Jumping jacks and their maker

Use in the book

Brotteaux carries a whole “people” of toys from his attic and calls them his creatures. He has mercifully withheld thought from their perishable bodies, sparing them joy and suffering. This is his ironic theology of creation, not a narrator’s decree against consciousness. His own Lucretius, carried in his worn clothing, remains a source of recreation: the thinking maker enjoys what his imagined creatures lack.

Glue, string, watercolour and paper scraps establish a material economy around the joke. The formerly wealthy man works in a room too low to stand in; dealers resell his bright figures to pedlars, and children desire them. Unlike Gamelin’s rejected cards, these small works sustain a livelihood, although later portraits and secretarial work supplement it.

A committee visitor, as reported by Caillou, reads the conventional theatrical figures as caricatures of current leaders. Brotteaux says he copied an older decorative repertory. The narrator’s “little hanged men” draws upon their literal strings; “suspects” transfers the political category to stock that now endangers its maker and retailer. Rain also threatens the toys. Their fragile material existence and the loss of their market remain visible within the political joke.

The work becomes cooperative when Longuemare cannot cut pleasing outlines but excels at threading scattered limbs and teaching the figures to dance. Formation, animation, rhythm and harmony make this a small creation of responsive bodies, set near the narrative of the execution scaffold without imposing a fixed allegory. Longuemare’s Magitot story adds another qualification: a harmless wish to pull a string grows obsessive under resistance and subsides when permitted.

During the inquiry preceding the arrest, mention of the toys reminds Delourmel of a doll promised to his sick daughter. Later, the arresting party interrupts Brotteaux and Longuemare’s cooperative craft. A capacity for affection in one relationship does not prevent participation in persecution in another; the toys disclose both kinds of action without making their agents interchangeable.

Places to read

1. Chapter II, paragraph 7FrenchJe ne leur ai pas donné la pensée, car je suis un Dieu bon.: benevolent creation imagined as withholding thought. The maker’s joke links consciousness with the capacity for suffering.
2. Chapter II, paragraph 7Frenchdes pantins: toy figures carried to a retailer. Brotteaux speaks while taking up his bundle.
3. Chapter II, paragraph 8Frenchun pot de colle, d’un paquet de ficelles: the modest means of manufacture. Read the full chain from materials through wholesaler and pedlar to children’s desire.
4. Chapter XII, paragraph 2Frenchvos pantins et les a trouvés contre-révolutionnaires: toys judged counter-revolutionary. Caillou reports the committee visitor’s interpretation.
5. Chapter XII, paragraph 7Frenchses petits pendus: his little hanged men. Narrative renaming draws on the figures’ literal suspension.
6. Chapter XII, paragraph 10Frenchportant ses suspects sur l’épaule: carrying his suspects on his shoulder. The legal category is comically applied to the stock of toys.
7. Chapter XIV, paragraph 13Frenchdouer de mouvement ces petits êtres: endowing the little beings with movement. Longuemare supplies animation where he lacks cutting skill.
8. Chapter XIV, paragraph 15Frenchfaire danser son pantin: make one’s jumping jack dance. Magitot’s anecdote concerns an adult craze and a permitted harmless desire.
9. Chapter XVII, paragraph 13Frenchj’ai promis de rapporter une poupée à ma fille Nathalie: a promised doll for a sick child. Delourmel recalls this promise during the inquiry, before the party reaches Brotteaux’s attic.
10. Chapter XVII, paragraph 40Frenchassemblait par des fils leurs membres épars: threaded together their scattered limbs. The two men are engaged in cooperative craft as the arresting party arrives.

Translation in this edition

“Jumping jacks” specifies the pulled-string mechanism, while “Punchinellos” preserves a comic type in the police description. “A whole nation” for tout un peuple and “my creatures” sustain Brotteaux’s mock-creative register. The edition’s notes provide historical context for the toy craze; Magitot’s private history remains Longuemare’s narrated anecdote, not a separately verified biography.