On Elegance While Sleeping

By Emilio Lascano Tegui

The first English translation of the self-proclaimed "Viscount" Emilio Lascano Tegui—a friend of Picasso and Apollinaire, and a larger-than-life eccentric in his own right—On Elegance While Sleeping is the deliciously macabre novel, part Maldoror and part Dorian Gray, that established its author's reputation as a renegade hero of Argentine literature. It tells the story, in the form of a surreal diary, of a lonely, syphilitic French soldier, who—after too many brothels and disappointments—returns from Africa longing for a world with more elegance. He promptly falls in love with a goat, and recalls the time, after a childhood illness, when his hair fell out and grew back orange—a phenomenon his doctor attributed to the cultivation of carrots in a neighboring town. Disturbing, provocative, and mesmerizing, On Elegance While Sleeping charts the decline of a man unraveling due to his own oversensitivity—and drifting closer and closer to committing a murder.

from On Elegance While Sleeping:

"I was born in Bougival. The Seine flowed through our village. Fleeing from Paris. Its dark green waters dragged in the grime from that happy city. As the river crossed our town, it jammed the millwheel with the shy bodies of drowning victims hidden beneath its surface. Their trip ended with a final shove. They didn't drain easily through the sluice gates as the water passed under the mill and so it happened, occasionally, that one of their arms would go through without them, reaching into the air in a gesture of help. I fished out a number of these bodies as a child. Like the mailman in town who was famous for bringing news of a death, I was known for discovering the most cadavers. It gave me a certain aura of fame among my comrades, and I prided myself on the distinction. I threatened the other children my age that I was going to find them too, the day they drowned."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
• Release date: Nov 30, 2010
• ISBN: 9781564786739

Book preview

The first time I entrusted my hands to a manicurist was the evening I was headed to the Moulin Rouge. The woman trimmed back my cuticles and polished my nails with an emery board. Then she filed them to points and finished up with some polish. My hands no longer looked like they belonged to me. I put them on my table, in front of my mirror, and changed their positions in the light. With the same sense of self-consciousness one feels when posing for a photographer, I picked up a pen and began to write.

That’s how I started this book.

At the Moulin Rouge that night I heard a woman standing nearby say in Spanish: He cares for his hands like a man preparing for a murder.

MAY 19, 18—

I was born in Bougival. The Seine flows through our village. Fleeing from Paris. Its dark green waters drag in the grime from that happy city. As the river crossed our town, it jammed the millwheel with the bodies of drowning victims, bashful beneath its surface. One last shove and their journeys were at an end. But they couldn’t pass through the sluice gates under the mill, and so it happened, on occasion, that one of their arms would go through without them—and be seen reaching into the air, as if for help. As a child, I fished out a number of these bodies. There was a mailman in town who was famous locally for always being the one to deliver news of a death; I soon developed a similar sort of notoriety, becoming known for having discovered the most cadavers. It gave me a certain distinction among my comrades, and I prided myself on this honor. I threatened the other children that I would soon find them as well—the day they drowned. They’d tilt their heads, imagining themselves tangled in the sluices beneath the mill. My authority was beyond question: I had, in making my grim prediction, planted an inkling of tragedy into everyday life; which is precisely where logic will say it belongs, once the works of Aeschylus have been thoroughly assimilated into human consciousness, and seem as ordinary and simple as a schoolboy’s