Exercises in Style (6 page)

Personally I don’t know what they want of me. Yes, I got on an S
bus about midday. Were there a lot of people? Of course there were, at that hour. A
young man with a felt hat? It’s quite possible. Personally I don’t examine
people under a microscope. I don’t give a damn. A kind of plaited cord? Round his
hat? I’ll agree that’s a bit peculiar, but it doesn’t strike me
personally as anything else. A plaited cord . . . He had words with another man?
There’s nothing unusual about that.

And then I saw him again an hour or two later? Why not? There are a
lot of things
in life that are more peculiar than that. For
instance, I remember my father was always telling me about . . .

I got into the Porte Champerret bus. There were a lot of people in it,
young, old, women, soldiers. I paid for my ticket and then looked around me. It
wasn’t very interesting. But finally I noticed a young man whose neck I thought
was too long. I examined his hat and I observed that instead of a ribbon it had a
plaited cord. Every time another passenger got on there was a lot of pushing and
shoving. I didn’t say anything, but all the same the young man with the long neck
started to quarrel with his neighbour. I didn’t hear what he said, but they gave
each other some dirty looks. Then the young man with the long neck
went and sat down in a hurry.

Coming back from the Porte Champerret I passed in front of the gare
Saint-Lazare. I saw my young man having a discussion with a pal. the pal indicated a
button just above the lapels of the young man’s overcoat. Then the bus took me off
and I didnt see them any more. I had a seat and I wasn’t thinking about
anything.

resent

At midday the heat coils round the feet of bus passengers. If, placed on
a long neck, a stupid head adorned with a grotesque hat should chance to become
inflamed, then a quarrel immediately breaks out. Very soon to become dissipated,
however, in an atmosphere too heavy to carry ultimate insults very vividly from mouth to
ear.

Thus one goes and sits down inside, where it’s cool.

Later can be posed, in front of stations with double courtyards,
sartorial questions about some button or other which fingers slimy with sweat
self-confidently fiddle with.

eported speech

Dr. Queneau said that it had happened at midday. Some passengers had got into the bus. They had been squashed tightly together. On his head a young man had been wearing a hat which had been encircled by a plait and not by a ribbon. He had had a long neck. He had complained to the man standing next to him about the continual jostling which the latter had been inflicting on him. As soon as he had noticed a vacant seat, said Dr. Queneau, the young man had rushed off towards it and sat down upon it.

He had seen him later, Dr. Queneau continued,
in front of the gare Saint-Lazare. He had been wearing an overcoat, and a friend who had happened to be present had made a remark to him to the effect that he ought to put an extra button on the said overcoat.

It was midday. The bus was being got into by passengers. They were being
squashed together. A hat was being worn on the head of a young gentleman, which hat was
encircled by a plait and not by a ribbon. A long neck was one of the characteristics of
the young gentleman. The man standing next to him was being grumbled at by the latter
because of the jostling which was being inflicted on him by him. As soon as a vacant
seat was espied by the young gentleman it was made the object of his precipitate
movements and it became sat down upon.

The young gentleman was later seen by me in front
of the gare Saint-Lazare. He was clothed in an overcoat and was having a remark made to
him by a friend who happened to be there to the effect that it was necessary to have an
extra button put on it.

lexandrines

One midday in the bus—the S-line was its ilk—

I saw a little runt, a miserable milk—

Sop, voicing discontent, although around his turban

He had a plaited cord, this fancy-pants suburban.

Now hear what he complained of, this worm-metamorphosis

With disproportionate neck, suffering from halitosis:

—A citizen standing near him who’d come to man’s
estate

Was constantly refusing to circumnavigate

His toes, each time a chap got in the bus and rode,

Panting, and late for lunch, towards his chaste
abode.

But scandal was there none; this sorry personage

Espied a vacant seat—made thither quick pilgrimage.

As I was going back towards the Latin Quarter

I saw him once again, this youth of milk-and-water.

And heard his foppish friend telling him with dispassion:

“The opening of your coat is not the latest fashion.”

I got into a bus full of taxpayers who were giving some money to a
taxpayer who had on his taxpayer’s stomach a little box which allowed the other
taxpayers to continue their taxpayers’ journeys. I noticed in this bus a taxpayer
with a long taxpayer’s neck and whose taxpayer’s head bore a
taxpayer’s felt hat encircled by a plait the like of which no taxpayer ever wore
before. Suddenly the said taxpayer peremptorily addressed a nearby taxpayer, complaining
bitterly that he was purposely treading on his taxpayer’s toes every time other
taxpayers got on or off the taxpayers’ bus. Then the angry taxpayer went
and sat down in a seat for taxpayers which another taxpayer had
just vacated. Some taxpayer’s hours later I caught sight of him in the Cour for
the taxpayers de Rome, in the company of a taxpayer who was giving him some advice on
the elegance of the taxpayer.

pheresis

Ot us sengers. Ticed ung an eck embled at affe ring at ith ted ord. Ot
gry nother senger plaining rod oes very one n ut. Ent at own here as ree eat.

Ing ack eft ank ticed king own ith riend ving vice ow egant wing irst
ton oat.

pocope

I g into a bu full of passen. I no a yo ma whose n resem th of a gir and
who was wea a h w a plai cor. He g an with a passen, complai that he tr on his t e time
any got i or o. Then he w and s d because th w a f s.