The World of Alphonse Allais

by Alphonse Allais

  All the doctors rubbed their hands with glee.

  ‘Good, good!’ they said. ‘Lots of lovely typhoid fever!’

  For – can you believe it? – the town of Le Havre is built in such a way that its drains are above sea level and after every little high tide that comes along you can see the intimate rubbish of the men of Le Havre cynically displayed along the main streets.

  (You might, in parenthesis, think that that swine François I could have spent less time drinking and whoring, and more time doing something about maintaining the highways and byways of his kingdom.)*

  Never mind – it was a fine sight.

  I spent the best part of the day on the jetty watching boats come in and boats go out. When the wind started blowing even harder I turned up the collar of my overcoat and was about to do the same for the bottom of my trousers (I like to keep things symmetrical) when my friend Axelsen appeared.

  My friend Axelsen is a young Norwegian painter, with lots of talent and lots of sentimental ideas.

  He is very talented when he is sober. The rest of the time he is just sentimental.

  At this particular moment he seemed to be in one of his sentimental periods. Whether it was the effect of the strong wind or because his heart was overflowing, I don’t know, but his eyes were undoubtedly brimming with tears.

  ‘Well, well,’ I cried cheerfully. ‘Something wrong, Axelsen?’

  ‘No, everything’s fine. It’s a marvellous sight. It just brings back sad memories, that’s all. Whenever I see the highest recorded tide of the century, the memory breaks my heart.’

  ‘Memory of what? Tell me about it.’

  ‘I’d be glad to. Not here, though.’

  And so saying, he dragged me into the back-room of a local tobacconist’s where a pretty young English girl produced a swenska-punch from nowhere for us.

  Axelsen staunched his tears and told me the following tragic tale.

  ‘It all happened about five years ago, when I was just starting out as an artist and was living in Bergen (Norway). One day, evening rather, I went to a ball given by M. Isdahl the big cod roe exporter, and there I met and fell in love with a lovely young girl who in turn seemed not unattracted to me. As you can imagine, it wasn’t long before I got an introduction to her father and soon I was accepted as a friend of the family.

  ‘Well, I found out one day that her birthday was coming up soon and decided I ought to give her a very special sort of present. The trouble was: what? Now, you know the Bay of Vaagen…’

  ‘Not terribly well…’

  ‘Oh, it’s a bay near Bergen. The point was, my girl-friend was very fond of it, especially one little corner of it. So I had the bright idea of painting a pretty little water-colour of that particular spot. “That should please her,” I thought. And off I set one fine morning with my water-colour set.

  ‘There was just one thing I had forgotten to take along with me: water. I’m sure you know that whereas in some trades it is frowned on to add water to one’s goods (viniculture springs to mind), it is virtually de rigueur for a water-colourist. And I hadn’t got any! Well, dammit, I thought, I’ll use sea water for my water-colour and see how it turns out.

  ‘It turned out very well. I came back with an excellent little painting which I presented in due course to my girl and which she in turn duly hung up in her bedroom. The only thing was …. Do you know what had happened?’

  ‘I will when you tell me.’

  ‘What had happened was that the part of the painting which depicted the sea, being largely sea water, was subject to the attraction of the moon and therefore tidal. Which meant, strange as it may seem, that you could see the sea in my painting coming up, up, up over the rocks by the shore’s edge and going down, down, down, leaving them high and dry again at low tide.’

  ‘Ah!’

  ‘Exactly. And one night we had the highest recorded tide of the century, just like today. The coast of Norway was swept by the most fearful storms. It thundered, it rained, it blew, it did everything.

  ‘And in the morning I went over to the villa where my girlfriend lived, only to find the whole household in a state of utter despair.

  ‘My water-colour had overflowed during the night and drowned her as she slept.’

  ‘My poor young friend!’

  Axelsen was weeping like a baby. I clasped his hand.

  ‘You know,’ he said, ‘it’s all true what I’ve told you, every single word of it. If you don’t believe me, ask Johanson.’

  I happened to bump into Johanson that very evening. I asked him about the episode. He assured me that every single word of it was a complete leg-pull.

  * If a descendant of that monarch should happen to read these lines and take offence, he need only come and find me. I have never shrunk from an encounter with a Valois.

  NO HURRY

  Can you think of anything more stupid than the average proverb? I can’t. In fact, if any reader can come up with something more stupid, I will send him free and gratis half a kilo of fresh juicy English cherries (which have just come into season).

  On second thoughts, I shall have to withdraw my wonderful free offer, because I have just thought of something more stupid than the average proverb. No, no, not the old music hall joke, ‘Two average proverbs’. Something just a bit more sophisticated, namely ‘Two average proverbs side by side’.

  For instance, ‘Too many cooks spoil the broth’ beside ‘Many hands make light work’. You see?

  Here’s another pair. ‘More haste, less speed’ and ‘A stitch in time saves nine’. It just doesn’t add up, does it? Of course it doesn’t.

  When it comes to haste and speed, anyway, I don’t need any help from proverbs, because I worked out a suitable philosophy for the true pace of life when I was still a toddler. (All disbelieving letters will gladly be forwarded to my mother for refutation.) It was, quite simply, always to put off to the day after tomorrow anything that could easily have been done the day before yesterday. And it works. If you take my advice and never hurry, you will succeed in life. Think of all those people who have gone to an early grave because they hurried. If I had always hurried, I would be dead now as I write these words. (What a loss to the world!) But no – I have always taken my time, never hurried and now here I am, happy, contented and alive.

  Let me tell you the full, fascinating story.

  *

  When I first came to Paris I was a young man clutching a small legacy in my hot little hand, so not unnaturally my first excursion was an evening out in the Latin Quarter. It lasted about a year. At the end of that time my resources had shrunk so small that they could not have been measured by any known scientific instrument. You see, I had met a tall blonde girl who worked as a waitress at the Brasserie Lapin Mauve and who had a great weakness for champagne …. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I spent all my money on champagne for her. You misjudge me. Only half of it went that way. (The other half I spent on a ravishing brunette who had a weakness for dry curaçao …)

  One day I stumbled on the great economic truth that the best way to save money is to stop buying people champagne and dry curaçao, but it was just too late. I had already spent all my money. Not only that, but I had also acquired many bad habits and succumbed to an allergy for hard work. The position was hopeless. So I decided to take my own life …… but not just yet.

  I woke up one morning fully determined to end it all, as I did most mornings, only to find in the post a letter telling me of the death of a distant uncle. I hadn’t seen him since childhood, hadn’t ever thought about him much, hadn’t even liked him. And yet who do you think was his sole heir? Yes, me. And how! You see, my uncle had been a big pig breeder somewhere in the Auge valley, and pig breeding is the way to make money. All you have to do is spend two sous on a tiny baby pig, then relieve your neighbours of all their scraps, crusts and peelings and stuff them into your porker till it grows into a profitable monster which you can sell to a pork butcher for a cool 3,000
francs. Then the pork butcher takes his big knife ……

  I’m sure you don’t want to hear about the murderous habits of pork butchers. All you need know is that nothing in a pig has to be thrown away unsold, so my uncle had made a small fortune. Which I immediately made a start on (0-60 in three seconds). Not in the Latin Quarter this time, though. Oh, no. This time I bought my way into high society where gentlemen are very much gentlemen, very well-behaved and, as I found to my cost, very much inclined to let you foot the bill for the refreshments.

  And once more I sat broke and toying with the idea of a quick, painless death in the near future. Not all pig breeders were uncles of mine, unfortunately, and even if they had been, pig breeders don’t die every day. Far from it, as a matter of fact. Smile if you like, but they don’t come much tougher than the average pig breeder. Well, think of the life they have to lead. Up at two or three every morning, travelling in all weathers, traipsing from town to town, market to market …. Think you could do the job all right, do you? Don’t make me laugh. You wouldn’t last more than three weeks at the outside.

  Where were we? Oh yes. I was bankrupt again, this time hopelessly. I had to sell my furniture, sell my books, sell everything until finally I was left with nothing but my revolver. So on the day when my very last sou had disappeared I opened my mouth, inserted the gun into this convenient opening ….. and suddenly thought:

  ‘I must be mad! Fancy committing suicide with a weapon worth at least a hundred francs. I can surely raise some money on it. We’ll have another think about things after that. There’s still plenty of time.’

  I found an old pawnbroker who, after a lot of haggling, offered me ten francs on my pistol. I took it. Just as a precaution, I used twenty sous out of the ten francs to buy a good length of rope; a nice bit of rope it was too, stout yet not too thick, strong but very pliable. I almost felt tempted to use it there and then, for the sheer pleasure of it, but not quite.

  Well, the rest of the ten francs kept me alive for three days, me and the rope, because I quickly grew inseparable from it as a sort of good luck charm. But on the third day I finally decided that the moment had really come to end it all and I went back to my rooms clutching my trusty rope. And who should I find waiting for me but my friendly landlady? Kindly she explained that as I was now owing more than a month’s rent she would be grateful to have my key back and smilingly took it from me.

  My rope and I sallied forth into the night once more, promising we would be back soon with the rent money.

  A nasty night it was too, much too nasty for suicide by drowning. All night I walked beside the Seine, so black, so silent, so tempting, yet so freezing cold. At last the light of day returned. So did my appetite. I went back to the pawnbroker and parted tearfully with my rope for which he gave me two sous, on condition I threw in my waistcoat buttons as well.

  I managed to survive the rest of the day on a plate of vegetable soup for which I paid my entire fortune.

  *

  Evening returned. My last evening on earth, I thought to myself.

  For a long time I wandered along the quays and over the bridges, postponing the final moment as usual.

  Then suddenly I thought – well, here goes, goodbye everyone and happy landings.

  Splash!

  *

  I had no sooner landed in the water than I heard another splash quite close to me, almost like an echo of mine.

  ‘That’s nice!’ I thought. ‘A dog has leapt in to save me.’

  I swam towards the sound to make his job easier.

  I’m glad I did, because, far from being a charitable dog, it was a woman thrashing round in the water. Obviously another suicide attempt like me.

  ‘Hello, there might be a reward going here ….’ I thought, and swam faster.

  Moments later I had pulled her out on to the bank and was reviving her with some heartfelt friction. She came to and looked round her.

  ‘Where am I?’ she said. ‘Oh no! I’ve been saved! And I so wanted to die!’

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ I said, somewhat abashed.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, and fainted again. Things were taken out of my hands at that moment because an officer of the law galloped up, puffing hard, and took over the resuscitation. When she came round for the second time and sat up, he told her that he had seen everything that happened.

  ‘This man saved your life,’ he said gravely.

  She held out her hand to me and smiled sadly.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You weren’t to know.’ She was certainly very pretty, my sad little half-drowned girl, very pale, with long black hair and great big beautiful shy eyes.

  And presently, summoned by the police, her parents arrived, both very upset and in a great state. Her mother turned out to be a harpy of the worst kind and hardly gave me a second glance, but her father took me warmly and gratefully in his arms. It was from him that I learnt the whole story – how the young girl had been desperately in love with a young man who had led her on, how he had run off and abandoned her, how she had immediately tried to take her own life, and how only my prompt action could have saved her.

  As it turned out, her midnight bathe had done a great deal to cool her passion. In fact – I have to tell you this – she promptly fell in love again, but this time with the man who had rescued her.

  Me.

  And we are now very happily married.

  I hope you agree now that my lifelong habit of leaving everything to the last moment paid off handsomely.

  What else can I tell you?

  Only that I still love my wife and that my mother-in-law died last week.

  HOW FAR CAN THE BOOK PUBLICITY PEOPLE GO, ALWAYS ASSUMING, THE WAY THINGS ARE GOING AT THE MOMENT, THAT THEY WILL EVER STOP?

  The other day I was feeling pretty seedy.

  The heat, perhaps. Or chronic indigestion. I don’t know. What I do know is that I was feeling pretty seedy.

  And when I feel seedy I tend to do the most extraordinary and baroque things.

  Which explains how I came to be deep in scrutiny of the classified advertisements on the back of Le Journal (the most stylish and best informed newspaper in all Paris. Well, the only one with six pages anyway).

  And there it was that I came across the following reviving lines:

  Small fortune guaranteed within a month, no risk involved. New system, open to all Write to Box 27, c/o Le Journal.

  Small fortune, eh? How about that, I thought. Not that I wouldn’t have preferred a large one, but as there didn’t seem to be any choice on offer I simply took pen in hand and wrote off to Box 27 saying how much I was looking forward to our future relationship.

  I had hardly returned to the paper when an even more extraordinary advertisement caught my eye:

  Young deaf and dumb girl, dowry 1,700,000 francs, wishes meet man of the world, view white marriage. Write to Lucia H.W. c/o Le Journal.

  ‘How about that!’ I thought. ‘A wife with 1,700,000 francs is a bit of all right, but a dumb wife ….! Quick – pen and paper!’

  So I wrote a passionate letter to Lucia H.W., not forgetting to slip into the envelope a distinguished photostudy of my good self ….. It was obviously my lucky day because the next advertisement I looked at was every bit as good as the first two:

  Amazing! Amazing! Amazing! My methods cure all diseases and ailments! Write to Dr. 2,119, c/o Le Journal.

  Amazed, amazed, amazed, I sent off a letter to the good Dr. 2,119. And while I was at it I replied to two other advertisements:

  Free country holiday for a month, in return for a little light work. Write to BK, 19, Le Journal.

  And, somewhat more mysteriously:

  Blkw sqkrsljxrb ssss bcd. Write: RSPZ, Journal.

  Feeling much better after all this exercise, I ordered a second bottle of wine and ended up later that evening lying on a bench in one of the better boulevards, happily dreaming of small fortunes, white marriages, perfect health, country junkets and blkw sqk
rs.

  I need hardly tell you, though, that I was up bright and early the next morning, waiting with the concierge for the postman.

  And there were five letters for me!

  Feverishly, I tore open the first one.

  Only to read:

  ‘Sir, to make a fortune in a month all you have to do is write a book as good as With my Heart on my Sleeve and my Stomach in my Socks, by Edouard Osmont, now at all good bookshops.’

  Just my luck, I thought. A leg-pull.

  The deaf and dumb heiress replied as follows:

  ‘Why don’t you stop chasing women, you dirty old man, and do something worthwhile like reading Edouard Osmont’s new book, With my Heart on my Sleeve and my Stomach in my Socks?’

  Not again! I began to suspect a conspiracy.

  The third letter read:

  ‘Cure all your ills by reading With my Heart on my Sleeve and my Stomach in my Socks, by Edouard Osmont.’

  I opened the fourth letter with a certain foreboding.

  ‘You could quickly earn enough for a holiday in the country if you wrote a book like With my Heart on my Sleeve and my Stomach in my Socks by Edouard Osmont.’

  Only a profound sense of duty enabled me to unseal the fifth and last envelope.

  ‘Blkw With my Heart sqkrs on my Sleeve and my Stomach ljxrb in my Socks by Edouard Osmont.’

  *

  That funny noise? It is the sound of great French authors turning in their graves.

  Copyright

  This ebook edition first published in 2015

  by Faber & Faber Ltd

  Bloomsbury House

  74–77 Great Russell Street

  London WC1B 3DA

  All rights reserved

  Translation © Miles Kington, 1976

  The right of Miles Kington to be identified as translator of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988