When I think of the people I hear talking politics,
I can see them in the bus...a real bus! with real
gratings, jam-packed with criminals like you!...not
criminals à la Charlie Chaplin! honest to God
criminals with handcuffs and straitjackets! guarded
by a dozen tommy guns...what a show!...the pass-
ersby weave and waver, cling to the shopfronts...
for fear this might happen to them...their con-
sciences quake! scared shitless!...memories...
it's a rare passerby that hasn't got a little abortion
tucked away...a little theft...nothing to be ashamed
of! the only thing to be ashamed of is poverty! the
one and only! Take me, for instance, no car, a doc-
tor on foot! what do I look like?...The advantage of
a doctor, even if he's a prize dope, is that with a
telephone call...he gets there...often there's no amb-
ulance available...taxis?...you can never find one...
even the most idiotic of doctors has his car!...even
with my ghastly reputation...the old jailbird...if I
had a car, people wouldn't think me so crummy, so
old...cars and more cars...what a laugh!...that one
up there wasn't mine! nor any of these down here...
I'm expecting Achille's...in case he wants to show
me his horrible accounts...proving that I owe him
enormous sums, so he says! homo deliquensis, as
I've said...give him the whole bus to himself! and
and hell, why not? his whole Trust with him!...and
Norbert trotting along behind! in handcuffs and
corset! that's the way I see it! 

From Céline's
Castle to Castle
Translation Ralph Manheim