Read Online Life: A User's Manual by Georges Perec - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Georges Perec
Tags: Fiction
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furtive shadows pass of all those who were there one day.
He remembered Marguerite, and Paul Hébert and Laetizia, and Emilio, and the saddler, and Marcel Appenzzell (with two z’s, unlike the canton or the cheese); he remembered Grégoire Simpson, and the mysterious American girl, and the not at all nice Madame Araña; he remembered the man in yellow shoes with a pink in his buttonhole and his malachite-handled stick who came every day for ten years to see Dr Dinteville; he remembered Monsieur Jérôme, the history teacher whose Dictionary of the Spanish Church in the Seventeenth Century had been turned down by 46 publishers; he remembered the young student who lived for a few months in the room now occupied by Jane Sutton and who had been kicked out of a vegetarian restaurant where he worked in the evenings after being caught pouring a big bottle of beef extract into the pot of simmering vegetable soup; he remembered Troyan, the secondhand book dealer whose shop was in Rue Lepic and who found one day in a pile of detective novels three letters from Victor Hugo to Henri Samuel, his Belgian publisher, about the publication of Les Châtiments ; he remembered Berloux, the air-raid warden, a fumbling cretin in a grey smock and a beret, who lived two houses up the road and who, one morning in 1941, in virtue of God knows what ARP regulation, had had put in the hallway and in the back yard, where the rubbish bins were kept, barrels of sand which never had any use at all; he remembered the time when Judge Danglars gave grand receptions for his Appeal Court colleagues: on these occasions, two Republican Guards in full regalia would stand sentry at the door of the building, the porch would be decorated with big pots of aspidistra and philodendron, and a cloakroom was set up to the left of the lift: it was a long tube mounted on casters and fitted with coat hangers which the concierge draped as required with minks, sables, broadtails, astrakhans, and big cloaks with otter-skin collars. On those days Madame Claveau wore her black, lace-collared dress and sat on a Regency chair (hired from the same caterers as the coat hangers and the indoor plants) beside a marble-topped sideboard on which she put her box of tokens, a square metal box decorated with little cupids armed with bows and arrows, a yellow ashtray praising the virtues of Cusenier Bleach (white or green), and a saucer equipped in advance with five-franc coins.
He had lived in the building longer than anyone else. He had been there longer than Gratiolet, whose family had formerly owned the whole house, but who only came to live here during the war, a few years before inheriting what was left, four or five flats which he’d got rid of one by one, keeping in the end only his own little two-roomed dwelling on the seventh floor; longer than Madame Marquiseaux, whose parents had already had the flat and who was practically born there when he had lived there for almost thirty years already; longer than old Mademoiselle Crespi, than old Madame Moreau, than the Beaumonts, the Marcias, and the Altamonts. Longer even than Bartlebooth; he remembered very precisely the day in nineteen twenty-nine when the young man – for he was a young man at the time, he wasn’t yet thirty – told him at the end of his daily watercolour lesson: “I say, it seems that the big flat on the third floor is vacant. I think I’ll buy it. I’ll waste less time coming to see you.”
And he had bought it, that same day, without arguing over the price, of course.
At this time Valène had lived there for ten years already. He had rented his room one day in October nineteen nineteen when he came up from his native town of Etampes, which he’d practically never left before, to enrol at the Fine Art School. He was just nineteen. It was supposed to be a temporary lodging provided by a friend of the family, to tide him over. Later he would marry and become famous, or return to Etampes. He didn’t wed or go
He remembered Marguerite, and Paul Hébert and Laetizia, and Emilio, and the saddler, and Marcel Appenzzell (with two z’s, unlike the canton or the cheese); he remembered Grégoire Simpson, and the mysterious American girl, and the not at all nice Madame Araña; he remembered the man in yellow shoes with a pink in his buttonhole and his malachite-handled stick who came every day for ten years to see Dr Dinteville; he remembered Monsieur Jérôme, the history teacher whose Dictionary of the Spanish Church in the Seventeenth Century had been turned down by 46 publishers; he remembered the young student who lived for a few months in the room now occupied by Jane Sutton and who had been kicked out of a vegetarian restaurant where he worked in the evenings after being caught pouring a big bottle of beef extract into the pot of simmering vegetable soup; he remembered Troyan, the secondhand book dealer whose shop was in Rue Lepic and who found one day in a pile of detective novels three letters from Victor Hugo to Henri Samuel, his Belgian publisher, about the publication of Les Châtiments ; he remembered Berloux, the air-raid warden, a fumbling cretin in a grey smock and a beret, who lived two houses up the road and who, one morning in 1941, in virtue of God knows what ARP regulation, had had put in the hallway and in the back yard, where the rubbish bins were kept, barrels of sand which never had any use at all; he remembered the time when Judge Danglars gave grand receptions for his Appeal Court colleagues: on these occasions, two Republican Guards in full regalia would stand sentry at the door of the building, the porch would be decorated with big pots of aspidistra and philodendron, and a cloakroom was set up to the left of the lift: it was a long tube mounted on casters and fitted with coat hangers which the concierge draped as required with minks, sables, broadtails, astrakhans, and big cloaks with otter-skin collars. On those days Madame Claveau wore her black, lace-collared dress and sat on a Regency chair (hired from the same caterers as the coat hangers and the indoor plants) beside a marble-topped sideboard on which she put her box of tokens, a square metal box decorated with little cupids armed with bows and arrows, a yellow ashtray praising the virtues of Cusenier Bleach (white or green), and a saucer equipped in advance with five-franc coins.
He had lived in the building longer than anyone else. He had been there longer than Gratiolet, whose family had formerly owned the whole house, but who only came to live here during the war, a few years before inheriting what was left, four or five flats which he’d got rid of one by one, keeping in the end only his own little two-roomed dwelling on the seventh floor; longer than Madame Marquiseaux, whose parents had already had the flat and who was practically born there when he had lived there for almost thirty years already; longer than old Mademoiselle Crespi, than old Madame Moreau, than the Beaumonts, the Marcias, and the Altamonts. Longer even than Bartlebooth; he remembered very precisely the day in nineteen twenty-nine when the young man – for he was a young man at the time, he wasn’t yet thirty – told him at the end of his daily watercolour lesson: “I say, it seems that the big flat on the third floor is vacant. I think I’ll buy it. I’ll waste less time coming to see you.”
And he had bought it, that same day, without arguing over the price, of course.
At this time Valène had lived there for ten years already. He had rented his room one day in October nineteen nineteen when he came up from his native town of Etampes, which he’d practically never left before, to enrol at the Fine Art School. He was just nineteen. It was supposed to be a temporary lodging provided by a friend of the family, to tide him over. Later he would marry and become famous, or return to Etampes. He didn’t wed or go
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