The Joke

Marc Champagnat, a stout and fastidious retired railroad worker, was the Dr. Johnson of the town of Angouleme A divorce and a gourmet, Marc and his friends--the undertaker, the fishmonger, the mayor, the lawyer's clerk and the school principal--met so regularly in the tavern called Le Practic that their group became known as Champagnat's Club. Over peppery steak and cognac, Marc would talk endlessly of his philosophies, his past amours, his hobbies--fishing and cooking--and his adventures in the Cameroons. Even the Irish setter Vo-Vo learned to follow his conversation with interest and thumped her tail on the floor approvingly when Marc's friends laughed at his sallies.

One day, four years ago, Marc startled his companions at Le Practic with a joke that seemed something less than funny. "It is my belief," he said, "that a man should not live to be more than 60. As you all know, I shall be 56 on Oct. 3. I have saved 4,000,000 francs, and I intend to spend it at a rate of 1,000,000 each year. I shall kill myself at the end of September 1953. On Oct. 1, I shall be buried." Marc's friends slapped him on the back and urged him to have another drink. "You'll forget it all by tomorrow," they said. But Marc Champagnat did not forget.

I Shan't Need It. As the years passed, Marc repeated his "joke" again and again until some of his friends got bored with it. He even made arrangements with the undertaker for his burial in the family vault. The fish merchant took him for a ride on his lurching truck one day and tried to warn him: "Your soul will be eternally damned," but Marc only answered, "I must do what I must do."

In the pleasant, cozy house where he lived, Marc continued to pursue the pleasant, unruffled existence of a man at peace with himself and the world. He took fat carp from the neighboring river, lent his money freely to all who seemed needy, entertained his friends with home-cooked meals worthy of a Parisian chef, and sent them home glowing with his fine vintages. Not even the postman was allowed to pass Marc's house on his rounds without sampling its hospitality. Most of Marc's friends tried to ignore his grim joke about suicide, but Marc would not let them. "By the way," he told his favorite fishing companion a few weeks ago, "I want you to have my fishing equipment. I'm killing myself at the end of this month, you know, and I shan't need it any more."

Nice to See You. As the zero hour approached, friends pleaded and entreated with Marc to change his mind, to no avail. On the morning of Sept. 28, gloom hung like a pall in the bar of Le Practic. Even VoVo lay silent, crouched in a corner. Then someone, peering from the window, cried, "Why, there's Marc now!" And down the street, wearing the neat, pin-stripe suit that fitted him so snugly, came Marc. "I've decided to give myself a reprieve," he beamed. "Beefsteak with pepper, please, Madame. Well, it's nice to see you all."

Was it the happy ending to Marc Champagnat's grim joke? Next day, when Marc failed to show up at Le Practic, his friends went to his cottage and found him lying in a coma from an overdose of sleeping pills. On Friday morning, Oct. 2, Marc Champagnat died in the hospital. "As you see," he wrote in a letter left behind, "I am punctual. I think I have lived better than others. I die content."

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