AFTER THE LAST CANDLE has been extinguished, and the widow has withdrawn to her chambers, the performers gather on the lawns, where they listen to the flatulent man tell stories of celebrity and betrayal. M. Pujol, once so reluctant to speak of his past, has been changed by his rather precipitous decline. He is now possessed by the need to recount his days in Paris; he must make his companions understand that his life has not been one spent upon the hands and knees.
He is most emphatic on this particular point. I was a man of great stature, he says, flinging his arms high above his head. I always performed upright!
I had a pretty little English carriage, a cabriolet drawn by a mare named Aida, and when I drove it through town, dressed in my very best, I was recognized and saluted wherever I went. People loved to joke, Is that Le Petomane who just passed?
With my name at the top of the bill, the theatre prospered, the owner and the manager growing fat off the ticket sales and lavishing praise on me, who had brought them such good fortune. They hosted extravagant parties after my performances, their stiff shirtfronts turning scarlet with spilt wine, pomegranate seeds, the dribblings of fuddled dancing girls. What a wind-fall! they would toast, their shouts of laughter hurting my ears and making me tremble with disgust.
So I would beg indigestion, and the manager would shuffle me out. Aida would then take me home, her hooves clocking along the empty streets, and I would try to improve my spirits by recalling the precise moment when the audience burst open before me.
I am Le Petomane! I would tell myself. I am a source of astonishment and delight!