The World of Alphonse Allais

by Alphonse Allais

  When suddenly …..

  You might say that the human heart is a bit like the solar system. They are both subject to bombardment from meteors, shooting stars, flashes of light ….

  Because suddenly the hero of our story felt something land in his emotio-cardiac network. To wit, a thunderbolt.

  He had just noticed, across the aisle on the ladies’ side, not two yards away, the most ravishing creature that God had ever seen fit to deposit on this planet. Shall I describe her full glory to you? No, I shall not. It would be a waste of time and energy. Not that I could tell you if she was fair or plain, had dark, brown or light eyes, or if her hair was blue, green or violet, because I never set eyes on her. Nor does it matter. The only important thing is that our poor hero had been struck by a thunderbolt, the famous thunderbolt called true love.

  ‘That woman,’ he barely had the strength to say to himself, ‘that woman is, from now on, the only person who can make my life worth living.’

  And he swore to find out immediately who she was and to marry her. Well, if not to marry her, at least to make her his. And if she were married already, then to steal her from her husband.

  But after the service, while our young man was still shaking his friend’s hand in the vestry, the unknown woman disappeared. Disappeared! Desperately he rushed to the entrance of the church, ran through the whole place, looked everywhere, refusing to believe that she had gone. He stayed there till night came, hoping wildly against hope that she would suddenly emerge from the shadows and throw herself into his arms crying: ‘I love you too! Let us run away together to the Aegean!’

  It was no use. Darkness fell and there was still no sign of her.

  The next day it became light again, then later darkness fell again, and so on alternately. He kept looking for her everywhere and found her nowhere.

  Eventually, in his despair, he decided to work out the problem very coldly and logically.

  ‘Whoever she was, she came to my friend’s wife’s funeral. So she is obviously a friend of his family. That means that if my friend died, she would come to his funeral as well. Therefore, if I kill my friend, I shall see her again.’

  He killed his friend. But he did not see her again. Because, sad to say, a few days after the murder some gentleman from the police force came to detain him and a few months after that some other gentlemen of the law found him guilty and condemned him to death after a trial conducted with the utmost impartiality. Not that he cared, as he was only too happy to be rid of an existence which had by then lost any meaning for him.

  So he was already striding happily towards the guillotine on the last morning when suddenly he stopped and gave a great cry.

  As you may know, members of the public are very occasionally admitted to beheadings if they receive special authorisation, and on this occasion there was, as well as all those normally in attendance, a young lady present.

  It was none other than his unknown woman!

  And about bloody time, too.

  ABSINTHE

  Five o’clock.

  Rotten weather. Grey sky …. dreary, mind-chilling sort of grey.

  Oh for a short, sharp shower to get rid of all these stupid people milling around like walking clichés ….. Rotten weather.

  Another bad day today, dammit. Devilish luck.

  Article rejected. So politely, though:

  ‘Liked your article … interesting idea … nicely written …. but not really in the style of the magazine, I’m afraid ….’

  Style of the magazine? Magazine’s style?? Dullest magazine in the whole of Paris! Whole of France.

  Publisher preoccupied, distrait, mind elsewhere.

  ‘Got your manuscript here somewhere …. yes, liked your novel … interesting idea … nicely written …. but business is very slow at the moment, you see … already got too much stuff on our hands … ever thought of writing something aimed more at the market? Lots of sales … fame … honours list ….’

  Went out nodding politely, feeling stupid:

  ‘Some other time perhaps.’

  Rotten weather. Half past five.

  The boulevards! Let’s take to the boulevards. Might meet a friend or two. If you can call them friends. Load of worthless …. But who can you trust in Paris?

  And why is everyone out tonight so ugly?

  The women so badly dressed. The men looking so stupid.

  ‘Waiter! Bring me an absinthe and sugar!’

  Good fun, watching the sugar lump melt very quietly on its little filter as the absinthe gradually trickles over it. Same way they say a drip of water hollows out granite. Only difference, sugar softer than granite. Just as well, too. Can you imagine? Waiter, one absinthe and granite!

  Absinthe on the rocks!! That’s a good one, that’s a good one. Very funny. For people who aren’t in a hurry – absinthe and granite! Nice one.

  Sugar lump’s almost melted now. There it goes. Just like us. Striking image of mankind, a sugar lump …

  When we are dead, we shall all go the same way. Atom by atom, molecule by molecule. Dissolved, dispersed, returned to the Great Beyond by kind permission of earthworms and the vegetable kingdom.

  Everything for the best then. Victor Hugo and the meanest hack equal in the eyes of the Great God Maggot. Thank goodness.

  Rotten weather…. Bad day. Fool of an editor. Unbelievable ass of a publisher.

  Don’t know, though. Perhaps not so much talent as keep telling self.

  Nice stuff, absinthe. Not the first mouthful, perhaps. But after that.

  Nice stuff.

  Six o’clock. Boulevards looking a bit more lively now. And look at the women!

  A lot prettier than an hour ago. Better dressed, too. Men don’t look so cretinous either.

  Sky still grey. Nice mother-of-pearl sort of grey. Rather effective. Lovely nuances. Setting sun tingeing the clouds with pale coppery pink glow. Very fine.

  ‘Waiter! An absinthe and anis!’

  Good fun, absinthe with sugar, but can’t hang around all day waiting for it to melt.

  Half past six.

  All these women! And so pretty, most of them. And so strange too.

  Mysterious, rather.

  Where do they all come from? Where are they all going to? Ah, shall we ever know!

  Not one of them spares me a glance – and yet I love them all so much.

  I look at each one as she passes, and her features are so burnt on my mind that I know I will never forget her to my dying day. Then she vanishes, and I have absolutely no recollection what she looked like.

  Luckily, there are always prettier girls following behind.

  And I would love them so, if only they would let me! But they all pass by. Shall I ever see any of them again?

  Street-hawkers out there on the pavement, selling everything under the sun. Newspapers … celluloid cigar-cases … cuddly toy monkeys – any colour you want …

  Who are all these men? The flotsam of life, no doubt. Unrecognised geniuses. Renegades. Eyes full of strange depths.

  A book waiting to be written about them. A great book. An unforgettable book. A book that everyone would have to buy – everyone!

  Oh, these women!

  Why doesn’t it occur to just one of them to come in and sit down beside me … kiss me very gently … caress me … take me in her arms and rock me to and fro just as mother did when I was small?

  ‘Waiter! An absinthe, neat. And make it a big one!’

  THE CORK

  Many funny things happened to my friend Léon Dumachin on his honeymoon but none funnier than the adventure that befell him in Kleinberg.

  *

  We spent two or three days in Munich (Dumachin speaking) and then announced our intention of moving on to Kleinberg, which is a lovely little spot. But when a friend of ours at Munich heard our plans he looked hard at me and then looked at my wife and then burst into a great fit of silent laughter, with his Bavarian sauerkraut stomach shaking up and down.

  �
��What’s so funny about the idea of going to Kleinberg?’ I inquired.

  ‘Well, if you are going to Kleinberg,’ said the furniture-stealer (a patriotic reference to 1870), ‘you will almost certainly be staying at the Three Kings Hotel.’

  ‘That is indeed the place we have chosen.’

  ‘And they will almost certainly put you in the big first floor bedroom.’

  ‘I couldn’t say.’

  ‘I could, though. They always give that room to young marrieds on their honeymoon.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Quite so. Well, watch out for the cork …’

  ‘Cork? What cork?’

  ‘You don’t know about the famous cork trick, then?’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever

  So the good citizen of Munich told me all about the cork trick.

  It seems that the room they keep ready at the Three Kings for honeymoon couples is positioned exactly above a little ground floor room and that this little ground floor room is a bar which is frequented every night by a select group of Kleinberg tradesmen.

  To the head of the bed is attached a length of string which passes through a hole bored in the floor and then dangles from the ceiling of the bar below.

  At the end of the string there is a cork.

  Do you get the picture?

  The slightest movement of the bed sets the string in motion, which in turn starts the cork off on a wild dance.

  You can imagine the stolid citizens of Kleinberg sitting there all evening, smoking, drinking and impassively watching the lunatic antics of the cork.

  A little jump to begin with, as the lady gets into bed.

  A bigger movement to denote the arrival of the gentleman.

  And then… et cetera, et cetera.

  Apparently the sight of the silently gambolling cork is so riveting that the beer-drinkers of the Three Kings sometimes stay till sunrise.

  I was profusely grateful to our conqueror (another 1870 reference) for his revelations and promised not to draw the attention of the men of Kleinberg to myself and my wife.

  At the same time, I couldn’t help feeling that I had no right to deprive these good people of their innocent amusement.

  So I compromised with an ingenious solution which I still to this day feel proud of.

  *

  Everything turned out just as predicted.

  When we arrived that evening at the Three Kings I saw at first glance that we had indeed been given the room above the little ground floor bar.

  I established at second glance that the sensitive piece of string was in position, waiting.

  And I could see downstairs, in my mind’s eye, that piece of cork, motionless for the time being, yet destined soon to leap into the wildest cavorting. I could also see the expectant upturned faces of the men of Kleinberg, doubly expectant on this occasion, no doubt, at the thought that their entertainment was to be provided by a French team.

  So to the great bafflement of Amélie (who knew nothing of all this) I lay flat on the floor equipped with a pair of scissors and our travelling clock.

  Taking the greatest care not to twitch the string and arouse suspicions downstairs, I cut it free from the bed and attached the end to the tip of the minute hand of the clock, which I placed next to the hole.

  There!

  Can you picture the scene?

  All those good people downstairs, smoking their pipes and supping from their tankards, sitting all evening watching the cork go slowly, slowly up and slowly, slowly down again.

  I have no idea what went through their German minds.

  But I am told that by six o’clock in the morning half Kleinberg was in the bar with their eyes fixed on the all-revealing cork.

  I’m afraid they must have thought that the reputation of the French as great lovers was somewhat exaggerated.

  LITTORALLY

  Every summer I like to betake myself to a secluded watering-place where I can let my shattered body recover from the thousand and one excesses of the previous winter, and this year I have come to Gadouville-sur-Mer. Not many people have heard of it, but it boasts one of the most delightful beaches to be found anywhere in the world. It has everything – sand like spun gold, luxurious vegetation, picturesque surroundings, friendly natives, even well brought up bailiffs. A second garden of Eden, in fact.

  To add to its natural attractions the town can also boast one millionaire, one war hero and one eccentric, and as I have nothing better to do this morning I shall write a little piece (I am after all paid to write little pieces)* to tell you how the millionaire of Gadouville-sur-Mer got his million, the war hero got his medal and the eccentric got his reputation.

  *

  The millionaire is, or was, a young man from Le Havre who once upon a time worked as an apprentice for a ship-builder there, since dead (in prison). While the young man was still earning no more than 120 francs a month, an old aunt of his in Fécamp died and left him several thousand francs. Pausing only to give the lady a decent burial, the young man left ship-building for good and plunged recklessly into commodity speculation. Madly he bought quantities of coffee ‘at a fair price’, cotton ‘middling cheap’ etc., etc., etc., and then sold them again. And as he took great care always to sell them at a somewhat higher price than he had bought them, there was always a little surplus left over for our hero, or what the English call an ‘element of profit’.

  As the process took place every day over a long period, the several thousand francs which came from the old lady of Fécamp soon turned into a great deal more and nobody was more pleased by this, in her absence, than her young nephew.

  But one day our speculating hero got an unpleasant surprise when a cashier at his bank, by the name of Loripeau, decamped for other shores, taking with him among other things ten thousand francs belonging to our friend. No doubt thinking that the neighbourhood of Le Havre would be too hot for him for a time, Loripeau had decided to indulge in a change of climate. How sad that in the haste of his departure he took with him a cash box belonging to his employers which he no doubt mistook for his hat box! And that by another frightful mischance, the cash box happened to be particularly full that day.

  When the young speculator heard the news, he leapt into action. He changed, shot down to the harbour and made inquiries of anyone who might know where Loripeau had gone – dockers, customs officials, all and sundry (Co. Ltd.). And soon he found out what he wanted to know. A customs man had seen Loripeau boarding the Ville d’Elboeuf, a merchant ship bound for Buenos Aires.

  Five minutes later, the following conversation took place between our friend and the captain of the Belle Anais.

  ‘Are you the Captain?’

  ‘Yes; can I help you?’

  ‘Will you be sailing for Buenos Aires soon?’

  ‘Next week.’

  ‘Could I persuade you to leave tonight?’

  ‘Not a chance. I haven’t started loading yet.’

  ‘Never mind, I’d compensate you for any lost cargo. All I want to know is whether your boat can go as fast as the Ville d’Elboeuf.’

  ‘We’re about evenly matched. But…’

  ‘And with extra sail?’

  ‘With extra sail I could overhaul her. But…’

  ‘If you get to Buenos Aires before she does, I’ll give you 10,000 francs.’

  Using all her spare canvas the Belle Anais got to Buenos Aires forty-eight hours before the Ville d’Elboeuf. When the Ville d’Elboeuf docked, our young friend from Le Havre was hiding behind a huge pile of raw hide on the quay and from this vantage point had the great satisfaction of seeing Loripeau disembark with a large suitcase in his hand. No sooner had Loripeau registered at a hotel and got to his room than he was surprised to hear a knock at the door.

  ‘Come in!’ he cried, with no idea who might be calling on him in South America.

  Unlike you and me.

  ‘Morning, Loripeau. Have a nice crossing?’

  Loripeau could not have looked more thund
erstruck if he had been struck by thunder; lightning, rather.

  Our young friend from Le Havre drew a pistol or two casually from his pocket and said:

  ‘I’d like my 10,000 francs back, please.’

  ‘Here you are,’ said Loripeau, very pale.

  ‘And the 10,000 francs I had to pay the captain of the Belle Anais to persuade him to catch you up.’

  ‘There you are.’

  ‘Thank you. Oh, and another 10,000 francs to cover the expense of compensating the captain of the said Belle Anais for his lost cargo.’

  ‘There you are.’

  ‘Thank you. And another 10,000 francs to cover the personal inconvenience you have caused me.’

  ‘There.’

  ‘That makes 40,000 in all, for which I am very grateful to you.’

  ‘That… that’s all?’

  ‘Just one other thing….. A small business proposition.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’ve been looking round Buenos Aires and there’s a fortune to be made in the leather trade. How would you like to go into partnership with me here?’

  ‘Suits me.’

  There certainly was a fortune to be made in leather, because ten years later the young man from Le Havre (no longer so young by then) returned across the sea to France with at least a million francs in his pocket and settled in Gadouville-sur-Mer, where he built up the estate he now lives on and which is the admiration of every tourist. Now he is one of the great local figures; only last year he married off his daughter to the local député, a politician somewhat to the right of centre who can safely be said to be a credit to public life.

  *

  And there I must take leave of you, I am afraid; my dinner gong has just sounded.

  The story of Gadouville-sur-Mer’s war hero and its eccentric will have to wait till another time.

  Bon appétit.

  * (Paid very little, I may say.)

  THE BEAUTIFUL STRANGER

  He was just wandering down the boulevard Malesherbes when it happened, wandering along with his hands in his pockets and his thoughts far away, so far away in fact that he could not properly be said to be thinking at all.