Isidore Ducasse

“Ducasse? Yes,I knew him back in 1864.
He was with me in the fifth form at the Pau lycée.
I can see him now, tall, thin and round-shouldered,
With long hair falling across his forehead,
That pale face,and that shrill voice.
He was usually cheerless and withdrawn,
Seemed to think he was superior to everyone else,
And never hid his scorn for the rest of us.
He often complained to me of painful migraines,
Which affected his temperament and moods.
We all thought he wasn’t quite right in the head,
With his strange ideas and eccentricities.
There he would sit, elbows on desk, head in hands,
Eyes staring blankly at some textbook,
Deep in some reverie,
Homesick for Montevideo,perhaps.
One day, in class, the teacher-
A real stickler for classical style-
Read out an essay by Ducasse,
The first solemn sentences made him laugh to begin with,
But soon, as he read on, he grew furious
At the weird extravagances and exaggerations
Of style, every sentence full of piled-up images
And incomprehensible metaphors,
Obscure verbal inventions and bizarre syntax,
Effusions of the grotesque and macabre.
Well,the teacher simply blew his top,
To him this was a blatant insult to everything he believed in,
All he had taught us of classical style.
He rebuked Ducasse severely in front of the whole class
And put him in detention.
Poor Ducasse was bewildered and hurt:
He was convinced he had written an excellent essay,
Deserving praise and distinction.
Oh, he was a queer bird,all right!”