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
âGoodbye, Johnny; I no for-get you,â
with a crazy old fellow who somehow or other has got inside B.âs tunic and is gesticulating and crying out and laughing; with a frank-eyed boy who claps me on the back and says:
âGoodbye and good luck tâyouâ
(is he The Young Skipper, by any chance?); with a lot of hungry wretched beautiful peopleâ âI have given my bed to The Zulu, by Jove! and The Zulu is even now standing guard over it, and his friend The Young Pole has given me the address of âmon ami,â and there are tears in The Young Poleâs eyes, and I seem to be amazingly tall and altogether tearlessâ âand this is the nice Norwegian, who got drunk at Bordeaux and stole three (or four was it?) cans of sardinesâ ââ ⊠and now I feel before me someone who also has tears in his eyes, someone who is in fact crying, someone whom I feel to be very strong and young as he hugs me quietly in his firm, alert arms, kissing me on both cheeks and on the lips.â ââ âŠ
âGoo-bye, boy!â
âO goodbye, goodbye, I am going away, Jean; have a good time, laugh wonderfully when la neige comes.â ââ âŠ
And I am standing somewhere with arms lifted up. âSi vous avez une lettre, sais-tu, il faut dire. For if I find a letter on you it will go hard with the man that gave it to you to take out.â Black. The Black Holster even. Does not examine my baggage. Wonder why? âAllez!â Jeanâs letter to his gonzesse in Paris still safe in my little pocket under my belt. Ha, ha, by God, thatâs a good one on you, you Black Holster, you Very Black Holster. Thatâs a good one. Glad I said goodbye to the cook. Why didnât I give Monsieur Augusteâs little friend, the cordonnier, more than six francs for mending my shoes? He looked so injured. I am a fool, and I am going into the street, and I am going by myself with no planton into the little street of the little city of La FertĂ© MacĂ© which is a little, a very little city in France, where once upon a time I used to catch water for an old man.â ââ âŠ
I have already shaken hands with the cook, and with the cordonnier who has beautifully mended my shoes. I am saying goodbye to les deux balayeurs. I am shaking hands with the little (the very little) Machine-Fixer again. I have again given him a franc and I have given Garibaldi a franc. We had a drink a moment ago on me. The tavern is just opposite the gare, where there will soon be a train. I will get upon the soonness of the train and ride into the now of Paris. No, I must change at a station called Briouse did you say, Goodbye, mes amis, et bonne chance! They disappear, pulling and pushing a cart les deux balayeursâ ââ ⊠de mes couillesâ ââ ⊠by Jove what a tin noise is coming, see the wooden engineer, he makes a funny gesture utterly composed (composed silently and entirely) of merde. Merde! Merde. A wee tiny absurd whistle coming from nowhere, from outside of me. Two men opposite. Jolt. A few houses, a fence, a wall, a bit of neige float foolishly by and through a window. These gentlemen in my compartment do not seem to know that La MisĂšre exists. They are talking politics. Thinking that I donât understand. By Jesus, thatâs a good one. âPardon me, gentlemen, but does one change at the next station for Paris?â Surprised. I thought so. âYes, Monsieur, the next station.â By Hell I surprised somebody.â ââ âŠ
Who are a million, a trillion, a nonillion young men? All are standing. I am standing. We are wedged in and on and over and under each other. Sardines. Knew a man once who was arrested for stealing sardines. I, sardine, look at three sardines, at three million sardines, at a carful of sardines. How did I get here? Oh yes of course. Briouse. Horrible name âBriouse.â Made a bluff at riding deuxiĂšme classe on a troisiĂšme classe ticket bought for me by les deux balayeurs. Gentleman in the compartment talked French with me till conductor appeared. âTickets, gentlemen?â I extended mine dumbly. He gave me a look. âHow? This is third class!â I looked intelligently ignorant. âIl ne comprend pas françaisâ says the gentleman. âAh!â says the conductor, âtease ease eye-ee thoorde claz tea-keat. You air een tea say-coend claz. You weel go ean-too tea thoorde claz weal you yes pleace at once?â So I got stung after all. Third is more amusing certainly, though goddamn hot with these sardines, including myself of course. O yes of course. Poilus en permission. Very old some. Others mere kids. Once saw a planton who never saw a razor. Yet he was rĂ©formĂ©. Câest la guerre. Several of us get off and stretch at a little tank-town-station. Engine thumping up front somewhere in the darkness. Wait. They get their bidons filled. Wish I had a bidon, a dis-donc bidon nâest-ce pas. Faut pas tâen faire, who sang or said that?
Pee-p.â ââ âŠ
Weâre off.
I am almost asleep. Or myself. Whatâs the matter here? Sardines writhing about, cut it out, no room for that sort of thing. Jolt.
âParis.â
Morning. Morning in Paris. I found my bed full of fleas this morning, and I couldnât catch the fleas, though I tried hard because I was ashamed that anyone should find fleas in my bed which is at the Hotel des Saints PĂšres
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