The Enormous Room/SURPLICE
X
SURPLICE
Let us ascend the third Delectable Mountain, which is called Surplice.
I will admit, in the beginning, that I never knew Surplice. This for the simple reason that I am unwilling to know except as a last resource. And it is by contrast with Harree The Hollander, whom I knew, and Judas, whom I knew, that I shall be able to give you (perhaps) a little of Surplice, whom I did not know. For that matter, I think Monsieur Auguste was the only person who might possibly have known him; and I doubt whether Monsieur Auguste was capable of descending to such depths in the case of so fine a person as Surplice.
Take a sheer animal of a man. Take the incredible Hollander with cobalt-blue breeches, shock of orange hair pasted over forehead, pink long face, twenty-six years old, had been in all the countries of all the world: "Australia girl fine girl—Japanese girl cleanest girl of the world—Spanish girl all right—English girl no good, no face—everywhere these things: Norway sailors German girls Sweedisher matches Holland candles" ... had been to Philadelphia; worked on a yacht for a millionaire; knew and had worked in the Krupp factories; was on two boats torpedoed and one which struck a mine when in sight of shore through the "looking-glass": "Holland almost no soldier—India" (the Dutch Indies) "nice place, always warm there, I was in cavalry; if you kill a man or steal one hundred franc or anything, in prison twenty-four hours; every week black girl sleep with you because government want white children, black girl fine girl, always doing something, your fingernails or clean your ears or make wind because it's hot.... No one can beat German people; if Kaiser tell man to kill his father and mother he do it quick!"—the tall, strong, coarse, vital youth who remarked:
"I sleep with black girl who smoke a pipe in the night."
Take this animal. You hear him, you are afraid of him, you smell and you see him and you know him—but you do not touch him.
Or a man who makes us thank God for animals, Judas, as we called him: who keeps his moustaches in press during the night (by means of a kind of transparent frame which is held in place by a band over his head); who grows the nails of his two little fingers with infinite care; has two girls with both of whom he flirts carefully and wisely, without ever once getting into trouble; talks in French; converses in Belgian; can speak eight languages and is therefore always useful to Monsieur le Surveillant—Judas with his shining horrible forehead, pecked with little indentures; with his Reynard full-face—Judas with his pale almost putrescent fatty body in the douche—Judas with whom I talked one night about Russia, he wearing my pélisse—the frightful and impeccable Judas: take this man. You see him, you smell the hot stale odour of Judas' body; you are not afraid of him, in fact, you hate him; you hear him and you know him. But you do not touch him.
And now take Surplice, whom I see and hear and smell and touch and even taste, and whom I do not know.
Take him in dawn's soft squareness, gently stooping to pick chewed cigarette ends from the spitty floor ... hear him, all night: retchings which light into the dark ... see him all day and all days, collecting his soaked ends and stuffing them gently into his round pipe (when he can find none he smokes tranquilly little splinters of wood) ... watch him scratching his back (exactly like a bear) on the wall ... or in the cour, speaking to no one, sunning his soul....
He is, we think, Polish. Monsieur Auguste is very kind to him, Monsieur Auguste can understand a few words of his language and thinks they mean to be Polish. That they are trying hard to be and never can be Polish.
Everyone else roars at him, Judas refers to him before his face as a dirty pig, Monsieur Peters cries angrily: "Il ne faut pas cracher par terre" eliciting a humble not to stay abject apology; the Belgians spit on him; the Hollanders chaff him and bulldoze him now and then, crying "Syph'lis"—at which he corrects them with offended majesty
"pas syph'lis, Surplice"
causing shouts of laughter from everyone—of nobody can he say My Friend,
of no one has he ever or will he ever say My Enemy.
When there is labour to do he works like a dog ... the day we had nettoyage de chambre, for instance, and Surplice and The Hat did most of the work; and B. and I were caught by the planton trying to stroll out into the cour ... every morning he takes the pail of solid excrement down, without anyone's suggesting that he take it; takes it as if it were his, empties it in the sewer just beyond the cour des femmes or pours a little (just a little) very delicately on the garden where Monsieur le Directeur is growing a flower for his daughter—he has, in fact, an unobstreperous affinity for excrement; he lives in it; he is shaggy and spotted and blotched with it; he sleeps in it; he puts it in his pipe and says it is delicious....
And he is intensely religious, religious with a terrible and exceedingly beautiful and absurd intensity ... every Friday he will be found sitting on a little kind of stool by his paillasse reading his prayer-book upside down; turning with enormous delicacy the thin difficult leaves, smiling to himself as he sees and does not read. Surplice is actually religious, and so are Garibaldi and I think The Woodchuck (a little dark sad man who spits blood with regularity); by which I mean they go to la messe for la messe, whereas everyone else goes pour voir les femmes. And I don't know for certain why The Woodchuck goes, but I think it's because he feels entirely sure he will die. And Garibaldi is afraid, immensely afraid. And Surplice goes in order to be surprised, surprised by the amazing gentleness and delicacy of God—Who put him, Surplice, upon his knees in La Ferté Macé, knowing that Surplice would appreciate His so doing.
He is utterly ignorant. He thinks America is out a particular window on your left as you enter The Enormous Room. He cannot understand the submarine. He does now know that there is a war. On being informed upon these subjects he is unutterably surprised, he is inexpressibly astonished. He derives huge pleasure from this astonishment. His filthy rather proudly noble face radiates the pleasure he receives upon being informed that people are killing people for nobody knows what reason, that boats go under water and fire six-foot long bullets at ships, that America is not really outside this window close to which we are talking, that America is, in fact, over the sea. The sea: is that water?—"c'est de l'eau, monsieur?" Ah: a great quantity of water; enormous amounts of water, water and then water; water and water and water and water and water. "Ah! You cannot see the other side of this water, monsieur? Wonderful, monsieur!"—He meditates it, smiling quietly; its wonder, how wonderful it is, no other side, and yet—the sea. In which fish swim. Wonderful.
He is utterly curious. He is utterly hungry. We have bought cheese with The Zulu's money. Surplice comes up, bows timidly and ingratiatingly with the demeanour of a million-times whipped but somewhat proud dog. He smiles. He says nothing, being terribly embarrassed. To help his embarrassment, we pretend we do not see him. That makes things better:
"Fromage, monsieur?"
"Oui, c'est du frommage."
"Ah-h-h-h-h-h-h...."
his astonishment is supreme. C'est du frommage. He ponders this. After a little
"Monsieur, c'est bon, monsieur?" asking the question as if his very life depended on the answer: "Yes, it is good," we tell him reassuringly.
"Ah-h-h. Ah-h."
He is once more superlatively happy. It is good, le fromage. Could anything be more superbly amazing? After perhaps a minute
"monsieur—monsieur—c'est chère le fromage?"
"Very," we tell him truthfully. He smiles, blissfully astonished. Then, with extreme delicacy and the utmost timidity conceivable
"monsieur, combien ça coute, monsieur?"
We tell him. He totters with astonishment and happiness. Only now, as if we had just conceived the idea, we say carelessly
"en voulez-vous?"
He straightens, thrilled from the top of his rather beautiful filthy head to the soleless slippers with which he promenades in rain and frost:
"Merci, Monsieur!"
We cut him a piece. He takes it quiveringly, holds it a second as a king might hold and contemplate the best and biggest jewel of his realm, turns with profuse thanks to us—and disappears....
He is perhaps most curious of this pleasantly sounding thing which everyone around him, everyone who curses and spits upon and bullies him, desires with a terrible desire—Liberté. Whenever anyone departs Surplice is in an ecstasy of quiet excitement. The lucky man may be Fritz; for whom Bathhouse John is taking up a collection as if he, Fritz, were a Hollander and not a Dane—for whom Bathhouse John is striding hither and thither, shaking a hat into which we drop coins for Fritz; Bathhouse John, chipmunk-cheeked, who talks Belgian, French, English and Dutch in his dreams, who has been two years in La Ferté (and they say he declined to leave, once, when given the chance), who cries "baigneur de femmes moi" and every night hoists himself into his wooden bunk crying "goo-d ni-te"; whose favourite joke is "une section pour les femmes," which he shouts occasionally in the cour as he lifts his paper-soled slippers and stamps in the freezing mud, chuckling and blowing his nose on the Union Jack ... and now Fritz, beaming with joy, shakes hands and thanks us all and says to me "Good-bye, Johnny," and waves and is gone forever—and behind me I hear a timid voice
"monsieur, Liberté?"
and I say Yes, feeling that Yes in my belly and in my head at the same instant; and Surplice stands beside me, quietly marvelling, extremely happy, uncaring that le parti did not think to say good-bye to him. Or it may be Harree and Pompom who are running to and fro shaking hands with everybody in the wildest state of excitement, and I hear a voice behind me:
"Liberté, monsieur? Liberté?"
and I say, No. Précigne, feeling weirdly depressed, and Surplice is standing to my left, contemplating the departure of the incorrigibles with interested disappointment—Surplice of whom no man takes any notice when that man leaves, be it for Hell or Paradise....
And once a week the maître de chambre throws soap on the mattresses, and I hear a voice
"monsieur, voulez pas?"
and Surplice is asking that we give him our soap to wash with.
Sometimes, when he has made quelques sous by washing for others, he stalks quietly to the Butcher's chair (everyone else who wants a shave having been served) and receives with shut eyes and a patient expression the blade of The Butcher's dullest razor—for The Butcher is not a man to waste a good razor on Surplice; he, The Butcher, as we call him, the successor of The Frog (who one day somehow managed to disappear like his predecessor The Barber), being a thug and a burglar fond of telling us pleasantly about German towns and prisons, prisons where men are not allowed to smoke, clean prisons where there is a daily medical inspection, where anyone who thinks he has a grievance of any sort has the right of immediate and direct appeal; he, The Butcher, being perhaps happiest when he can spend an evening showing us little parlour tricks fit for children of four and three years old; quite at his best when he remarks:
"Sickness doesn't exist in France,"
meaning that one is either well or dead; or
"If they (the French) get an inventor they put him in prison."
—So The Butcher is stooping heavily upon Surplice and slicing and gashing busily and carelessly, his thick lips stuck a little pursewise, his buried pig's eyes glistening—and in a moment he cries "Fini!" and poor Surplice rises unsteadily, horribly slashed, bleeding from at least three two-inch cuts and a dozen large scratches; totters over to his couch holding on to his face as if he were afraid it would fall off any moment; and lies down gently at full length, sighing with pleasurable surprise, cogitating the inestimable delights of cleanness....
It struck me at the time as intensely interesting that, in the case of a certain type of human being, the more cruel are the miseries inflicted upon him the more cruel does he become toward anyone who is so unfortunate as to be weaker or more miserable than himself. Or perhaps I should say that nearly every human being, given sufficiently miserable circumstances, will from time to time react to those very circumstances (whereby his own personality is mutilated) through a deliberate mutilation on his own part of a weaker or already more mutilated personality. I daresay that this is perfectly obvious. I do not pretend to have made a discovery. On the contrary, I merely state what interested me peculiarly in the course of my sojourn at La Ferté: I mention that I was extremely moved to find that, however busy sixty men may be kept suffering in common, there is always one man or two or three men who can always find time to make certain that their comrades enjoy a little extra suffering. In the case of Surplice, to be the butt of everyone's ridicule could not be called precisely suffering; inasmuch as Surplice, being unspeakably lonely, enjoyed any and all insults for the simple reason that they constituted or at least implied a recognition of his existence. To be made a fool of was, to this otherwise completely neglected individual, a mark of distinction; something to take pleasure in; to be proud of. The inhabitants of The Enormous Room had given to Surplice a small but essential part in the drama of La Misère: he would play that part to the utmost of his ability; the cap-and-bells should not grace a head unworthy of their high significance. He would be a great fool, since that was his function; a supreme entertainer, since his duty was to amuse. After all, men in La Misère as well as anywhere else rightly demand a certain amount of amusement; amusement is, indeed, peculiarly essential to suffering; in proportion as we are able to be amused we are able to suffer; I, Surplice, am a very necessary creature after all.
I recall one day when Surplice beautifully demonstrated his ability to play the fool. Someone had crept up behind him as he was stalking to and fro, head in air proudly, hands in pockets, pipe in teeth, and had (after several heart-breaking failures) succeeded in attaching to the back of his jacket by means of a pin a huge placard carefully prepared beforehand, bearing the numerical inscription
606
in vast writing. The attacher, having accomplished his difficult feat, crept away. So soon as he reached his paillasse a volley of shouts went up from all directions, shouts in which all nationalities joined, shouts or rather jeers which made the pillars tremble and the windows rattle—
"SIX CENT SIX! SYPH'LIS!"
Surplice started from his reverie, removed his pipe from his lips, drew himself up proudly, and—facing one after another the sides of The Enormous Room—blustered in his bad and rapid French accent: "Pas syph'lis! Pas syph'lis!"
at which, rocking with mirth, everyone responded at the top of his voice:
"SIX CENT SIX!"
Whereat, enraged, Surplice made a dash at Pete The Shadow and was greeted by
"Get away, you bloody Polak, or I'll give you something you'll be sorry for"—this from the lips of America Lakes. Cowed, but as majestic as ever, Surplice attempted to resume his promenade and his composure together. The din bulged:
"Six cent six! Syph'lis! Six cent Six!"
—increasing in volume with every instant. Surplice, beside himself with rage, rushed another of his fellow-captives (a little old man, who fled under the table) and elicited threats of:
"Come on now, you Polak hoor, and quit that business or I'll kill you," upon which he dug his hands into the pockets of his almost transparent pantaloons and marched away in a fury, literally frothing at the mouth.—
"Six Cent Six!"
everyone cried. Surplice stamped with wrath and mortification. "C'est domage" Monsieur Auguste said gently beside me. "C'est un bon-homme, le pauvre, il ne faut pas l'enmerd-er."
"Look behind you!"
somebody yelled. Surplice wheeled, exactly like a kitten trying to catch its own tail, and provoked thunders of laughter. Nor could anything at once more pitiful and ridiculous, more ludicrous and horrible, be imagined.
"On your coat! Look on your jacket!"
Surplice bent backward, staring over his left, then his right, shoulder, pulled at his jacket first one way then the other—thereby making his improvised tail to wag, which sent The Enormous Room into spasms of merriment—finally caught sight of the incriminating appendage, pulled his coat to the left, seized the paper, tore it off, threw it fiercely down, and stamped madly on the crumpled 606; spluttering and blustering and waving his arms; slavering like a mad dog. Then he faced the most prominently vociferous corner and muttered thickly and crazily:
"Wuhwuhwuhwuhwuh...."
Then he strode rapidly to his paillasse and lay down; in which position I caught him, a few minutes later, smiling and even chuckling ... very happy ... as only an actor is happy whose efforts have been greeted with universal applause....
In addition to being called "Syph'lis" he was popularly known as "Chaude Pisse, the Pole." If there is anything particularly terrifying about prisons, or at least imitations of prisons such as La Ferté, it is possibly the utter obviousness with which (quite unknown to themselves) the prisoners demonstrate willy-nilly certain fundamental psychological laws. The case of Surplice is a very exquisite example: everyone, of course, is afraid of les maladies venérinnes—accordingly all pick an individual (of whose inner life they know and desire to know nothing, whose external appearance satisfies the requirements of the mind à propos what is foul and disgusting) and, having tacitly agreed upon this individual as a Symbol of all that is evil, proceed to heap insults upon him and enjoy his very natural discomfiture ... but I shall remember Surplice on his both knees sweeping sacredly together the spilled sawdust from a spittoon-box knocked over by the heel of the omnipotent planton; and smiling as he smiled at la messe when Monsieur le Curé told him that there was always Hell....
He told us one day a great and huge story of an important incident in his life, as follows:
"Monsieur, disabled me—yes, monsieur—disabled—I work, many people, house, very high, third floor, everybody, planks up there—planks no good—all shake..." (here he began to stagger and rotate before us) "begins to fall ... falls, falls, all, all twenty-seven men—bricks—planks—wheelbarrows—all—ten metres ... zuhzuhzuhzuhzuhPOOM!... everybody hurt, everybody killed, not me, injured ... oui monsieur"—and he smiled, rubbing his head foolishly. Twenty-seven men, bricks, planks and wheelbarrows. Ten metres. Bricks and planks. Men and wheelbarrows....
Also he told us, one night, in his gentle, crazy, shrugging voice, that once upon a time he played the fiddle with a big woman in Alsace-Lorraine for fifty francs a night; "c'est la misère"—adding quietly, "I can play well, I can play anything, I can play n'importe quoi."
Which I suppose and guess I scarcely believed—until one afternoon a man brought up a harmonica which he had purchased en ville; and the man tried it; and everyone tried it; and it was perhaps the cheapest instrument and the poorest that money can buy, even in the fair country of France; and everyone was disgusted—but, about six o'clock in the evening, a voice came from behind the last experimenter; a timid hasty voice:
"monsieur, monsieur, permettez?"
the last experimenter turned and to his amazement saw Chaude Pisse the Pole, whom everyone had (of course) forgotten.
The man tossed the harmonica on the table with a scornful look (a menacingly scornful look) at the object of universal execration; and turned his back. Surplice, trembling from the summit of his filthy and beautiful head to the naked soles of his filthy and beautiful feet, covered the harmonica delicately and surely with one shaking paw; seated himself with a surprisingly deliberate and graceful gesture; closed his eyes, upon whose lashes there were big filthy tears ... and played....
... and suddenly:
He put the harmonica softly upon the table. He rose. He went quickly to his paillasse. He neither moved nor spoke nor responded to the calls for more music, to the cries of "Bis!"—"Bien joué!"—"Allez!"—"Va-g-y!" He was crying, quietly and carefully, to himself ... quietly and carefully crying, not wishing to annoy anyone ... hoping that people could not see that Their Fool had temporarily failed in his part.
The following day he was up as usual before anyone else, hunting for chewed cigarette ends on the spitty slippery floor of The Enormous Room; ready for insult, ready for ridicule, for buffets, for curses.
Alors—
One evening, some days after everyone who was fit for la commission had enjoyed the privilege of examination by that inexorable and delightful body—one evening very late, in fact, just before lumières éteintes, a strange planton arrived in The Enormous Room and hurriedly read a list of five names, adding:
"demain partis, à bonne heure"
and shut the door behind him. Surplice was, as usual, very interested, enormously interested. So were we: for the names respectively belonged to Monsieur Auguste, Monsieur Pet-airs, The Wanderer, Surplice and The Spoonman. These men had been judged. These men were going to Précigne. These men would be prisoniers pour la durée de la guerre.
I have already told how Monsieur Pet-airs sat with the frantically weeping Wanderer writing letters, and sniffing with his big red nose, and saying from time to time: "Be a man, Demestre, don't cry, crying does no good."—Monsieur Auguste was broken-hearted. We did our best to cheer him; we gave him a sort of Last Supper at our bedside, we heated some red wine in the tin cup and he drank with us. We presented him with certain tokens of our love and friendship, including—I remember—a huge cheese ... and then, before us, trembling with excitement, stood Surplice—
We asked him to sit down. The onlookers (there were always onlookers at every function, however personal, which involved Food or Drink) scowled and laughed. Le con, surplice, chaude pisse—how could he sit with men and gentlemen? Surplice sat down gracefully and lightly on one of our beds, taking extreme care not to strain the somewhat capricious mechanism thereof; sat very proudly; erect; modest but unfearful. We offered him a cup of wine. A kind of huge convulsion gripped, for an instant, fiercely his entire face: then he said in a whisper of sheer and unspeakable wonderment, leaning a little toward us without in any way suggesting that the question might have an affirmative answer,
"pour moi, monsieur?"
We smiled at him and said "Prenez, monsieur." His eyes opened. I have never seen eyes since. He remarked quietly, extending one hand with majestic delicacy:
"Merci, monsieur."
... Before he left, B. gave him some socks and I presented him with a flannel shirt, which he took softly and slowly and simply and otherwise not as an American would take a million dollars.
"I will not forget you," he said to us, as if in his own country he were a more than very great king ... and I think I know where that country is, I think I know this; I, who never knew Surplice, know.
For he has the territory of harmonicas, the acres of flutes, the meadows of clarinets, the domain of violins. And God says: Why did they put you in prison? What did you do to the people? "I made them dance and they put me in prison. The soot-people hopped; and to twinkle like sparks on a chimney-back and I made eighty francs every dimanche, and beer and wine, and to eat well. Maintenant ... c'est fini ... Et tout suite (gesture of cutting himself in two) la tête." And He says: "O you who put the jerk into joys, come up hither. There's a man up here called Christ who likes the violin."