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Since the dawn of Western Civilization (a good idea, no?), even the most inept derider has been able to find his butt in France.  But decades before freedom fries and death panels, a man of actual talent deigned to pick the low hanging comedic fruit of the tree of liberté.  Today, Desultory Eclecticism is pleased to present Part I in a II part series of Anton Pavlovich Chekov's "The Stupid Frenchman."

A clown from the Gintz Brothers' Circus, Henri Parkour, entered a Moscow dough house for breakfast.

"Give me some light soup!" he ordered.

"Would you like that with or without pâté?"

"No, with pâté it's too filling.  Just give me two or three croutons."

Waiting in anticipation for the light soup, Parkour occupied himself with observation.  The first thing he cast his eyes on was a full-bodied, pleasant looking gentleman sitting at the neighboring table preparing to eat pancakes.

"How notable the amount they serve at Russian restaurants!" the Frenchman meditated, watching how his neighbor doused his pancakes with hot butter.  "Five pancakes!  Can one man really eat such a quantity of dough?"  The neighbor, meanwhile, spread his pancakes with caviar, cut each one in half, and gulped them down in under five minutes.

"Strange," ruminated Parkour, evaluating his neighbor.  "He ate five pieces of dough, yet he orders more!  They say some illness accompanies one who eats so much..."

The waiter set down in front of the neighbor a mountain of pancakes and two plates with balyk and salmon.  The pleasant looking gentleman drank a shot of vodka, ate the salmon, and took on the pancakes.  To Parkour's great astonishment, he at them as quickly as if he had been hungry.

"Evidently he is sick," concluded the Frenchman, "and he probably imagines, the screwball, that he'll eat that entire mountain.  He won't even eat three pieces and his stomach will be full.  And after all that he'll have to go up and pay for the entire mountain!"

"Give me some more caviar!" yelled the neighbor, wiping the butter from his lips with a napkin, "and don't forget the green onions!"


"But...on the contrary, the mountain is already gone!" the clown realized in horror.  "My god, and he's eaten all of the salmon?  This isn't even believable.  Can the human stomach stretch so?  It can't be!  If this gentleman were in France he would be exhibited for money...God, the mountain is already nothing!"


"Give me a bottle of punch," said the neighbor, receiving the caviar and onion from the waiter, "but heat it up first...What else?  Perhaps give me another portion of pancakes, but faster..."


"Got it, and what shall you order after the pancakes?"


"Something a little lighter...order up some sturgeon stew, Russkie style, and...and...I'll think it over, get a move on!"


Don't forget to tune in tomorrow for the thrilling conclusion of Chekov's "The Stupid Frenchman."