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MURDER IN THE RUE SORBET ?
The usually staid and
dignified upper reaches of Phenixian letters were shaken profoundly
this week when it was discoverd that M. Alain Parfitte, Member
of the Phenixian Academy and Chevalier of the Legion d'Horreur
had in fact been deceased for several weeks, a fact that went
unnoticed by his colleagues. Always a taciturn man, his recent
lack of active participation in the discussions of the Academy
in the magnificent chambers of the Collège des Étroites
Rations in the Rue Sorbet was far from uncharacteristic for the
writer of masterpieces such as À la Recherche des Choses
Pendues, a thirty-volume memoir of his adolescence, some
of whose passages were thought of as shockingly graphic in their
day (the early 230's). In the field of non-fiction (though who
cares about the difference any more?) his Des Tristes Topiques,
recounting his unfortunate experiences with homeopathy, poultices,
and herbal medicines, earned him further honors.
Fellow Academicians insisted
that as long as M. Parfitte's corpse had remained propped bolt-upright
in his chair, it had been impossible to detect his less-than-healthy
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condition. But one cannot deny that the latest portrait of
the author, reproduced below, could have suggested to those less
used to his usual demeanor that all was not well with the centenarian.
Still, only when M. Parfitte slid out of his chair and into a
recumbent position on the floor -- where at first it was assumed
he was merely napping -- did some of his fellow academicians
became concerned. Perhaps unsurprisingly, none other than Simone
de Pouvoir, rumored in the '40's to be having an intimate relationship
with the great man, finally determined that he was, and in fact
had been for some time, a former member of the Academy.
Reached by the press at her celebrated Cédre garret, Mme.
de Pouvoir savored the irony that a man once so full of life
was now dead. Agents of the police called to the scene further
determined that the circumstances of the poor man's demise were
suspicious and merited some further investigation. Having established
the complete absence of the tell-tale heart- beat, they rang
up the Rue Morgue for assistance.
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An autopsy has revealed that
the Academician was done in by a poison slipped into his Mauriac,
and the case was immediately assigned, because of its unusual
delicacy, to Phenixia's foremost homicide detective, Chief Inspector
Migraine, who announced the next day his deduction that the murdered
man was most probably the victim of a criminal. The investigation
is, in any case, now proceeding on this assumption, he said.
Meanwhile, back at the Academy,
speculation is rife as to who will be elected to fill the M.
Parfitte's coveted fauteuil, pictured above. Bets are being placed
chiefly on Professeur Jacques Decida of the Polytechnocratique,
the theorist who has become the most influential literary critic
in the Vex by maintaining that what authors have not written
is far more important and revelatory than anything they have.
His most famous work, Sur la Grammophonologie, containing
a vicious attack on the accent grave, is widely hailed
as both sophomoric and soporific. Based on this alone, his election
seems almost assured.
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