The Enormous Room · Chapter 4 (5/6)

Beside him, clumsily keeping the pace but not the step, was a tallish effeminate person whose immaculate funereal suit hung loosely upon an aged and hurrying anatomy. He wore a big black cap on top of his haggard and remarkably clean-shaven face, the most prominent feature of which was a red nose, which sniffed a little now and then as if its owner was suffering from a severe cold. This person emanated age, neatness and despair. Aside from the nose which compelled immediate attention, his face consisted of a few large planes loosely juxtaposed and registering pathos. His motions were without grace. He had a certain refinement. He could not have been more than forty-five. There was worry on every inch of him. Possibly he thought that he might die. B. said “He’s a Belgian, a friend of Count Bragard, his name is Monsieur Pet-airs.” From time to time Monsieur Pet-airs remarked something delicately and pettishly in a gentle and weak voice. His adam’s-apple, at such moments, jumped about in a longish slack wrinkled skinny neck which was like the neck of a turkey. To this turkey the approach of Thanksgiving inspired dread. From time to time M. Pet-airs looked about him sidewise as if he expected to see a hatchet. His hands were claws, kind, awkward and nervous. They twitched. The bony and wrinkled things looked as if they would like to close quickly upon a throat.

B. called my attention to a figure squatting in the middle of the cour with his broad back against one of the more miserable trees. This figure was clothed in a remarkably picturesque manner: it wore a dark sombrero-like hat with a large drooping brim, a bright red gipsy shirt of some remarkably fine material with huge sleeves loosely falling, and baggy corduroy trousers whence escaped two brown, shapely, naked feet. On moving a little I discovered a face⁠—perhaps the handsomest face that I have ever seen, of a gold brown color, framed in an amazingly large and beautiful black beard. The features were finely formed and almost fluent, the eyes soft and extraordinarily sensitive, the mouth delicate and firm beneath a black moustache which fused with the silky and wonderful darkness falling upon the breast. The face contained a beauty and dignity which, as I first saw it, annihilated the surrounding tumult without an effort. Around the carefully formed nostrils there was something almost of contempt. The cheeks had known suns of which I might not think. The feet had travelled nakedly in countries not easily imagined. Seated gravely in the mud and noise of the cour, under the pitiful and scraggly pommier⁠ ⁠… behind the eyes lived a world of complete strangeness and silence. The composure of the body was graceful and Jovelike. This being might have been a prophet come out of a country nearer to the sun. Perhaps a god who had lost his road and allowed himself to be taken prisoner by le gouvernement français. At least a prince of a dark and desirable country, a king over a gold-skinned people who would return when he wished to his fountains and his houris. I learned upon inquiry that he travelled in various countries with a horse and cart and his wife and children, selling bright colours to the women and men of these countries. As it turned out, he was one of the Delectable Mountains; to discover which I had come a long and difficult way. Wherefore I shall tell you no more about him for the present, except that his name was Joseph Demestre.

We called him The Wanderer.

I was still wondering at my good luck in occupying the same miserable yard with this exquisite personage when a hoarse, rather thick voice shouted from the gate: “L’américain!”

It was a planton, in fact the chief planton for whom all ordinary plantons had unutterable respect and whom all mere men unutterably hated. It was the planton into whom I had had the distinguished honour of bumping shortly after my visit to le bain.

The Hollanders and Fritz were at the gate in a mob, all shouting “Which” in four languages.

This planton did not deign to notice them. He repeated roughly “L’américain.” Then, yielding a point to their frenzied entreaties: “Le nouveau.”

B. said to me “Probably he’s going to take you to the Gestionnaire. You’re supposed to see him when you arrive. He’s got your money and will keep it for you, and give you an allowance twice a week. You can’t draw more than 20 francs. I’ll hold your bread and spoon.”

“Where the devil is the American?” cried the planton.

“Here I am.”

“Follow me.”

I followed his back and rump and holster through the little gate in the barbed wire fence and into the building, at which point he commanded “Proceed.”

I asked “Where?”

“Straight ahead,” he said angrily.

I proceeded. “Left!” he cried. I turned. A door confronted me. “Entrez,” he commanded. I did. An unremarkable looking gentleman in a French uniform, sitting at a sort of table. “Monsieur le médecin, le nouveau.” The doctor got up. “Open your shirt.” I did. “Take down your pants.” I did. “All right.” Then, as the planton was about to escort me from the room: “English?” he asked with curiosity. “No,” I said, “American.” “Vraiment”⁠—he contemplated me with attention. “South American are you?” “United States” I explained. “Vraiment”⁠—he looked curiously at me, not disagreeably in the least. “Pourquoi vous êtes ici?” “I don’t know,” I said smiling pleasantly, “except that my friend wrote some letters which were intercepted by the French censor.” “Ah,” he remarked. “C’est tout.”

And I departed. “Proceed!” cried the Black Holster. I retraced my steps, and was about to exit through the door leading to the cour, when “Stop! Nom de Dieu! Proceed!”

I asked “Where?” completely bewildered.

“Up,” he said angrily.

I turned to the stairs on the left, and climbed.

“Not so fast there,” he roared behind me.

I slowed up. We reached the landing. I was sure that the Gestionnaire was a very fierce man⁠—probably a lean slight person who would rush at me from the nearest door saying “Hands up” in French, whatever that may be. The door opposite me stood open. I looked in. There was the Surveillant standing, hands behind back, approvingly regarding my progress. I was asking myself, Should I bow? when a scurrying and a tittering made me look left, along a dark and particularly dirty hall. Women’s voices⁠ ⁠… I almost fell with surprise. Were not those shadows’ faces peering a little boldly at me from doors? How many girls were there⁠—it sounded as if there were a hundred⁠—

“Qu’est-ce que vous faites,” etc., and the planton gave me a good shove in the direction of another flight of stairs. I obligingly ascended; thinking of the Surveillant as a spider, elegantly poised in the centre of his nefarious web, waiting for a fly to make too many struggles.⁠ ⁠…

At the top of this flight I was confronted by a second hall. A shut door indicated the existence of a being directly over the Surveillant’s holy head. Upon this door, lest I should lose time in speculating, was in ample letters inscribed:

Gestionnaire

I felt unutterably lost. I approached the door. I even started to push it.

“Attends, Nom de Dieu.” The planton gave me another shove, faced the door, knocked twice, and cried in accents of profound respect: “Monsieur le Gestionnaire”⁠—after which he gazed at me with really supreme contempt, his neat pig-like face becoming almost circular.

I said to myself: This Gestionnaire, whoever he is, must be a very terrible person, a frightful person, a person utterly without mercy.

From within a heavy, stupid, pleasant voice lazily remarked:

“Entrez.”

The planton threw the door open, stood stiffly on the threshold, and gave me the look which plantons give to eggs when plantons are a little hungry.

I crossed the threshold, trembling with (let us hope) anger.

Before me, seated at a table, was a very fat personage with a black skull cap perched upon its head. Its face was possessed of an enormous nose, on which pince-nez precariously roosted; otherwise the face was large, whiskered, very German and had three chins. Extraordinary creature. Its belly, as it sat, was slightly dented by the tabletop, on which tabletop rested several enormous tomes similar to those employed by the recording angel on the Day of Judgment, an inkstand or two, innumerable pens and pencils, and some positively fatal looking papers. The person was dressed in worthy and semi-dismal clothes amply cut to afford a promenade for the big stomach. The coat was of that extremely thin black material which occasionally is affected by clerks and dentists and more often by librarians. If ever I looked upon an honest German jowl, or even upon a caricature thereof, I looked upon one now. Such a round fat red pleasant beer-drinking face as reminded me only and immediately of huge meerschaum pipes, Deutsche Verein mottos, sudsy seidels of Wurtzburger, and Jacob Wirth’s (once upon a time) brachwurst. Such pin-like pink merry eyes as made me think of Kris Kringle himself. Such extraordinarily huge reddish hands as might have grasped six seidels together in the Deutsche Küchen on 13th street. I gasped with pleasurable relief.

Monsieur le Gestionnaire looked as if he was trying very hard, with the aid of his beribboned glasses and librarian’s jacket (not to mention a very ponderous gold watch-chain and locket that were supported by his copious equator) to appear possessed of the solemnity necessarily emanating from his lofty and responsible office. This solemnity, however, met its Waterloo in his frank and stupid eyes, not to say his trilogy of cheerful chins⁠—so much so that I felt like crying “Wie gehts!” and cracking him on his huge back. Such an animal! A contented animal, a bulbous animal; the only living hippopotamus in captivity, fresh from the Nile.

He contemplated me with a natural, under the circumstances, curiosity. He even naively contemplated me. As if I were hay. My hay-coloured head perhaps pleased him, as a hippopotamus. He would perhaps eat me. He grunted, exposing tobacco-yellow tusks, and his tiny eyes twittered. Finally he gradually uttered, with a thick accent, the following extremely impressive dictum:

“C’est l’américain.”

I felt much pleased, and said “Oui, j’suis américain, Monsieur.”

He rolled half over backwards in his creaking chair with wonderment at such an unexpected retort. He studied my face with a puzzled air, appearing slightly embarrassed that before him should stand l’américain and that l’américain should admit it, and that it should all be so wonderfully clear. I saw a second dictum, even more profound than the first, ascending from his black vest. The chain and fob trembled with anticipation. I was wholly fascinated. What vast blob of wisdom would find its difficult way out of him? The bulbous lips wiggled in a pleasant smile.

“Voo parlez français.”

This was delightful. The planton behind me was obviously angered by the congenial demeanour of Monsieur le Gestionnaire, and rasped with his boot upon the threshold. The maps to my right and left, maps of France, maps of the Mediterranean, of Europe, even, were abashed. A little anaemic and humble biped whom I had not previously noted, as he stood in one corner with a painfully deferential expression, looked all at once relieved. I guessed, and correctly guessed, that this little thing was the translator of La Ferté. His weak face wore glasses of the same type as the hippopotamus’, but without a huge black ribbon. I decided to give him a tremor; and said to the hippo “Un peu, Monsieur,” at which the little thing looked sickly.

The hippopotamus benevolently remarked “Voo parlez bien,” and his glasses fell off. He turned to the watchful planton:

“Voo poovez aller. Je vooz appelerai.”

The watchful planton did a sort of salute and closed the door after him. The skullcapped dignitary turned to his papers and began mouthing them with his huge hands, grunting pleasantly. Finally he found one, and said lazily:

“De quelle endroit que vooz êtes?”

“De Massachusetts,” said I.

He wheeled round and stared dumbly at the weak faced one, who looked at a complete loss, but managed to stammer simperingly that it was a part of the United States.

“Uh.” The hippopotamus said.

Then he remarked that I had been arrested, and I agreed that I had been arrested.

Then he said “Have you got any money?” and before I could answer clambered heavily to his feet and, leaning over the table before which I stood, punched me gently.

“Uh,” said the hippopotamus, sat down, and put on his glasses.

“I have your money here,” he said. “You are allowed to draw a little from time to time. You may draw 20 francs, if you like. You may draw it twice a week.”

“I should like to draw 20 francs now,” I said, “in order to buy something at the canteen.”

“You will give me a receipt,” said the hippopotamus. “You want to draw 20 francs now, quite so.” He began, puffing and grunting, to make handwriting of a peculiarly large and somewhat loose variety.

The weak face now stepped forward, and asked me gently: “Hugh er a merry can?”⁠—so I carried on a brilliant conversation in pidgeon English about my relatives and America until interrupted by

“Uh.”

The hip had finished.

“Sign your name, here,” he said, and I did. He looked about in one of the tomes and checked something opposite my name, which I enjoyed seeing in the list of inmates. It had been spelled, erased, and re-spelled several times.

Monsieur le Gestionnaire contemplated my signature. Then he looked up, smiled and nodded recognition to someone behind me. I turned. There stood (having long since noiselessly entered) The Fencer Himself, nervously clasping and unclasping his hands behind his back and regarding me with approval, or as a keeper regards some rare monkey newly forwarded from its habitat by Hagenbeck.

The hippo pulled out a drawer. He found, after hunting, some notes. He counted two off, licking his big thumb with a pompous gesture, and having recounted them passed them heavily to me. I took them as a monkey takes a coconut.

“Do you wish?”⁠—the Gestionnaire nodded toward me, addressing the Fencer.

“No, no” the Fencer said bowingly. “I have talked to him already.”

“Call that planton!” cried Monsieur le Gestionnaire, to the little thing. The little thing ran out dutifully and called in a weak voice “Planton!”

A gruff but respectful “Oui” boomed from below-stairs. In a moment the planton of plantons had respectfully entered.

“The promenade being over, you can take him to the men’s room,” said the Surveillant, as the Hippo (immensely relieved and rather proud of himself) collapsed in his creaking chair.

Feeling like a suitcase in the clutches of a porter, I obediently preceded my escort down two flights, first having bowed to the hippopotamus and said “Merci”⁠—to which courtesy the Hippo paid no attention. As we went along the dank hall on the ground floor, I regretted that no whispers and titters had greeted my descent. Probably the furious planton had seen to it that les femmes kept their rooms in silence. We ascended the three flights at the farther end of the corridor, the planton of all plantons unlocked and unbolted the door at the top landing, and I was swallowed by The Enormous Room.