, Demestre, your wife and kids are well enough.â
âYesâ âthey are not cold; they have a bed like thatâ (a high gesture toward the quilt of many colours on which we were sitting, such a quilt as I have not seen since; a feathery deepness soft to the touch as air in Spring), âwhich is worth three times this of mineâ âbut tu comprends, itâs not hot these morningsââ âthen he dropped his head, and lifted it again, crying, crying.
âEt mes outils, I had manyâ âand my garmentsâ âwhere are they put, oĂčâ âoĂč? Kis! And I had chemisesâ ââ ⊠this is poorâ (looking at himself as a prince might look at his disguise)â ââand like this, thatâ âwhere?â
âSi the wagon is not soldâ ââ ⊠I never will stay here for la durĂ©e de la guerre. Noâ âbahsht! To resume, that is why I need.â ââ âŠâ
(more than upright in the priceless bedâ âthe twice streaming darkness of his beard, his hoarse sweetness of voiceâ âhis immense perfect face and deeply softnesses eyesâ âpouring voice)
âmy wife sat over there, she spoke to No one and bothered Nobodyâ âwhy was my wife taken here and shut up? Had she done anything? There is a wife who fait la putain and turns, to everyone and another, whom I bring another tomorrowâ ââ ⊠but a woman who loves only her husband, who waits for no one but her husbandâ ââ
(the tone bulged, and the eyes together)
ââ âCes cigarettes ne fument pas!â I added an apology, having presented him with the package.
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