Sometimes he would lean on the taffrail for hours, staring out to sea. Was it because the ocean seemed to him the perfect symbol of the fickleness of woman? Or was he hoping against hope that a lovely mermaid would emerge before his eyes? (Personally, I tend to the first theory. I agree wholeheartedly with the poet when he says that waves are a symbol of the treachery and duplicity of women. Be damned to women, say I!)*
But whenever the next port of call came in sight, Steelcock changed utterly. From being an ordinary man he turned into a whirlpool of passion, an internal hurricane of longing and lust that made the worst storm at sea seem mild by comparison. And no sooner had the ship come alongside the quay than Steelcock leapt on to land on his way to town, leaving the first officer to deal with the customs and the ship’s brokers. Not, I hasten to add, that Steelcock was the kind of man to leap like a beast of prey on the first bit of hireable female flesh he saw (and I am sorry to say that there are all too many in the average commercial port). No, no. Steelcock may well have been mad about women, but he liked women to be mad about him as well. Not that he often had far to look; with a passion like his, it was not hard to find women who responded to it. He had violent affairs the way other men have bad colds. In any case, his monocle always had a devastating effect on ladies in British colonies and similar backwaters.
But one day he passed from the sublime to the ridiculous by taking an oath that from now on he would make women not only love him, but love him and no-one else. It may have had something to do with the fact he was at St. Pierre in Martinique and had just been introduced to the most delicious Creole girl he had ever come across in his life. How on earth could I possibly describe her? Shall I tear a feather from one of God’s angels, dip it in the blue of the sky and try to enumerate her heavenly charms? Not if it means getting more angry letters from anti-vivisectionist readers, so let me simply say that the good Captain shortly found himself in ecstasy (a delightful little spot) for a short season.
Sadly, all good things come to an end, much faster than bad things (life is so badly arranged), and the day came for Captain Steelcock to re-embark and continue his voyage. But for once he could not bear to tear himself away from his new-found love. The Topsy Turvy’s anchor was already raised. Her sails were set. Without a captain, though, she had to stay where she was and wait.
At long last, Captain Steelcock managed to break free of the spell. Giving his Creole girl a magnificent farewell kiss, he pressed a quantity of pounds sterling into her hand with a heartfelt apology for not having had time to find a more discreet parting present. The young lady counted the money quickly and put it away looking a little dissatisfied.
‘Why so unhappy, my love?’ said the captain, somewhat disconcerted. ‘Do you feel I have not been generous enough?’
His brown goddess looked up at him and said sweetly;
‘Not at all. You have been the perfect gentleman. I only wish your First Officer had been half as generous as you.’
His First Officer! This revelation came as a bolt of lightning to the Captain. Suddenly, a veil was rent, his eyes were opened and he saw women as they really are. And from then on he decided never to worry about love again but to concentrate exclusively on more important matters, such as hygiene and convenience. Wherever he landed henceforth he went straight to the professionals just as you or I might make for the best local pork butcher or greengrocer. And he had no reason to regret it.
Not long ago his ship had to put in at the Camom Isles, a small colony in the Pacific belonging to Luxembourg and famous throughout the Far East for its beautiful climate, not to mention its easy-going way of life. No sooner was he on dry land than Steelcock started looking for a good address at which to sample the latter. He found not one but dozens, simply by being directed to a splendid avenue on the edge of town lined with elegant villas sporting such enticing names as Welcome House, Good Luck Home, Eden Villa and Pavilion Bonne Franquette.
Having always had a weakness for Frenchwomen, Steelcock made a beeline for the last-named where he was received by a lady who had seen earlier (and better) days in Bordeaux, and who introduced him to her tenants, all of them without exception charming and lively girls. Steelcock’s eye was caught by a dark beauty from Toulon who seemed to him absolutely perfect, except perhaps that she seemed unacquainted with the finer points of the art of hair-combing, but otherwise perfect, so the happy couple promptly retired together for the night and how they occupied themselves thereafter is none of our business.
But early the next morning the Camom Isles were devastated by an earthquake (see the local paper of the time for full details) so violent that no house remained unscathed, not even the Pavilion Bonne Franquette. The ladies managed to escape, fleeing in what, in any other profession, might have seemed a somewhat scanty uniform, and gathered outside for a hasty rollcall.
There were only two missing – Captain Steelcock and his young companion.
The girls were just coming to the reluctant conclusion that both of them must have perished in the disaster when who should emerge from the wreckage but the captain himself, covered in debris, yet still quite imperturbably wearing his monocle.
‘Madame!’ he cried to the good lady of Bordeaux. ‘Madame, send me another girl, would you? Mine is dead.’
* At the time of writing that paragraph I was convinced that my beloved was in another man’s arms. Now (10.40 p.m.) I can vouch that she is not, so I am very happy to withdraw such discourteous sentiments.
KEEPING UP APPEARANCES
Like everyone else I have been responsible for a few violent deaths in my time, quite a few in fact. Yes, when I think of all those innocent victims my flesh creeps in a very modest sort of way and my open, friendly face goes a little pale.
Women, mostly.
Ah, when I think of all the poor women who have died for my sake ….
Some of them have succumbed to a fatal passion for my irresistible good looks. Others I have simply beaten to death.
One of them had rather better luck than the others. She threw herself in despair from a fifth floor window, and had the great good fortune to land on a greenhouse on her, how shall I say? …. on her big end. With the happy result that she emerged from her little adventure none the worse for wear, except for multiple lacerations to her …. big end.
To this day I can remember the anxious young patient turning to the doctor as he dressed her injuries and asking: ‘Please tell me, doctor, will it show?’ To which he replied, rather wittily I thought:–
‘My dear young lady, that rather depends on you.’
The most recent case in this tragic series of female martyrs to my cause (and a lump comes to my pen as I write these words) was my last lady friend, a certain Miss L… N… She was beautiful, but it was the fatal kind of beauty that inspired men to fight over her, and it led to her undoing.
Alas, poor L… N… of Troyes.
As far as male victims are concerned, I have at least half a dozen premature passings away on my conscience, not counting all those relations of mine who have been driven to an early grave at the sight of my headlong turpitude.
For (and you will find this hard to believe) I have not always been the industrious, sober, plump little bourgeois you see before you today.
No, there was a time when – rue the day! – the author of these lines was a nasty, idle, frivolous student who fled his lectures and spent all his (my) time on the sunny café terraces of the rue de Médicis, interested only in devising new ways of maddening my (his) contemporaries.
Shameful days, indeed.
Not that my little schemes were always successful. Once, I remember, I took a sincere dislike to a bad-tempered old gentleman who lived on the first floor of the house in which at that time I occupied the penthouse attic. The old gent returned the sentiment wholeheartedly, but obviously felt that at his age and in his circumstances it was beneath him to do anything about the thousand little torments I inflicted on his daily life.
One day I arr
ived at college – rara avis– to take an examination.
And who do you think was one of the examiners?
Correct. The bad-tempered old gentleman, who had come along specially to plumb the depths of my knowledge of botany.
He hadn’t far to sink.
He pushed a nutritious vegetable in my direction and said, without any trace of wit or refinement:
‘What’s that?’
‘That, monsieur, is what is known in French as a “choufleur”.’
‘And in Latin?’
‘That I cannot tell you, monsieur. I can tell you, though, that the English call it a “cauliflower”.’
‘Your command of English fails to interest me. Tell me, by what botanical features do you recognise the plant?’
‘Monsieur, I can identify a cauliflower without the help of botanical features, thank you very much.’
‘Thank you very much. That will be all.’
The bad-tempered old gentleman had his revenge by ensuring that I returned to take the exam another time.
But I remember one incident which took a rather more tragic turn.
In those days the Latin Quarter was still full of quaint little old corners, most of which have since fallen beneath the demolisher’s pick-axe, and it was quite common to find houses lying lower than their own street so that you could look straight from the pavement into a third floor window. I happened to know a law student who lived in a house like that, a very shy, retiring young lad whose upstairs apartment was exactly the same height as the street outside. If you stood outside, you could look into his front room and feel just as if you were in there with him.
One day, I was walking down his street.
There he was, working away by the window.
I stopped and leant on the balustrade outside, to stare in at him, just as you might gaze at an animal in the Zoo.
A passer-by came over to see what I was staring at, and stayed to gaze with me. Then another one joined us, then two more, then four more, then twenty.
Within a few minutes the audience had grown to a huge crowd, without the student once raising his eyes from his books.
But at last he looked up and saw the throng. And as soon as he realised that he was the centre of attention, he became unutterably confused.
Sadly, the poor boy was quite unable to deal with those thousand silent eyes trained on him, and he lost his head entirely.
Because the only thing he could think of, to keep up appearances in such extraordinary circumstances, was to fetch a rope and hang himself.
VIRTUE REWARDED
Her name was Clémence. She was young, and soft, and pretty. It would not be true to say that she didn’t have a single idea in her pretty little head, either, because one fine sunny morning she did have an idea in her pretty little head. She confided it to her boy-friend.
‘Let’s go out into the country!’
‘The country?’ said her atrocious boy-friend, whose name was Lemuffle, and that was about the only nice thing you could say about him. ‘What the hell would we do in the country?’
‘I don’t know … go for a walk?’
‘Whereabouts in the country?’
‘Anywhere, I don’t mind … Bougival, perhaps.’
‘What’s so bloody special about Bougival?’
‘Don’t you remember? That’s where we first met.’
‘So it was. I wish I’d stayed at home now.’
‘Oh, you brute! …. Well, do you want to go to Bougival or don’t you?’
‘No. We’ll go to Joinville.’
‘All right, let’s go to Joinville.’
‘And I’ll ask Pignouf if he wants to come with us.’
‘Oh, no! Do we really have to take him along?’
‘Yes, we do. I don’t want to have to listen to you all day long. At least Pignouf is fun to be with.’
‘All right then, my darling. We’ll ask Pignouf along.’
Pignouf, Lemuffle’s best friend, was like all best friends – badly brought up, noisy, disloyal behind your back but, you had to admit it, damned good fun. Anyway, the expedition started well. In the train to Joinville Lemuffle and Pignouf had a fine time propositioning unaccompanied girls and terrorising small children, so much so that when they arrived at their destination they had worked up an enormous appetite. Clémence was very hungry too. So they found a little restaurant on the flowery banks of the Marne, installed themselves on the terrace outside and started to clamour for service.
‘Anyone there?’ shouted Lemuffle. ‘Send for the bloody manager!’
Pignouf backed him up.
‘How dare you serve us like this! I mean not serve us like this!’
Clémence, meanwhile, was quite happy stroking a big fat black cat which sat on her lap, purring in appreciation of her gentleness.
‘Can I take your order, lady and gentlemen?’
An old waiter had suddenly emerged from the restaurant.
‘You certainly can. What have you got to eat in this rotten dump?’
‘Well, we have steaks, cutlets, etc., etc. ….’
You don’t want me to go into all these prosaic descriptive details, do you? Good.
*
It may have been the poor quality of the cork, or it may have been the inefficiency of the waiter, but when he came to open the first bottle he managed to shatter the cork into a thousand fragments which all fell into the wine.
They were unforgiving.
‘You ……!’ cried Lemuffle.
‘You ……!’ echoed Pignouf.
(The dots represent the two most banal insults which man ever has to bear.)
The poor old waiter was most upset.
‘Don’t worry, don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Look, I’ll just …’
He picked up a spoon and started to remove the bits of cork as he poured.
‘You must be joking!’ said Lemuffle wittily.
‘Bring us another bottle,’ said Pignouf, ‘and get a bloody move on!’
But the poor old waiter appealed to their sense of decency. It seemed he wasn’t on the best of terms with the manager, and if he had to report that he had wasted an entire bottle of wine through his own carelessness, he was bound to be thrown out of the restaurant. Not that he particularly liked Joinville, but he was helping to look after his little grand-daughter and he needed the money to ….
‘What’s that got to do with us? Just get another bottle! And step on it.’
Which is where Clémence intervened.
‘Leave the bottle, old man,’ she said in her most gentle voice. ‘I’ll drink it. I don’t mind cork at all – in fact, I rather like it.’
The good girl was as good as her word. Despite being teased unmercifully by her two fellow boors, she drank all the wine without leaving a single crumb of cork, or without letting her smile ever leave her lips.
*
And it came to pass that afternoon that when the three of them went rowing on the river, their boat capsized and overturned. The two men drowned, but Clémence, made buoyant by all the cork she had consumed, floated on the surface till she was rescued by a nice young boy from a good family, recently graduated, whom she married very soon after.
COMPANIES, INSURANCE, INFERNAL CHEEK OF
You all know my story (a minor classic by now, hence my insufferable arrogance) of the man who took his fire insurance policy literally and claimed compensation for all the firewood, candles, cigars and other combustible objects which had gone up in smoke in his house in the course of the year.
And you remember how his insurance company, not taking kindly to such actions, had him arrested and tried as a multiple arsonist?
Well, today I have another case-history for my glittering clientele which demonstrates not only that insurance companies have a steady nerve (as in the story above) but also that they have an infernal nerve (as in the story below).
At this point let me hand over to the worthy correspondent who furnished me with all the facts. (To be
quite honest, I am unable to guarantee his worthiness or otherwise as I have no idea what the gentleman’s name or status is, but his handwriting seems worthy enough and besides, our correspondents are always our worthy correspondents, are they not?)
Dear Sir,
May I call on the dazzling talents with which you have blinded us all for so long and ask your advice before I embark on what may well turn into a long, costly law-suit?
The facts are as follows.
I may claim without exaggeration to be one of the biggest coffee merchants in the Paris market. My job is to buy coffee in a green state, to roast it and to sell it to the shops.
Well, last month in the middle of the night fire broke out in a vast suburban warehouse of mine where I had five hundred sacks of coffee in store. The building was only made of thin wood and went up like a box of matches; by the time the firemen arrived it was nothing but a smouldering ruin. Still, after the first shock had passed I thought to myself, Never mind, I’m insured, and went calmly back to bed.
A few days later the insurance experts and I met together to work out the extent of the damage. When we scoured the disaster area, we were amazed to find that the sacks of green coffee beans had not been destroyed in the fire. Not only had they not been destroyed, they had been roasted by the flames, and roasted to as fine a condition as any grocer could want.
I was busy complimenting the insurance men on the happy outcome of the incident, seeing they would now have only the warehouse to pay for, when one of them who had been jotting figures in his notebook said:
‘You owe us 3,000 francs, sir.’
I thought he was joking at first. But he was quite serious.
‘It costs 10 francs per sack to roast coffee. To roast 500 sacks costs 5,000 francs. Deduct 2,000 francs to cover the cost of the warehouse. That leaves 3,000 francs. You owe us 3,000 francs.’
As I stood gaping at him, he went on:
‘I must remind you of the clause in your policy which says: The insured person cannot use the insurance policy to make a profit: it can only be used to indemnify any losses sustained. That seems clear enough to me.’
The World of Alphonse Allais Page 11