Free The Bark Tree by Raymond Queneau

in spite of the draft. The corrugated-iron hut gently cooks all its contents. Bluebottles buzz; a few advance on Ernestine, who scatters them with her elbow. Only one table is occupied, by a small group of workers from the chemicals factory. At the other end, M. Belhôtel is taking a cork out of a bottle with a slipknot; when he’s finished, he sits down by himself at a table and pricks up his ears. Of the five sitting there, he knows two by name and two only by sight; with a vague and absent-minded air, he carefully examines the fifth.
    Near the French fries pan, Mme. Belhôtel and Mme. Cloche are playing belote, but their hearts aren’t in it. While they’re waiting, they doze. They are slowly emptying a bottle of Cointreau. The cards are getting sticky. A fly, stuck to the bottom of a glass, ties to free itself from the viscous substance that is Mme. Cloche’s stomachal joy; it’s just about to succeed when it’s squashed by a finger in mourning; it’s Mme. Belhôtel, killing time.
    A little breeze has risen and, periodically, wrapped in the odor of sour candy, a cloud of dust enters the hut and goes and sprinkles itself over the tables as far as the fifth row. There are fifteen, with gangway down the middle. Ernestine ignores the dust and goes and starts to string the beans. Old Taupe comes in, staggering, and orders a liter of white wine, just for himself; When Ernestine brings it, old Taupe indulges in some bold and unambiguous pawing which makes him jump for joy and chortle. He used to live modestly on an income derived from some Russian investments; he now lives in a sort of shack behind the chemicals factory. Poverty and filth seem to have made him immutable. For this living, he picks rags and sells junk. The five workmen get up and go. Old Taupe, who has got through half his bottle, has fallen asleep and is snoring. An express train goes by and makes the badly fixed corrugated-iron sheets rattle. One of the women claims ten points, without much conviction. Dominique Belhôtel yawns. A cloud of dust reaches the seventh row; behind it, Etienne comes in.
    It takes them some moments to realize the situation; when it is realized, the attack is launched. Etienne is surrounded.
    “We are very glad to see you,” declares Belhôtel solemnly; the two women nod assent. “Ernestine! just run over to High Street and buy a bottle of that sparkling wine at 6.85.”
    Ernestine disappears, gone with the wind.
    Then they all three start talking at once, very fast, and avidly:
    “Your name is Marcel, huh? You have a son called Théo? You do live in Obonne?” Etienne doesn’t know how to answer so many indiscreet questions.
    “It’s very serious, it’s very serious,” declares Mme. Cloche, who’s managed to get the cross-examination into her hands. “If it’s true that you’re called Marcel, and that you’ve got a son called Théo, and that you live in Obonne, well, I’ve got summing very serious to tell you.”
    “Tell me, then. My name is Etienne Marcel, I have got a son called Théo; or rather, he’s my wife’s son, his real name is Nautilus, but he’s always called Marcel. And I do live in Obonne.”
    “Do you know a Meussieu Narcense? A musician, zaround thirty, dark-haired and fattish, not very tall ... ”
    Etienne thinks; no, he doesn’t know him.
    “You really sure?” insists Ma Coche. “A dark-haired guy, with a scar in the middle of his forehead.”
    Oh no, really that’s incredible! That’s the fellow who was behind him, earlier on, in the restaurant; the one Le Grand was referring to when he said: “You’ll know him one day soon perhaps;” and he, Etienne, had thought he was pulling his leg.
    “Well”—long silence; Mme. Cloche looks all around her,—“that man, tonight, he’s going to hang your son.”
    Etienne bursts into long laughter. The Belhôtels and old Cloche, shocked, cry:
    “It’s the honest truth, it’s very serious, it’s horrible, it’s abominable.”
    Etienne,