Félix Fénéon

Narratives compressed into a single frame, these 3-line news items from Le Matin “are the poems & novels Fénéon never otherwise wrote.” Translated by Luc Sante.

[Félix Fénéon @novelsin3lines]

No one hanged the young Russian Lise Joukovsky; she hanged herself, and the Rambouillet magistrates have allowed her to be buried.

[Félix Fénéon @novelsin3lines]

Satagnan, grape-picker, declared, "I have struck grape-picker d'Ay with a 22-cent knife. Bat d'Af and Cyrano are innocent."

[Félix Fénéon @novelsin3lines]

In a tent near Aïn-Fakroun, a six-year-old Arab girl was incinerated by lightning, by the side of her mother, who was driven mad by it.

[Félix Fénéon @novelsin3lines]

To thwart those boycotting the Draguignan banquet, the Socialist city council of Toulon invited M. Clemenceau.

[Félix Fénéon @novelsin3lines]

On a gun carriage, the casket of General Rollet was taken by six mules to the station in Brest, whence it was carried to Verneuil-sur-Seine.

[Félix Fénéon @novelsin3lines]

Two Malakoff blacksmiths were rivals in love. Dupuis threw his hammer at Pierrot, who in turn tore up his face with a red-hot iron.

[Félix Fénéon @novelsin3lines]

With a hook a washerwoman of Bougival fished out a parcel: a healthy newborn girl floating downstream.

[Félix Fénéon @novelsin3lines]

There is no longer a God even for drunkards. Kersilie, of Saint-Germain, who had mistaken the window for the door, is dead.

[Félix Fénéon @novelsin3lines]

[editorial note: Joanna Neborsky talks to Stephen Heller about illustrating Feneon's "novels" for a forthcoming book http://bit.ly/b7AfOV ]

[Félix Fénéon @novelsin3lines]

Love decidedly has a hard time sitting still. Émile Contet, 25 Rue Davy, pierced with his knife his wife's breast.

[Félix Fénéon @novelsin3lines]

On Bécu, 28, who arrived at Beaujon hospital with a gunshot wound, they counted 28 scars. His nickname in the underworld: The Target.

[Félix Fénéon @novelsin3lines]

A hunting accident: M. Marie Bourdon, a farmer from Épaignes, Eure, killed his brother Étienne.

[Félix Fénéon @novelsin3lines]

Albert Vallet was hitting landowner Ferrat, of Chapet, with the butt of his rifle. A shot went off and the hunter dropped dead.

[Félix Fénéon @novelsin3lines]

Le Verbeau hit Marie Champion right on her breasts, but burned his eye, because acid is not a precision weapon.

[Félix Fénéon @novelsin3lines]

From the street, Delrieux threatened his brother at the window: "Get back or there'll be a bloodbath!" He killed him with one shot.

[Félix Fénéon @novelsin3lines]

M. Odelin, vicar general of the archdiocese of Paris, broke his foot at Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, Haute-Savoie, where he is vacationing.

[Félix Fénéon @novelsin3lines]

The Anti-Rabies Institute of Lyons had cured Mlle. Lobrichon, but as the dog had been rabid she died all the same.

[Félix Fénéon @novelsin3lines]

In Méréville, a hunter from Estampes, thinking he saw game afoot, killed a child and with the same bullet wounded the father.

[Félix Fénéon @novelsin3lines]

Amiens will crown its muse on September 16. Forty beauties were vying for the role. It has gone to Marie Mahiou, a velvet weaver.

[Félix Fénéon @novelsin3lines]

Misses Cabriet and Rivelle, of Plaine-Saint-Denis and Bagnolet, and M. Goudon of Saint-Denis, all drank: he cyanide, they laudanum.