Perhaps it is because the jars in the pharmacy where Alphonse Allais spent his childhood reflected nothing dark – above them hung the sky of Honfleur as it was painted with unprecedented tenderness by Eugène Boudin, who was no less familiar than Courbet or Manet with the paternal drugstore – but it is rare indeed for his work, so filled with humour, to betray a serious apprehension, reveal the slightest reservation. If he is nonetheless related to the incomparably more noxious authors who give this anthology its character, it’s less for the clear and almost always vernal substance of his stories, whose aroma is rarely bitter, than for the ingeniousness with which he hunted down the many forms of petty-bourgeois stupidity and egotism that reached their peak in his day. Not only did he waste no opportunity to mock pitiful religious and patriotic ideals, which the defeat of 1871 only exacerbated in his compatriots, but he excelled in disorienting the self-satisfied, self-assured, truism-dazzled individuals he saw around him every day. He and his friend Sapeck, in fact, reign over a form of activity that was almost unknown before them: practical jokes. We can say that they elevated this activity to an art form. Their goal was nothing less than to exert a terrorism of the mind, in a variety of ways, which would highlight people’s banal, threadbare conformity; to flush out the social, remarkably limited beast in them and harass it by gradually removing it from the context of its sordid interests. There is in this a call to reason for being that is equivalent to a death sentence: ‘As his ancestors on their ship sailed against the river tides,’ said Maurice Donnay, ‘so he sailed in his stories against the tides of prejudice.’ The shadow of Baudelaire is not far off and, indeed, his biographers remind us that when the poet went to see his mother in Honfleur, he enjoyed visiting Alphonse Allais’s father, no doubt making his mark on the child as well (at the end of his life, Alphonse Allais would live in ‘Baudelaire’s house’).
Allais’s existence is tied to the rapidly falling star of those eccentric enterprises that were the Hydropathes, the Hirsutes, and the Chat-Noir, which reveal, with a flourish of the top hat, the still-mysterious thought of the late nineteenth century. Some have tried – quite unsuccessfully so far – to enumerate the completely gratuitous inventions proposed by the author of A se tordre [Splitting Sides], the products of a poetic imagination located between that of Zeno of Elea and that of children: a rifle whose calibre is one millimeter and in which the bullet is replaced by an authentic needle, which can pass through fifteen or twenty men, leaving them threaded, bound, and bundled all at once; carrier fish, intended to replace pigeons for the transmission of urgent messages; an aquarium made of frosted glass for bashful goldfish; intensification of the light source in glow worms; oiling the ocean to soften the waves; a corkscrew powered by tidal pull; a pocket wringer; an elevator-building that sinks into the ground to the desired floor; a train running on ten superimposed tracks, each one moving at a speed of twenty leagues an hour, etc. It goes without saying that the erection of this mental house of cards demands first and foremost a profound knowledge of all the resources language offers, of its secrets as well as its pitfalls: ‘He was a great writer,’ judged even the harsh Jules Renard after Alphonse Allais’s death.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: A se tordre, 1891. Vive la Vie, 1892. Rose et Vert Pomme, 1894. Le parapluie de l’escouade, 1894. Deux et deux font cinq, 1895. On n’est pas des boeufs, 1896. Le bec en l’air, 1897. Amours, délices et orgues, 1898. Pour cause de fin de bail, 1899. L’affaire Blaireau, 1899. Ne nous frappons pas, 1900. Le Captain Cap, 1902. A l’oeil, 1921, etc.
BIBLIOGRAPHY IN ENGLISH: The World of Alphonse Allais (selections).
In which we learn that those who stick their noses into other people’s business would do better to mind their own.
I can’t believe how crummy the world is getting these days! (A reflection from my concierge last Monday morning.)
One morning, Raoul received the following message:
‘A word to the wise: If you wish to see your wife happy for once, be at the Incoherents’ Ball next Thursday at the Moulin Rouge. She will be there, masked and disguised as a Congolese Pirogue.
A Friend.’
That same morning, Marguerite received the following message:
‘A word to the wise: If you wish to see your husband happy for once, be at the Incoherents’ Ball next Thursday at the Moulin Rouge. He will be there, masked and disguised as a turn-of-the-century Templar.
A Friend.’
These words did not fall on four deaf ears.
Admirably cloaking their designs, when the fateful day arrived:
‘Dearest,’ said Raoul in his most guileless tone, ‘I shall be forced to leave you until tomorrow. Affairs of the utmost importance require my presence in Dunkirk.’
‘It’s just as well,’ replied Marguerite, delightfully candid, ‘I’ve just received a telegram from my Aunt Aspasie, who is quite ill and has called me to her bedside.’
In which we see today’s foolish youth whirl about in the most fanciful and transitory pleasures, instead of devoting their thoughts to eternity.
Mai vouéli vièure pamens:
La vido es tant bello!
August Marin
The society columns of the Limping Devil were unanimous in proclaiming that this year’s Incoherents’ Ball shone with unusual splendour.
Many bare shoulders and a fair number of legs, without mentioning their accessories.
Two of those present did not seem to be taking part in the general merriment: a turn-of-the-century Templar and a Congolese Pirogue, both hermetically masked.
At the stroke of three in the morning, the Templar approached the Pirogue and invited her to join him for supper.
In response, the Pirogue merely laid her delicate hand on the Templar’s robust arm, and the couple departed.
In which the plot thickens.
‘I say, don’t you think the rajah laughs at us?’
‘Perhaps, sir.’
Henry O’Mercier
‘Leave us for a moment,’ said the Templar to the waiter. ‘We shall decide on our menu and ring for you when ready.’
The waiter withdrew, and the Templar carefully locked the door of their compartment.
Then, with a sudden movement, after having rid himself of his helmet, he ripped off the Pirogue’s mask.
Both of them, at the same time, emitted cries of stupefaction, as neither recognized the other.
He was not Raoul.
She was not Marguerite.
They offered each other their apologies, then lost no time in making each other’s acquaintance over a light supper, and that’s all I have to say about that.
– from Splitting Sides
* * *
My home during the beautiful months borders a modest dwelling inhabited by the most odious shrew on the entire coast.
The widow of a town surveyor whom she drove to an early grave, that fishwife joined an uncommon sourness with the most sordid avarice, all of it under cover of a religious devotion pushed to excess.
She is dead, may her ashes rest in peace!
She is dead, and I laughed loud and long when I saw her beat the air with two long skinny arms and collapse onto the thin grass of her ridiculous and excessively tidy garden.
For I was witness to her demise; better still, I engineered it, and I believe that little exploit will remain one of my fondest memories.
Moreover, things had to end that way, for I had gotten to the point where I could no longer sleep, so obsessed was I with the very thought of that harpie.
Horrible, horrible woman!
I attained my morbid result by dint of various practical jokes, each in the worst possible taste, but which, my word, reveal both cleverness and relentlessness in their author.
Would you care for a small glimpse of my machinations?
• • •
My neighbour was insane about gardening. No lettuce in the country could compare with her lettuce, and as for her strawberries, they were all so beautiful that they made you want to genuflect before them.
Against weeds, crafty insects, and the most ravenous worms, she tirelessly used a thousand fearsomely effective tricks.
The way she would hunt down slugs was a poem unto itself, as François Copée might have said in an immortal line.
Now, one day when a rainstorm battered the entire country, this is what I hit upon:
I gathered myriad local boys (myriad is just an expression) and, handing each one a bag, I said:
‘Off with you, my young lads, off onto the country paths, and find me as many snails as you can. You’ll get a few pennies’ reward when you return.’
And off the little rascals went.
A copious prey awaited them: never, in fact, had so much escargot mottled the landscape.
I then collected all those molluscs in a large, sealed case, in which they were encouraged to fast for a good week. After which, on a radiant summer’s eve, I released those creatures into the old bat’s garden.
The sunrise soon illuminated this Waterloo. Of the romaine, chicory, and strawberry plants that once had flourished, there now remained only sinister, tattered veins.
Oh, if I hadn’t been laughing so hard, the sight of all that devastation would have made me mighty sad!
The shrew couldn’t believe her eyes.
Meanwhile, stuffed but not sated, my snails pursued their destructive efforts. From my little observatory, I saw them resolutely climbing to attack the pear trees.
… At that moment, the bell rang for the ten-o’clock mass. My neighbour ran off to recount her woes to the Good Lord.
• • •
It would be tedious to give a detailed account of the ferocious pranks that I inflicted on my wicked neighbour.
I’ll skip over all the pieces of impure calcium carbide that I lobbed into the little basin in front of her lawn: no human pen could adequately describe the stench of garlic that her stupid water fountain then sprayed in all directions. And as it turned out (a detail that I learned only later and that filled me with joy), the fishwife had an insurmountable aversion to the odour of garlic.
At the foot of the wall separating her lawn from mine, she grew a superb parsley plant. Oh, what beautiful parsley!
By countless handfuls, I covered her platform with hemlock seeds, which yield a plant that is almost indistinguishable from parsley.
(I feel sorry for the new owners of that lawn, if they can’t tell the difference.)
Let us go directly to the two supreme pranks, the second of which, as I mentioned above, entailed the horrible old crone’s sudden demise.
I had carefully observed our shrew and knew her daily routine like the back of my hand.
Up at dawn, she would run her suspicious eye over the slightest details of her garden, mashing a snail here, pulling a weed there.
At the first chime for the six-o’clock mass, the devout old thing would scram; then, her religious duties fulfilled, she would return and take from her mailbox the newspaper La Croix, whose edifying contents accompanied the slurping of her coffee with milk.
Now, one morning, her favourite gazette featured some very peculiar items. The lead story, for example, began with this sentence:
‘Will we ever get those G–d– pulpiteers off our backs!’ and the rest of the article continued on that tone.
After which, one could read this notice:
To our readers,
We cannot caution too strenuously those of our readers who, for one reason or other, find themselves obliged to let clergymen into their homes.
Last Monday, for instance, the priest from Saint Lucien, summoned to the home of one of his parishioners to administer last rites, deemed it wise to take along the dying man’s gold watch and a dozen silver place settings when he left.
This is by no means an isolated incident, etc., etc.
And the human interest stories!
They notably recounted that the papal nuncio had been arrested the evening before, at the Moulin Rouge, for drunk and disorderly conduct and for insulting an officer.
Strange newspaper!
Need I add that this curious periodical had been written, typeset, and printed not by the sort of good women who put out the newspaper La Fronde, but by yours truly, with the help of a printer friend whose perfect connivance in this instance I cannot praise too highly.
• • •
There is one joke I can particularly recommend to my elegant clientele. It does not shine by its keen intellectualism, nor by its exquisite tact, but playing it can procure for its author an extremely intense happiness.
Naturally, I did not fail to play it on my detestable neighbour.
Starting in the morning, and at various intervals throughout the day, I sent telegrams to people in every part of France, signed by the old witch and giving her address. Each of these telegrams, which came with a prepaid reply, consisted of a request for information on a given subject.
One can hardly envision the stupor mixed with terror that the old woman felt each time the telegraph carrier delivered her a slip of blue paper, bearing the most preposterous sentences imaginable.
Following close behind the special issue of La Croix that I had concocted, these telegrams precipitated my odious neighbour into a highly comical hallucination. In the end, she refused to let the mailman near her house, and even threatened the humble functionary with her broom handle, should he ever show his face.
Installed at my attic window and furnished with excellent binoculars, I had never laughed so hard.
• • •
Nevertheless, the evening came.
An old custom had it that the woman’s cat, a long, skinny, but superb black feline, would come to prowl around my garden as soon as evening fell.
Assisted by my nephew (a very promising lad), I quickly captured the animal.
No less quickly, we dusted it copiously with barium sulphate.
(Barium sulfate is one of those substances that have the property of making objects glow in the dark. You can find it at any shop that sells chemical products.)
• • •
It was an opaque night, a night without moon or stars. Worried at not seeing her pussy come home, the old lady called:
‘Polytus! Polytus! Come, my little Polytus!’
(Now there’s a name for a cat!)
Suddenly, released by us, mad with rage and terror, Polytus fled, flew up the wall in less time than it takes to write it, and scrambled for home.
Have you ever seen a glowing cat fly through the night shadows? It’s a sight worth seeing; personally, I don’t know of anything more fantastic. It was too much.
We heard cries, screams:
‘Beelzebub! Beelzebub!’ the old lady screeched. ‘It’s Beelzebub!’
Then we saw her drop the candle she was holding and fall onto her lawn.
When the neighbours, alerted by her cries, came to help her up, it was too late: I no longer had a neighbour.
– from Nothing to Get Worked Up About