K as in Knife

Félix Fénéon's "Novels in 3 Lines"

French writer Félix Fénéon led a heck of a life: being the first to publish Joyce in French, discovering Seurat, editing Rimbaud, writing journalism for Le Figaro. But his most noteworthy achievement, perhaps, came toward the end of his life, when he wrote a proto-crime blotter for Le Matin, penning terse, grim — and often hilariously sardonic, even poetic — accounts of French crime and death. Many of these reports were collected in the aptly-titled anthology “Novels in Three Lines,” published by the always-essential New York Review of Books Classics line and translated by the great Luc Sante. Fénéon was a master of one of my favorite tricks: saying a lot with a little. Here is but a small selection of some personal favorites:

• In a café on Rue Fontaine, Vautour, Lenoir, and Atanis exchanged a few bullets regarding their wives, who were not present.

• “If my candidate loses, I will kill myself,” M. Bellavoine, of Fresquienne, Seine-Inférieure, had declared. He killed himself.

• Scheid, of Dunkirk, fired three times at his wife. Since he missed every shot, he took aim at his mother-in-law, and connected.

• A certain madwoman arrested downtown falsely claimed to be nurse Elise Bachmann. The latter is perfectly sane.

• Finding her son, Hyacinthe, 69, hanged, Mme. Ranvier, of Bussy-Saint-Georges, was so depressed she could not cut him down.

• Leaning on the door, a traveler a tad overweight caused his carriage to topple, in Ménilmontant, and fractured his skull.

• In Le Brabant, Vosges, M. Amet-Chevrier, 42, and his wife, 39, are as of now the parents of nineteen children.

• His head injury was not serious, believed Kremer, of Pont-à-Mousson, who continued working for a few hours, then dropped dead.

• Weighed down with bronzes, with china, with linens and with tapestries, two burglars were arrested, at night, in Bry-sur-Marne.

• Bonnaut, a locksmith in Montreuil, was chatting on his doorstep when the gangster called Shoe Face struck him twice with a knife.

• Two gypsies fought over young Colomba, near Belfort. In the fray, one of them, Sloga, shot her dead.

• A hanged man, there two months, has been found in the Estérel mountains. Fierce birds had completely disfigured him with their beaks.

• At 20, M. Julien blew his brains out in the toilet of a hotel in Fontainebleau. Love pains.

• Charles Delièvre, a consumptive potter of Choisy-le-Roi, lit two burners and died amid the flowers he had strewn on his bed.

• A merchant of Courbevoie, M. Alexis Jamin, who had had enough of his stomach troubles, blew his brains out.

• V. Petit, of Marizy-Sainte-Geneviève, Aisne, wanted to die happy. He drank two liters of wine and one of spirits and, in fact, died.

• In Clichy, an elegant young man threw himself under a coach with rubber wheels, then, unscathed, under a truck, which pulverized him.

• Since childhood Mlle. Mélinette, 16, had harvested artificial flowers from the tombs of Saint-Denis. That’s over; she’s in the workhouse.

• At the station in Mâcon, Mouroux had his legs severed by an engine. “Look at my feet on the tracks!” he cried, then fainted.

• Catherine Rosello of Toulon, mother of four, got out of the way of a freight train. She was then run over by a passenger train.

• Among the Arabs of Douaouda, a couple captured an overzealous suitor and mutilated him, permanently cancelling his virility.

• Just married, the Boulches of Lambézellec, Finistère, were already so drunk it was necessary to lock them up within the hour.

• In the vicinity of Noisy-sous-École, M. Louis Delillieau, 70, dropped dead of sunstroke. Quickly his dog Fido ate his head.

• Before jumping into the Seine, where he died, M. Doucrain had written in his notebook, “Forgive me, Dad. I like you.”

• Near Brioude, a bear was smothering a child. Some peasants shot the beast and nearly lynched its exhibitor.