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IN THIS YEAR Eighteen Hundred and Ninety-eight, the Eighth day of February, Pursuant to article 8~9 of the Code of Civil Procedure and at the request of M. and Mme. Bonhomme (Jacques), proprietors of a house situate at Paris, 100 bis, rue Richer, the aforementioned having address for service at my residence and further at the Town Hall of Q borough.

I the undersigned René-lsidore Panmuphle, Bailiff attached to the Civil Court of First Instance of the Department of Seine in session at Paris residing. in said City 37 rue Pavée, Do hereby summon in the name of the LAW and of JUSTICE Monsieur Faustroll, doctor, tenant of various premises dependent upon the house aforementioned residing at Paris, 100 bis rue Richer, and having proceeded to the aforementioned house bearing upon its exterior the number 100, and having rung, knocked, and called the aforementioned variously and successively, no person having opened the door to us, and the next-door neighbors declaring to us that this is indeed the residence of said M. Faustroll, but that they were unwilling to accept a copy of this writ and, inasmuch as I did find at said premises neither relations nor servants, nor any neighbor willing to accept service of this present copy by subscribing to the original thereto, I did proceed forthwith to the Town Hall of Q borough at which place I did personally deliver this present copy to his Worship the Mayor, who did certificate the original thereto; within the maximum period of twenty-four hours, to pay to the claimant into my hands as tender in full and valid quittance the sum of Three Hundred and Seventy-two thousand francs 27 centimes, in respect of Eleven quarters rental of the aforementioned premises due on the First day of January last, without prejudice to those subsequently falling due and to any and all other rights, actions, interests, costs and distraint, declaring to the aforementioned that failing satisfaction of this present: Summons within said period of time, he shall be constrained thereto by all lawful means, and notably by the seizure and impounding of such goods and chattels as may be present on the premises leased. Wherefore I did deposit this present copy of the foregoing at the premises aforesaid . Cost: eleven francs 30 centimes, including 1/2 sheet of special stamped paper at 0 fr. 60 centimes.

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CONCERNING THE HABITS AND BEARING OF DOCTOR FAUSTROLL

Doctor Faustroll was sixty-three years old when he was born in Circassia in 1898 (the 20th century was (–2) years old).

At this age, which he retained all his life, Doctor Faustroll was a man of medium height, or, to be absolutely accurate, of (8 X 1010 + 109 + 4 X l08 + 5 X 106) atomic diameters with a golden-yellow skin, his face clean-shaven, apart from a few sea-green mustachios, as worn by king Saleh; the hairs of his head alternately platinum blonde and jet black, an auburn ambiguity changing according to the sun’s position; his eyes two capsules of ordinary writing-ink flecked with golden spermatoza like Danzig schnapps.

He was beardless, apart from his mustachios, through the judicious use of baldness microbes which permeated his skin from the groin to the eyelashes and ate away all the follicles, without any need for Faustroll to fear that his scalp-hair or eyebrows might fall out, since these microbes attack only fresh young hairs. From his groin down to his feet, in contrast, he was sheathed in a satyric black fur, for he was man to an improper degree.

That morning he took his daily sponge bath of two-tone wallpaper painted by Maurice Denis, with a design of trains climbing up spirals; a long time ago he had given up water in favor of wallpaper — seasonable, fashionable, or according to his whim.

So as not to embarrass the populace, he drew on over this design a shirt made of quartz fiber; baggy trousers of dull black velvet drawn tight at the ankles; tiny little gray boots, with even layers of dust carefully preserved on them, at great expense, for many months past, broken only by the dry geysers of ant-lions; a golden-yellow silk waistcoat, exactly the same color as his skin, with no more buttons than an undervest, and two rubies as buttons for the breast pockets, very high up; and a greatcoat lined with blue fox fur.

On his right index finger, he piled emerald and topaz rings right up to the fingernail — the only one of the ten which he did not bite — and the line of rings was kept in place by a specially designed linchpin made of molybdenum, screwed into the bone of the ungual phalanx, through the fingernail.

By way of a tie, he passed around his neck the ceremonial ribbon of the Great Strumpot, an Order invented by himself and patented to avoid any vulgarization.

He hanged himself by this ribbon on a specially constructed gibbet, procrastinating for a few quarter-hours between the choice of the two asphyxiating make-ups called white hanged man and blue hanged man.

And, after cutting himself down, he put on a sola topee.