The Reader on the 6.27 Read Online Free

Andromaque, Berenice or Iphigenia, while Yvon Grimbert, at the peak of his art, spouted at the top of his voice Pyrrhus, Titus and other Agamemnons of his own composition. Yvon did not eat, contenting himself with his twelve-syllable verses alone, lines which he washed down with the black tea he loved and which he drank by the Thermosful all day long.
    The lorry drew up with the long whistle of a tired whale, inches from the lowered barrier. Yvon abandoned Don Rodrigo and Chimene while he glanced up and noted that it was past the cut-off time for deliveries, and then dived back into Act III, Scene 4. The rules stipulated that out of consideration for the local residents, TERN had to cease all activity between 12.00 and 1.30 p.m., a rule that also included halting the comings and goings of the lorries whose job was to feed the Thing. The drivers all knew this and those who arrived after midday ended up having to park in the street until after lunch. Only a few rare reckless souls like this one occasionally tried to bend the rules and blag their way through.
    Confident in the power of his thirty-eight-tonne truck, the driver pressed his horn and barked impatiently through his lowered window: ‘Hey, I haven’t got all day, you know!’ Stonewalled by the security guard, the driver got down from the cab and marched angrily over to the hut. ‘Hey, you! Are you deaf or what?’ Without looking up from the book in front of him, Yvon raised his hand, palm facing forwards, to indicate that for the moment his attention was occupied by something more important than listening to the insults of a truck driver having a hissy fit. Guylain had always seen Yvon apply this principle, which consisted of never stopping midsentence, for any reason whatsoever. Never lose the thread of the Word, kiddo! Go right to the end; glide through the speech until the final full stop releases you! Tapping on the window in annoyance, the driver said, even more contemptuously, ‘When the fuck are you going to lift the barrier?’
    A new guy, thought Guylain. Only a newcomer would dare to speak to Yvon Grimbert like that! Slipping a bookmark into his 1953 edition of The Cid , Yvon gave Guylain a meaningful look and pointed to the box on the shelf running the length of the hut. It contained years of versifications from his own pen, carefully stowed away. Guylain brought it to him. The box on his knees, Yvon thumbed through his repertoire watched by the furious driver. His moustache quivering with triumph, Yvon picked out sheet number 24 entitled ‘Lateness and Punishment’. Adjusting his tie with an expert hand, he glanced cursorily at the text, just long enough to immerse himself in the role. He smoothed his silver hair with the palm of his hand and cleared his throat. Then, Yvon Grimbert, former pupil of the Alphonse Daubin school at Saint-Michel-sur-l’Ognon, class of 1970, subscriber to Le Français since 1976, fired his first salvo:
‘ Midday is long since past, look up at the great clock.
The big hand’s on the half hour and it will not stop!
Leave off your arrogance, your disdain disavow,
You might still have a chance that I could open now. ’
    The bafflement on the driver’s face erased all traces of anger. His stubbly chin dropped as Yvon recited the quatrain in his booming voice. Guylain smiled. This guy was definitely a newbie. Yvon’s verse often had this effect the first time. The alexandrine caught them off guard. The rhymes assailed them, suffocating them as surely as a hail of blows to the solar plexus. ‘An alexandrine is as direct as a sword,’ Yvon had explained to him one day. ‘Its job is to hit the target, but it must be used wisely. Don’t deliver it like common prose. Recite it standing. Take in plenty of air to give the words impact. Enunciate each syllable with passion and fire; declaim it as if making love, with sonorous hemistichs, broken up by caesuras. The alexandrine demands dedication from an actor. No room for