PARIS LETTER
97
ling machine had a good lunch while his VIctIm didn't dare move a
finger. Finally, the two went back to the villa, where Madame was, at
last, released from the fearful shackles, sworn to secrecy, and set free,
while Monsieur just stayed. Back home at her sisters', the poor woman
remained dumb for two days. The third day, the truth burst from her
lips. The police went to the villa, found the gentleman and his machine,
took both away. A few days later, the inventor of the
machine
a
etrangler
committed suicide in his cell by hanging himself with his bed–
sheets.
Many aspects of this story seem to me typically French: the labori–
ous cleverness of the conception ; the ingenuity that went into the con–
struction of the crazy homemade gadget; the rigorous simplicity, and
even cleanliness, of the execution. But, above all, the story is a little
masterpiece of sadistic imagination. No physical violence was employed
at any moment, only psychological terror. The problem was how to crush
a woman's will in order to achieve a definite purpose. It was solved
successfully.
If,
as some people might suspect, sexual charm and seduction
were used to bolster the prestige of the diabolical machine, that was not
against the rules, was it?
The second story is about the dangers involved in trespassing on
French property. The proprietor of one of those
petites villas
that make
up so large a part of the
banlieue
of Paris, and of which the equal in
bare ugliness exists nowhere on earth, realized, on one of his week-end
visits to his domain, that the house,
his
house, the painfully acquired
appurtenance of his Ego, had been violated by burglars, or one should
rather say: intruders, since nothing serious was missing, except some
aperitif
in a bottle. Three soiled glasses on a
tabouret,
and some mud
on the carpet, bore witness to the defilement. The following week, the same
profanation had obviously been repeated. One can easily imagine the
rage of the insulted proprietor, alone in his desecrated home, hissing
like an infuriated cobra at the phantoms of those three bums. The fact
is that he went out, bought a bottle of Pernod and a good dose of strych–
nine, poured the strychnine into the Pernod, and left for Paris and his
office desk. The third week, he had the satisfaction of seeing the usual
three soiled glasses on the
tabouret,
and the Pernod bottle half empty
near them. Triumphantly, he went to the police to tell them that if they
wanted to arrest three roaming burglars, all they h ad to do was to look
in the Paris hospitals for cases of poisoning by strychnine. One of the
delinquents was thus discovered. He was one of those wretched Algerians
who starve and sometimes also rob and kill in the streets of Paris. He
was dying.
