Free The Bark Tree by Raymond Queneau Page A

who’s beginning to get worried, calms down; Mme. Cloche tells all.
    “It’s like this, Meussieu, this is how I heard about it. I’ve got a brother who’s a concierge, in the Boulevard of the Unknown Officer. It’s a big apartment house, but there’s only one tenant.”
    “Goodness me.”
    “Oh, that’s another story. This tenant, sname’s Meussieu Narcense. Thother day, must be a week ago, praps longer, I goan to see my brother, sname’s Saturnin; we’re chatting of this and that and he happens to say: ‘Yknow, there’s this person called Théo, he’s writing to my tenant to tell him to stop writing to this person called Alberte, that’ll be Théo’s wife’—sfarz I remember, that’s what he said. After he saw he’d gotten it wrong. And that Alberte, she was Théo’s mom. On account of after, some more letters came from Théo, see what I mean? The first one next, he told Meussieu Narcense that he’d polluted the gate of his stepfather’s house, must say it seemed a strange sort of story to us, and after that he insulted Meussieu Narcense’s deceased grandmother, when he’d only just come back from her funeral—the grandmother’s, that is. The second one he wrote, that was when it dawned on us that he was the son of this Madame Alberte; he said that the other guy wanted to murder him. After that, he wrote to Meussieu Narcense that he’d got cold feet. And smorning, I’m at my brother Saturnin’s; there was a letter from Théo where he was telling him: ‘Bring the rope to hang me tonight at midnight in the place they call Les Mygales, in Obonne wood.’ And it was signed Théo Marcel. So it just happened to occur to me ‘at that was your name and that it wasn’t often that people’s last names were called Marcel and that you must live on this rail line. So I thought I’d warn you. If you hadn’t come here, I’d of gone and seen you and told you. And even without all that to-do; my brother’d of gone and stopped it; seeing as we know them like the back of your hand anyway, Les Mygales and Obonne and the woods and places round. Me and my late husband, we often used to go for walks there, a whole gang with Saturnin and Dominique, that’s this one.”
    This tale completely staggers Etienne. At first, he considers asking Mme. Cloche how it happens that her brother reads his tenant’s letters; then he decides it’s pointless to start the discussion at that point. Apart from that, what does it all mean? The things that emerge most clearly are that Théo wants to get himself hung by the guy with the scar and that this guy has written to Alberte. Etienne finds it difficult to understand what could have been going on. The trio watch him cogitating.
    He asks Mme. Cloche to repeat her story; she doesn’t wait to be asked twice and starts all over again. So Théo has been writing to Narcense, since that is the name of the man with the scar, to tell him to stop writing to Alberte, that Alberte tore up his letters, and that it would be preferable for him to write directly to him. Even that isn’t very clear. Next, he writes that he has polluted the gate of the house. Etienne has never noticed that. And he insults Narcense’s deceased grandmother. None of it makes any sense at all. Next, he claims that the other man wants to murder him and that he’s got cold feet. And finally, he makes a date for him to hang him. But it’s absolutely idiotic.
    Mme. Cloche has come to the end of her second narration; she’s quite prepared to start all over again. But old Taupe’s just woken up. “Nestine! Nestine!” he bleats; seeing that no one answers, he finishes his bottle. “Deevning, Meussieu,” he says to Etienne. He sings:
    “But the best of all dreams is the sweet dream of love,
    That you dream by the sea,
    As the stars appear above.”
    Ernestine comes back with the sparkling wine; as soon as she’s within reach, old Taupe is patting her buttocks. He warbles:
    “Then a magical voice
    Is heard