The Enormous Room · Chapter 6 (1/4)

VI

Apollyon

The inhabitants of The Enormous Room whose portraits I have attempted in the preceding chapter, were, with one or two exceptions, inhabiting at the time of my arrival. Now the thing which above all things made death worth living and life worth dying at La Ferté Macé was the kinetic aspect of that institution; the arrivals, singly or in groups, of nouveaux of sundry nationalities whereby our otherwise more or less simple existence was happily complicated, our putrescent placidity shaken by a fortunate violence. Before, however, undertaking this aspect I shall attempt to represent for my own benefit as well as the reader’s certain more obvious elements of that stasis which greeted the candidates for disintegration upon their admittance to our select, not to say distinguished, circle. Or: I shall describe, briefly, Apollyon and the instruments of his power, which instruments are three in number: Fear, Women and Sunday.

By Apollyon I mean a very definite fiend. A fiend who, secluded in the sumptuous and luxurious privacy of his own personal bureau (which as a rule no one of lesser rank than the Surveillant was allowed, so far as I might observe⁠—and I observed⁠—to enter) compelled to the unimaginable meanness of his will by means of the three potent instruments in question all within the sweating walls of La Ferté⁠—that was once upon a time human. I mean a very complete Apollyon, a Satan whose word is dreadful not because it is painstakingly unjust, but because it is incomprehensibly omnipotent. I mean, in short, Monsieur le Directeur.

I shall discuss first of all Monsieur le Directeur’s most obvious weapon.

Fear was instilled by three means into the erstwhile human entities whose presence at La Ferté gave Apollyon his job. The three means were: through his subordinates, who being one and all fearful of his power directed their energies to but one end⁠—the production in ourselves of a similar emotion; through two forms of punishment, which supplied said subordinates with a weapon over any of us who refused to find room for this desolating emotion in his heart of hearts; and, finally, through direct contact with his unutterable personality.

Beneath the Demon was the Surveillant. I have already described the Surveillant. I wish to say, however, that in my opinion the Surveillant was the most decent official at La Ferté. I pay him this tribute gladly and honestly. To me, at least, he was kind: to the majority he was inclined to be lenient. I honestly and gladly believe that the Surveillant was incapable of that quality whose innateness, in the case of his superior, rendered that gentleman a (to my mind) perfect representative of the Almighty French Government: I believe that the Surveillant did not enjoy being cruel, that he was not absolutely without pity or understanding. As a personality I therefore pay him my respects. I am myself incapable of caring whether, as a tool of the Devil, he will find the bright firelight of Hell too warm for him or no.

Beneath the Surveillant were the Secrétaire, Monsieur Richard, the Cook, and the plantons. The first I have described sufficiently, since he was an obedient and negative⁠—albeit peculiarly responsible⁠—cog in the machine of decomposition. Of Monsieur Richard, whose portrait is included in the account of my first day at La Ferté, I wish to say that he had a very comfortable room of his own filled with primitive and otherwise imposing medicines; the walls of this comfortable room being beauteously adorned by some fifty magazine covers representing the female form in every imaginable state of undress, said magazine-covers being taken chiefly from such amorous periodicals as Le Sourire and that old standby of indecency, La Vie Parisienne. Also Monsieur Richard kept a pot of geraniums upon his window-ledge, which haggard and aged-looking symbol of joy he doubtless (in his spare moments) peculiarly enjoyed watering. The Cook is by this time familiar to my reader. I beg to say that I highly approve of The Cook; exclusive of the fact that the coffee, which went up to The Enormous Room tous les matins, was made every day with the same grounds plus a goodly injection of checkerberry⁠—for the simple reason that the Cook had to supply our captors and especially Apollyon with real coffee, whereas what he supplied to les hommes made no difference. The same is true of sugar: our morning coffee, in addition to being a water-thin, black, muddy, stinking liquid, contained not the smallest suggestion of sweetness, whereas the coffee which went to the officials⁠—and the coffee which B. and I drank in recompense for “catching water”⁠—had all the sugar you could possibly wish for. The poor Cook was fined one day as a result of his economies, subsequent to a united action on the part of the fellow-sufferers. It was a day when a gent immaculately dressed appeared⁠—after duly warning the Fiend that he was about to inspect the Fiend’s ménage⁠—an, I think, public official of Orne. Judas (at the time chef de chambre) supported by the sole and unique indignation of all his fellow-prisoners save two or three out of whom Fear had made rabbits or moles, early carried the pail (which by common agreement not one of us had touched that day) downstairs, along the hall, and up one flight⁠—where he encountered the Directeur, Surveillant and Handsome Stranger all amicably and pleasantly conversing. Judas set the pail down; bowed; and begged, as spokesman for the united male gender of La Ferté Macé, that the quality of the coffee be examined. “We won’t any of us drink it, begging your pardon, Messieurs,” he claims that he said. What happened then is highly amusing. The petit balayeur, an eyewitness of the proceeding, described it to me as follows:

“The Directeur roared ‘Comment?’ He was horribly angry. ‘Oui, Monsieur,’ said the maître de chambre humbly⁠—‘Pourquoi?’ thundered the Directeur.⁠—‘Because it’s undrinkable,’ the maître de chambre said quietly.⁠—‘Undrinkable? Nonsense!’ cried the Directeur furiously.⁠—‘Be so good as to taste it, Monsieur le Directeur.’⁠—‘I taste it? Why should I taste it? The coffee is perfectly good, plenty good for you men. This is ridiculous⁠—’⁠—‘Why don’t we all taste it?’ suggested the Surveillant ingratiatingly.⁠—‘Why, yes,’ said the Visitor mildly.⁠—‘Taste it? Of course not. This is ridiculous and I shall punish⁠—’⁠—‘I should like, if you don’t mind, to try a little,’ the Visitor said.⁠—‘Oh, well, of course, if you like,’ the Directeur mildly agreed. ‘Give me a cup of that coffee, you!’⁠—‘With pleasure, sir,’ said the maître de chambre. The Directeur⁠—M’sieu’ Jean, you would have burst laughing⁠—seized the cup, lifted it to his lips, swallowed with a frightful expression (his eyes almost popping out of his head) and cried fiercely, ‘Delicious!’ The Surveillant took a cupful; sipped; tossed the coffee away, looking as if he had been hit in the eyes, and remarked, ‘Ah.’ The maître de chambre⁠—M’sieu’ Jean he is clever⁠—scooped the third cupful from the bottom of the pail, and very politely, with a big bow, handed it to the Visitor; who took it, touched it to his lips, turned perfectly green, and cried out ‘Impossible!’ M’sieu’ Jean, we all thought⁠—the Directeur and the Surveillant and the maître de chambre and myself⁠—that he was going to vomit. He leaned against the wall a moment, quite green; then recovering said faintly⁠—‘The Kitchen.’ The Directeur looked very nervous and shouted, trembling all over, ‘Yes, indeed! We’ll see the cook about this perfectly impossible coffee. I had no idea that my men were getting such coffee. It’s abominable! That’s what it is, an outrage!’⁠—And they all tottered downstairs to The Cook; and M’sieu Jean, they searched the kitchen; and what do you think? They found ten pounds of coffee and twelve pounds of sugar all neatly hidden away, that The Cook had been saving for himself out of our allowance. He’s a beast, the Cook!”

I must say that, although the morning coffee improved enormously for as much as a week, it descended afterwards to its original level of excellence.

The Cook, I may add, officiated three times a week at a little table to the left as you entered the dining-room. Here he stood, and threw at everyone (as everyone entered) a hunk of the most extraordinary meat which I have ever had the privilege of trying to masticate⁠—it could not be tasted. It was pale and leathery. B. and myself often gave ours away in our hungriest moments; which statement sounds as if we were generous to others, whereas the reason for these donations was that we couldn’t eat, let alone stand the sight of this staple of diet. We had to do our donating on the sly, since the chef always gave us choice pieces and we were anxious not to hurt the chef’s feelings. There was a good deal of spasmodic protestation apropos la viande, but the Cook always bullied it down⁠—nor was the meat his fault; since, from the miserable carcases which I have often seen carried into the kitchen from without, the Cook had to select something which would suit the meticulous stomach of the Lord of Hell, as also the less meticulous digestive organs of his minions; and it was only after every planton had got a piece of viande to his plantonic taste that the captives, female and male, came in for consideration.

On the whole, I think I never envied the Cook his strange and difficult, not to say gruesome, job. With the men en masse he was bound to be unpopular. To the goodwill of those above he was necessarily more or less a slave. And on the whole, I liked the Cook very much, as did B.⁠—for the very good and sufficient reason that he liked us both.

About the plantons I have something to say, something which it gives me huge pleasure to say. I have to say, about the plantons, that as a bunch they struck me at the time and will always impress me as the next to the lowest species of human organism; the lowest, in my experienced estimation, being the gendarme proper. The plantons were, with one exception⁠—he of the black holster with whom I collided on the first day⁠—changed from time to time. Again with this one exception, they were (as I have noted) apparently disabled men who were enjoying a vacation from the trenches in the lovely environs of Orne. Nearly all of them were witless. Every one of them had something the matter with him physically as well. For instance, one planton had a large wooden hand. Another was possessed of a long unmanageable left leg made, as nearly as I could discover, of tin. A third had a huge glass eye.

These peculiarities of physique, however, did not inhibit the plantons from certain essential and normal desires. On the contrary. The plantons probably realised that, in competition with the male world at large, their glass legs and tin hands and wooden eyes would not stand a Chinaman’s chance of winning the affection and admiration of the fair sex. At any rate they were always on the alert for opportunities to triumph over the admiration and affection of les femmes at La Ferté, where their success was not endangered by competition. They had the bulge on everybody; and they used what bulge they had to such good advantage that one of them, during my stay, was pursued with a revolver by their sergeant, captured, locked up and shipped off for court-martial on the charge of disobedience and threatening the life of a superior officer. He had been caught with the goods⁠—that is to say, in the girl’s cabinot⁠—by said superior: an incapable, strutting, undersized, bepimpled person in a bright uniform who spent his time assuming the poses of a general for the benefit of the ladies; of his admiration for whom and his intentions toward whom he made no secret. By all means one of the most disagreeable petty bullies whom I ever beheld. This arrest of a planton was, so long as I inhabited La Ferté, the only case in which abuse of the weaker sex was punished. That attempts at abuse were frequent I know from allusions and direct statements made in the letters which passed by way of the sweeper from the girls to their captive admirers. I might say that the senders of these letters, whom I shall attempt to portray presently, have my unmitigated and unqualified admiration. By all odds they possessed the most terrible vitality and bravery of any human beings, women or men, whom it has ever been my extraordinary luck to encounter, or ever will be (I am absolutely sure) in this world.

The duties of the plantons were those simple and obvious duties which only very stupid persons can perfectly fulfill, namely: to take turns guarding the building and its inhabitants; not to accept bribes, whether in the form of matches, cigarettes or conversation, from their prisoners; to accompany anyone who went anywhere outside the walls (as did occasionally the balayeurs, to transport baggage; the men who did corvée; and the catchers of water for the cook, who proceeded as far as the hydrant situated on the outskirts of the town⁠—a momentous distance of perhaps five hundred feet); and finally to obey any and all orders from all and any superiors without thinking. Plantons were supposed⁠—but only supposed⁠—to report any schemes for escaping which they might overhear during their watch upon les femmes et les hommes en promenade. Of course they never overheard any, since the least intelligent of the watched was a paragon of wisdom by comparison with the watchers. B. and I had a little ditty about plantons, of which I can quote (unfortunately) only the first line and refrain:

“A planton loved a lady once

(Cabbages and cauliflowers!)”

It was a very fine song. In concluding my remarks upon plantons I must, in justice to my subject, mention the three prime plantonic virtues⁠—they were (1) beauty, as regards face and person and bearing, (2) chivalry, as regards women, (3) heroism, as regards males.

The somewhat unique and amusing appearance of the plantons rather militated against than served to inculcate Fear⁠—it was therefore not wonderful that they and the desired emotion were supported by two strictly enforced punishments, punishments which were meted out with equal and unflinching severity to both sexes alike. The less undesirable punishment was known as pain sec⁠—which Fritz, shortly after my arrival, got for smashing a windowpane by accident; and which Harree and Pom Pom, the incorrigibles, were getting most of the time. This punishment consisted in denying to the culprit all nutriment save two stone-hard morsels of dry bread per diem. The culprit’s intimate friends, of course, made a point of eating only a portion of their own morsels of soft, heavy, sour bread (we got two a day, with each soupe) and presenting the culprit with the rest. The common method of getting pain sec was also a simple one⁠—it was for a man to wave, shout or make other signs audible or visual to an inhabitant of the women’s quarters; and, for a girl, to be seen at her window by the Directeur at any time during the morning and afternoon promenades of the men. The punishment for sending a letter to a girl might possibly be pain sec, but was more often⁠—I pronounce the word even now with a sinking of the heart, though curiously enough I escaped that for which it stands⁠—cabinot.