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FIF 3U Name: ______________________ Date:

Written comprehension ______________________

THE WALL PASS-THROUGH

Marcel Ayme

There was in Montmartre, on the third floor of 75 bis rue d'Orchampt, an excellent
man named Dutilleul who had the singular gift of passing through walls without
being inconvenienced. He wore a binocular, a small black goatee, and he was a third-
class clerk in the Ministry of Registration. In winter, he went to his office by bus, and
in the summer, he made the trip on foot, wearing his bowler hat.

Dutilleul had just entered his forty-third year when he had the revelation of his
power. One evening, a short power outage surprised him in the vestibule of his
small bachelor apartment, he groped for a moment in the darkness and, when the
power came back on, found himself on the landing of the third floor. As his front
door was locked from the inside, the incident gave him pause.

and, despite the remonstrances of his reason,

he decided to return home as he had left,
passing through the wall. This strange faculty,
which seemed not to respond to any of his
aspirations, did not fail to annoy him a little
and, the following Saturday, taking advantage
of the English week, he went to find a local
doctor to explain his case to him. The doctor
was able to convince himself that he was telling
the truth and, after examination, discovered
the cause of the problem in a helical hardening
of the strangular wall of the thyroid body. He
prescribed intensive overwork and, at the rate
of two tablets per year, the absorption of
tetravalent Pirette powder, a mixture of rice
flour and centaur hormone.

Having taken a first pill, Dutilleul put the medicine in a drawer and thought no
more about it. As for intensive overwork, its activity of
functionary was governed by customs which did not accommodate any excess, and
his leisure hours, devoted to reading the newspaper and collecting stamps, did not
require him to spend an unreasonable amount of energy either. After a year, he had
kept intact the ability to pass through walls, but he never used it, except
inadvertently, being little curious about adventures and resistant to the training of
the imagination. It didn't even occur to him to return home other than through the
door and after having duly opened it by turning the lock. Perhaps he would have
aged in the peace of his habits without the temptation to put his gifts to the test, if an
extraordinary event had not suddenly come to disrupt his existence. Mr. Mouron, his
deputy head of office, called to other duties, was replaced by a certain Mr. Lécuyer,
who was short of speech and had a brushed mustache. From the first day, the new
sous-chef took a very dim view of the fact that Dutilleul wore an eyeglass with a chain
and a black goatee, and he pretended to treat him like an annoying and somewhat
unclean old thing. But the most serious thing was that he claimed to introduce into
his service reforms of considerable scope and well designed to disturb the peace of
his subordinate. For twenty years, Dutilleul had begun his letters with the following
formula: "Referring to your honorary current and, for the record, to our previous
exchange of letters, I have the honor to inform you..." Formula to which Mr. Lécuyer
intended to substitute another with a more American twist: “In response to your
letter from the aunt, I inform you…” Dutilleul could not get used to these epistolary
ways. In spite of himself, he returned to the traditional manner, with a mechanical
obstinacy which earned him the growing enmity of the sous-chef. The atmosphere in
the Ministry of Registration was becoming almost heavy on him. In the morning, he
went to his work with apprehension, and in the evening, in his bed, he often found
himself meditating for a full quarter of an hour before falling asleep.

Disgusted by this retrograde desire which compromised the success of his reforms,
Mr. Lécuyer had relegated Dutilleul to a semi-dark corner, adjoining his office. It was
accessed through a low, narrow door opening onto the corridor and still bearing in
capital letters the inscription: Débarras. Dutilleul had accepted this unprecedented
humiliation with a resigned heart, but at home, reading in his newspaper the
account of some bloody news item, he found himself dreaming that Mr. Lécuyer was
the victim.

One day, the assistant chief burst into the cubbyhole brandishing a letter and began
to bellow:
- Give me that cloth again! Tell me again this unspeakable rag which
dishonors my service!

Dutilleul wanted to protest, but Mr. Lécuyer, with a booming voice, called him a
routine cockroach, and, before leaving, crumpling up the letter he had in his hand,
threw it in his face. Dutilleul was modest, but proud. Left alone in his cubbyhole, he
got a little warm and suddenly felt inspired. Leaving his seat, he entered the wall
which separated his office from that of the deputy chief, but he entered cautiously,
so that only his head emerged on the other side. Mr. Lécuyer, seated at his work
table, with a still nervous pen was moving a comma in an employee's text,
submitted for his approval, when he heard coughing in his office. Raising his eyes,
he discovered with indescribable dismay Dutilleul's head, stuck to the wall like a
hunting trophy. And this head was alive. Through the chain glasses, she glared at
him with a look of hatred. Much better, the head began to speak.

- Sir, she said, you are a thug, a bittern and a scoundrel.

Gaping with horror, Mr. Lécuyer could not take his eyes off this apparition. Finally,
tearing himself from his chair, he jumped into the corridor and ran to the cubbyhole.
Dutilleul, penholder in hand, was installed in his usual place, in a peaceful and
laborious attitude. The deputy chief looked at him for a long time and, after
stammering a few words, returned to his office. He had barely sat down when the
head reappeared on the wall.

- Sir, you are a thug, a bittern and a scoundrel.

During that single day, the dreaded head appeared twenty-three times on the wall
and, on the following days, at the same rate. Dutilleul, who had acquired a certain
ease at this game, was no longer content with insulting the sous-chef. He uttered
obscure threats, for example exclaiming in a sepulchral voice, punctuated with
truly demonic laughter:

- Were! Were! A wolf's hair!(laugh).A thrill lurks to decor all the owls(laugh).

Hearing this, the poor deputy became a little paler, a little more suffocating, and
his hair stood up straight on his head and horrible sweat of agony ran down his
back. The first day he lost weight
of a pound. In the week that followed, apart from the fact that he began to melt
almost visibly, he got into the habit of eating the soup with his fork and giving a
military salute to the peacekeepers. At the start of the second week, an ambulance
came to pick him up from his home and took him to a nursing home.

Dutilleul, freed from the tyranny of Mr. Lécuyer, was able to return to his beloved
formulas: “Referring to your honoree of the current current…” However, he was
dissatisfied. Something inside him was crying out, a new, compelling need, which
was nothing less than the need to pass through walls. No doubt he could do it easily,
for example at home, and besides, he did not fail to do so. But the man who
possesses brilliant gifts cannot be satisfied for long with exercising them on a
mediocre object. Passing through walls cannot constitute an end in itself. It is the
start of an adventure, which calls for a continuation, a development and, in short, a
retribution. Dutilleul understood this very well. He felt within himself a need for
expansion, a growing desire to achieve and surpass himself, and a certain nostalgia
which was something like the call from behind the wall. Unfortunately, he was
missing a goal. He sought his inspiration in reading the newspaper,

particularly in the chapters of politics and sport, which seemed to him to be

honorable activities, but having finally realized that they offered no outlet for
people who passed through the walls, he fell back on the news item which turned
out to be most suggestive.

The first burglary in which Dutilleul committed took place in a large credit
establishment on the Right Bank. Having crossed a dozen walls and partitions, he
entered various safes, filled his pockets with bank notes and, before leaving, signed
his theft in red chalk, with the pseudonym Garou-Garou, with a strong pretty
initialing which was reproduced the next day by all the newspapers. After a week,
this name Garou-Garou became extraordinary famous. The public's sympathy went
unreservedly to this prestigious burglar who taunted the police so nicely. He
distinguished himself every night by a new exploit accomplished either to the
detriment of a bank, a jewelry store or a rich individual. In Paris as in the provinces,
there was no woman with a little dreamer who did not have the fervent desire to
belong body and soul to the terrible Garou-Garou. After the theft of the famous
Burdigala diamond and the burglary of the Crédit Municipal, which took place the
same week, the enthusiasm of the crowd reached delirium. The Minister of the
Interior had to
resign, bringing with him the Minister of Registration. However, Dutilleul, who
became one of the richest men in Paris, was always punctual at his office and was
talked about for academic honors. In the morning, at the Ministry of Registration,
his pleasure was to listen to the comments made by colleagues on his exploits of the
day before. “This Garou-Garou,” they said, “is a formidable man, a superman, a
genius. » Hearing such praise, Dutilleul turned red with confusion and, behind the
chain glasses, his eyes shone with friendship and gratitude. One day, this
atmosphere of sympathy gave him so much confidence that he did not believe he
could keep the secret any longer. With a hint of shyness, he looked at his colleagues
grouped around a newspaper reporting the burglary of the Bank of France, and
declared in a modest voice: “You know, Garou-Garou, it's me. » An enormous and
interminable laugh greeted the confidence of Dutilleul who received, in derision, the
nickname of Garou-Garou. In the evening, when it was time to leave the ministry, he
was the subject of endless jokes from his comrades and life seemed less beautiful to
him.

A few days later, Garou-Garou was caught during a night patrol in a jewelry store on
Rue de la Paix. He had put his signature on the cash counter and started singing a
drinking song while smashing different windows with a solid gold hanap. It would
have been easy for him to sink into a wall and thus escape the night watch, but
everything suggests that he wanted to be arrested and probably for the sole purpose
of confusing his colleagues whose disbelief had mortified. They, in fact, were very
surprised when the newspapers the next day published Dutilleul's photograph on
the front page. They bitterly regretted having misunderstood their brilliant comrade
and paid tribute to him by growing a little goatee. Some even, driven by remorse and
admiration, tried to get their hands on the wallets or family watches of their friends
and acquaintances.

It will no doubt be judged that the fact of allowing oneself to be caught by the police
to astonish a few colleagues shows great levity, unworthy of an exceptional man, but
the apparent force of will is very little in such determination. By renouncing freedom,
Dutilleul believed he was giving in to a proud desire for revenge, when in reality he
was simply sliding down the slope of his destiny. For a man who passes through the
walls, there is no career at all advanced if he has not tried prison at least once. When
Dutilleul entered the Health premises, he had the impression of being spoiled by
fate. The thickness of the walls was
a real treat for him. The very day after his incarceration, the guards discovered to
their amazement that the prisoner had driven a nail into the wall of his cell and that
he had hung a gold watch belonging to the prison director. He was unable or
unwilling to reveal how this object came into his possession. The watch was
returned to its owner and, the next day, found at Garou-Garou's bedside with the
first volume of theThree Musketeersborrowed from the director's library. Health
staff were on edge. The guards also complained of being kicked in the behind, the
origin of which was inexplicable. It seemed as if the walls no longer had ears, but
feet. Garou-Garou's detention had lasted for a week, when the Director of Health,
entering his office one morning, found the following letter on his table:

“Mr. Director. Referring to our meeting of the 17th of this year and, for the record,
to your general instructions of May 15 of last year, I have the honor to inform you
that I have just finished reading the second volume ofThree Musketeersand that I
plan to escape tonight between eleven twenty-five and eleven thirty-five. Please
accept, Mr. Director, the expression of my deep respect. Were-Were. »

Despite the close surveillance to which he was subjected that night, Dutilleul
escaped at eleven thirty. Known to the public the next morning, the news aroused
magnificent enthusiasm everywhere. However, having carried out a new burglary
which put the height of his popularity, Dutilleul seemed little concerned about hiding
and circulated through Montmartre without any precaution. Three days after his
escape, he was arrested on rue Caulaincourt at the Café du Rêve, a little before
noon, while he was drinking a white lemon wine with friends.

Taken back to the Santé and locked with triple locks in a shady dungeon, Garou-
Garou escaped the same evening and went to sleep in the director's apartment, in
the guest room. The next morning, around nine o'clock, he rang for breakfast and
allowed himself to be picked up in bed, without resistance, by the alert guards.
Outraged, the director set up a guard post at the door of his dungeon and put him
on dry bread. Around noon, the prisoner went to have lunch in a restaurant near the
prison and, after drinking his coffee, telephoned the director.

- Hello ! Mr. Director, I'm confused, but just now, when I was leaving, I forgot to
take your wallet, so I
finds myself broken down at the restaurant. Would you be kind enough to send
someone to pay the bill?

The director came running in person and became angry, even uttering threats and
insults. Damaged in his pride, Dutilleul escaped the following night and never
returned. This time, he took the precaution of shaving his black goatee and replaced
his chain glasses with tortoiseshell glasses. A sports cap and a large-checked suit
with golf breeches completed his transformation. He settled into a small one.
apartment on Avenue Junot where, even before his first arrest, he had had part of his
furniture and the objects he valued most transported. The noise of his fame was
starting to tire him and since his stay at La Santé, he was a little jaded about the
pleasure of passing through walls. The thickest, most proud ones now seemed to
him like simple screens, and he dreamed of sinking into the heart of some massive
pyramid. While planning a trip to Egypt, he led a very peaceful life, shared between
his stamp collection, the cinema and long strolls through Montmartre. His
metamorphosis was so complete that he passed, hairless and with tortoiseshell
glasses, alongside his best friends without being recognized. Only the painter Gen
Paul, to whom nothing could escape a change occurring in the physiognomy of an
old resident of the neighborhood, had ended up penetrating his true identity. One
morning when he found himself face to face with Dutilleul at the corner of rue de
l'Abreuvoir, he could not help but say to him in his harsh slang

- Say, I see that you have disguised yourself as a gigolpince to tease those of the
Sûretépige - which roughly means in vulgar language: I see that you have disguised
yourself as an elegant person to confuse the Sûreté inspectors.

- Ah! murmured Dutilleul, you recognized me!

He was troubled and decided to hasten his departure for Egypt. It was the
afternoon of that same day that he fell in love with a blonde beauty he met twice on
rue Lepic, a quarter of an hour apart. He immediately forgot his stamp collection
and Egypt and the Pyramids. For her part, the blonde had looked at him with great
interest. There's nothing that captures the imagination of today's young women like
golf breeches and a pair of tortoiseshell glasses. It smells like a filmmaker and
makes you dream of cocktails and California nights. Unfortunately, the beautiful
one, Dutilleul was informed by Gen Paul, was married to a brutal and jealous man.
This suspicious husband, who led a life of chair sticks, abandoned
his wife regularly between ten in the evening and four in the morning, but before
going out, took the precaution of locking her in her room, with two turns of a key, all
shutters locked with padlocks. During the day, he watched her closely, even
following her through the streets of Montmartre.

- Still at the biglouse, anyway. It's the nature of a crook that doesn't allow anyone to
want to steal from his mignonette.

But this warning from Gen Paul only succeeded in inflaming Dutilleul. The next day,
meeting the young woman on rue Tholozé, he dared to follow her to a creamery
and, while she was waiting for her turn to be served, he told her that he loved her
respectfully, that he knew everything: the husband nasty, the door with a key and
the shutters, but that he would be in his room that very evening. The blonde
blushed and her milk jug shook in her hand and, her eyes moist with tenderness,
she sighed weakly: “Alas! Sir, that’s impossible.”

On the evening of this radiant day, around ten o'clock, Dutilleul was on guard in the
rue Norvins and watched a sturdy enclosure wall, behind which was a small house of
which he could only see the weather vane and the chimney. A door opened in this
wall and a man, after carefully locking it behind him, went down towards Avenue
Junot. Dutilleul waited until he had seen him disappear, very far away, at the turn of
the descent and counted again to ten. Then he rushed forward, entered the wall with
a gymnastic step and, still running through the obstacles, entered the room of the
beautiful recluse. She greeted him drunkenly and they loved each other until late in
the evening.

The next day, Dutilleul had the annoyance of suffering from violent headaches. The
thing was of no importance and he was not going to miss his appointment for so
little. However, having by chance discovered pills scattered at the bottom of a
drawer, he swallowed one in the morning and one in the afternoon. In the evening,
his headaches were bearable and the exaltation made him forget them. The young
woman was waiting for him with all the impatience that the memories of the day
before had aroused in her and they loved each other that night, until three in the
morning. When he left, Dutilleul, passing through the walls of the house, felt an
unusual friction on his hips and shoulders. However, he did not think he should pay
attention to it. Moreover, it was only when he entered the enclosure wall that he
clearly felt the sensation of resistance. It seemed to him that he was moving in a
material
 still fluid, but which became pasty and took on, with each of its efforts, more
consistency. Having managed to lodge himself entirely in the thickness of the wall,
he noticed that he was no longer moving forward and remembered with terror the
two pills he had taken during the day. These tablets, which he had thought were
aspirin, actually contained tetravalent Pirette powder prescribed by the doctor the
previous year. The effect of this medication, added to that of intensive overwork,
manifested itself suddenly.

Dutilleul was as if frozen inside the wall. It is still there now, incorporated into the
stone. The night owls who go down the rue Norvins at the time when the noise of
Paris has calmed down, hear a muffled voice which seems to come from beyond the
grave and which they take for the complaint of the wind whistling at the crossroads
of the Butte. It is Garou-Garou Dutilleul who laments the end of his glorious career
and the regret of loves that were too brief. Certain winter nights, it happens that the
painter Gen Paul, taking down his guitar, ventures into the sonic solitude of rue
Norvins to console the poor prisoner with a song, and the notes, flying from his
numb fingers, penetrate at the heart of the stone like drops of moonlight.

To find out more about this sculpture, visit the following site: https://vivreparis.fr/le-passe-
muraille-un-etonnant-hommage-au-coeur-de-montmartre/