L'esprit d'escalier

A bseits from the bustle within Sacred Heart is located approximately half a kilometer north-west of it, there some sort where the Rue and the Rue Girardon Norvins, Place Marcel Aymé, named after the French playwright and storyteller. He lived from his birth in 1902 until his death in 1967 in Montmartre in Rue Norvins number 26 In his honor, was out of this house number of the Place Marcel Aymé number 2 In its present structural form of the place was already in his lifetime as an indentation in the Rue Norvins. He was thus created for him purely nominal and consists only of the house number. Thanks to this indentation could succeed in this very elegant solution. But this honor was left alone, did not stop here. The famous actor, director, choreographer, painter and sculptor Jean Marais created a bronze statue of the hero of Ayme's short story "Le passe-muraille" from the 1943 ^one , which was inaugurated in 1989.
This hero named Dutilleul who lived as if by chance just two streets away from his Creator in the third floor of the Rue d'Orchampt number 75 and was a bachelor, as well as third-class officer in the Ministry of Finance. Because he was a power failure at the age of 43 years out, that he had a very unusual ability. In fact this power outage, he groped in the dark for a while and found himself suddenly on the stairs again, without, however, that he had passed through a door. As the door was locked from the inside, to see Dutilleul forced to return to the way to his apartment, where he had left it seems. And lo and behold, he actually came through the wall back to his apartment.
Now, however, Dutilleul of his nature forth such a nature that it this gift more alienated than to adventures drive, so he very next day in this matter a doctor visited with a "helical hardening in the reactor wall of the thyroid" diagnosed and his pills prescribed, from the "tetravalent yarrow extract, mixed with rice flour and Zentaurenhormon" existed and were taken twice a year. Dutilleul took the first tablet, deposited the rest in his bedside table and then forgot about this incident and his superhuman ability for an entire year.

But a change in his life should he to mind recall than he that is got a new boss named Lécuyer, which moved into a fresh breeze to the department and changed the kinds of things, as well as formulations that his subordinates in their letter were used. Dutilleul but could absolutely not used to it and always fell back into the conventional, more polite terms. Because of this obstinacy, he was demoted from Lécuyer into a small storage room, leading directly to his office. Because Lécuyer Dutilleul harassed continued remembered that one day his genius. Repeatedly, he stuck his head through the wall from then on his boss and cursed them. But always when Lécuyer rushed over after such a phenomenon in which Dutilleuls cubbyhole, he found them properly at his desk at work, so Lécuyer had to doubt his sanity. Dutilleul carried this game until Lécuyer was finally admitted to a mental hospital.
Actually, yes it would Dutilleul can leave it at that, he was disliked his tyrannical boss but now going on. But Dutilleul had tasted blood and was already thinking about the possibilities of his ability. He moved now on bank robbery and was looking for a bank home after another, filled his pockets with money and other valuables. Soon all of Paris knew the intruder, the police simply did not get to touch. The robber, who always left his werewolf pseudonym "Garou Garou," written at the crime scenes, soon became the city and also to the office this week. Dutilleul so had to watch as his colleagues are full of admiration for these "Garou Garou," expressed. Finally he could stand it no longer and boasted to his colleagues saying that he himself that "Garou Garou," was what they believed, and certainly not Dutilleul instead constantly teased.
The following night, Dutilleul was therefore intentionally when Einbbruch catch in a jewelry store to show his colleagues that he was actually "Garou-Garou". The next morning there was his picture on the front pages of newspapers and he himself in prison. He was warden and director repeatedly fooled by simply leaving the prison, as he pleased and abroad, however, had breakfast in the guest room or the apartment of the prison director accommodated. At some point, but he was tired of it and left the prison in the long run, be put to a different appearance and took a new home in the Avenue Junot ² , right around the corner from his former apartment. He was looking for a new challenge for his administration, after the thick prison walls had indeed presented no obstacle. So he floated before a trip to Egypt, where he intended to try on the walls of the pyramids. But first he took some time undetected in Montmartre. more>

1. This story appeared in German translation in 1949 by Rowohlt Stuttgart / Hamburg / Baden-Baden, under the title "The man who could walk through walls and other Parisian Scheherezaden." [ ← ]
2. This is the way to the continuation of the above Norvins Rue, who lived in the Marcel Aymé. [ ← ]