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A review by chalicotherex
The President by Georges Simenon
4.0
“Man is the only animal who finds it necessary to decorate the corpses of his victims in order to whet his appetite. Look at those neat rounds of truffle slipped under the skin of the capons to make a symmetrical pattern, that cooked pheasant with his beak and tail so artistically put back in place. . . . ”
Pretty good book about a statesman dying slow.
Names were of no importance to him, so he had not altered the one the property went by when he bought it.
The local people had told him that the word “ébergues” referred to portions of the codfish prepared for use as bait, and as Fécamp was a codfishers’ port and fishing was the mainstay of the whole coast, he had been satisfied with that explanation. Probably the skipper of a fishing smack or the owner of a small fleet had lived in the house at one time?
But one day when Emile was tearing away the ivy that had crept over the parapet of an old well, he had brought to light an inscription, roughly cut in the stone:
Les Ebernes
1701
The Premier had happened to mention this to the schoolmaster, who was also Secretary of the District Council and sometimes came to borrow books from him. The schoolmaster had had the curiosity to look up the old land-survey maps, and had found the property marked on them by the same name as that on the well.
However, nobody could tell him what “ébernes” were, until at last he found the explanation in the big Littré dictionary:
“Eberner: to wipe excrement off a child.
“Eberneuses: women who wipe excrement off children.”
What kind of women had once lived in the house and been given the nickname that had stuck to the place afterwards? And what later and more prudish occupant had given that cunning twist to the spelling of the name?
Pretty good book about a statesman dying slow.
The local people had told him that the word “ébergues” referred to portions of the codfish prepared for use as bait, and as Fécamp was a codfishers’ port and fishing was the mainstay of the whole coast, he had been satisfied with that explanation. Probably the skipper of a fishing smack or the owner of a small fleet had lived in the house at one time?
But one day when Emile was tearing away the ivy that had crept over the parapet of an old well, he had brought to light an inscription, roughly cut in the stone:
Les Ebernes
1701
The Premier had happened to mention this to the schoolmaster, who was also Secretary of the District Council and sometimes came to borrow books from him. The schoolmaster had had the curiosity to look up the old land-survey maps, and had found the property marked on them by the same name as that on the well.
However, nobody could tell him what “ébernes” were, until at last he found the explanation in the big Littré dictionary:
“Eberner: to wipe excrement off a child.
“Eberneuses: women who wipe excrement off children.”
What kind of women had once lived in the house and been given the nickname that had stuck to the place afterwards? And what later and more prudish occupant had given that cunning twist to the spelling of the name?