Bonjour, Monsieur Pompadour

William Shakespeare

"Daddy, by Zeus, you've got to believe me! I was enchanted by the beauty of sleeping Helen and as I was waiting for her to wake up, I started to read this book by her side and I couldn't stop reading it. When I tried to take the book, "Bonjour, Monsieur Pompadour" with me, she unfortunately woke up and sprung herself at the book and was clutching to it so tightly that I had to take her to Troy too."

Paris to his father, king Priam

"I don't read books, being busy with...other things, but a few of my advisors told me that this unworthy worm writes words full of wonder. So I have decided not to butcher him...Well...maybe...? No, I won't!"

Genghis Khan

It is a small miracle that Van Den Budenmayer's only surviving work is still in existence. After all his works were destroyed by a jealous husband, a powerful Lord in the English monarchy, "Bonjour, Monsieur Pompadour" survived only because before the eradication of all its copies from the face of the Earth, Russian monk Grigorij Effamovich Buttilka memorized its content, and the book, firmly locked in his memory, simply walked away to Russia. Monk Grigorij told the story to everyone in his land and this masterpiece became a part of the Russian oral tradition, surviving from a generation to a generation. Luckily for the world, many, many decades later, an educated Venetian doctor Pippinelli travelled across Russia, collecting folk stories. One freezing day, winter storm caught him by surprise deep in the Caucasus mountains and by sheer luck he stumbled upon a forgotten village, where he found shelter before he froze to death. He found something even more important than a shelter in that lost village: he met a hundred year old woman, Effremovna Nadezhda, who was the last person in Russia who still knew the story of "Bonjour, Monsieur Pompadour."
Dr. Pippinelli, huddled in reindeer furs, sipping hot tea from a samovar, furiously recorded the story droning from Mrs. Effremovna ancient lips, while the uncouth winds and wolves were howling outside. When the last word "...him." died out from her lips she fell dead quiet. She was dead. The story was translated into the Castilian Spanish and from that translation into the English and it is presented in this book for the first time.

Amazing wit, emotional and not to forget intellectual sensitivity jump up from the pages of this masterpiece. Van Den Budenmayer places words, one after another, to form sentences, all ending by a period. Reading his surprisingly succinct and grammatically correct prose is like walking in heaven on a snow-white cloud with super-soft slippers while being snuggled by bunnies and puppies and washed clean by pure sound of a choir of angels. One time a true saint read a few pages from the book and tears of genuine ecstasy fell on his worn out, ugly sandals. He thought that he was already in heaven. The fable's heroes could be people you can see in a supermarket or people you wouldn't see in a supermarket. The prose of the Dutchman is as logical as memory itself. How did this Rembrantesque writer regain such elan, wit and mastery of the language? Where does such genius come from? Maybe from illegal substances. But don't do them kids. Alcohol is bad for you too. So is unprotected sex and lying to your parents. Unless those parents have dogmatic natures. Then you have to lie. Once I lied too, but I forgot about what and to whom.