In the S bus, in the rush hour. A chap of about 26, felt hat with a cord instead of a ribbon, neck too long, as if someone's been having a tug-o-war with it. People getting off. The chap in question gets annoyed with one of the men standing next to him. He accuses him of jostling him every time anyone goes past. A sniveling tone which is meant to be aggressive. When he sees a vacant seat he throws himself on to it.

Two hours later, I meet him in the Cour de Rome, in front of the gare Saint-Lazare. He's with a friend who's saying: "You ought to get an extra button put on your overcoat." He shows him where (at the lapels) and why.

One day at about midday in the Parc Monceau district, on the back platform of a more or less full S bus (now No. 84), I observed a person with a very long neck who was wearing a felt hat which had a plaited cord round it instead of a ribbon. This individual suddenly addressed the man standing next to him, accusin him of purposely treading on his toes every time any passengers got on or off. However he quickly abandoned the dispute and threw himself on to a seat which had become vacant.

Two hours later I saw him in front of the gare Saint-Lazare engaged in earnest conversation with a friend who was advising him to reduce the space between the lapels of his overcoat by getting a competent tailor to raise the top button.

You ought to put another button on your overcoat, his friend told him. I met him in the middle of Cour de Rome, after having just left him rushing avidly for a seat. He had just protested against being pushed by another passenger who, he said, was jostling him every time anyone got off. This scraggy young man was the wearer of a ridiculous hat. This took place on the platform of an S bus which was full this particular midday.

I was not displeased with my attire this day. I was inaugurating a new, rather sprightly hat, and an overcoat of which I though most highly. Met X in front of the gare Saint-Lazare who tried to spoil my pleasure by trying to prove that this overcoat is cut too low at the lapels and that I ought to have an extra button on it. At least he did not dare attack my headgear.

A bit earlier I had roundly told off a vulgar type who was purposely ill-treating me every time anyone went by getting off or on. This happened in one of those unspeakably foul omnibi which fill up with hoi polloi precisely at those times when I have to consent to use them.

Next to me on the bus platform today there was one of those half-baked young fellows, you don't find so many of them these days, thank God, otherwise I should end up by killing one. This particular one, a brat of something like 26 or 30, irritated me particularly, not so much because of his great long featherless-turkey's neck as because of the nature of the ribbon around his hat, a ribbon which wasn't much more than a maroon-coloured string. Dirty beast! He absolutely disgusted me! As there were a lot of people in our bus at that hour I took advantage of all of the pushing and shoving there is every time anyone gets on or off to dig him in the ribs with my elbow. In the end he took to his heels, the milksop, before I could make up my mind to tread on his dogs and teach him a lesson. I could have also told him, just to annoy him, that he needed another button on his overcoat which was cut too low at the lapels.

I'm not used to writing. I dunno. I'd quite like to write a tragedy or a sonnet or an ode, but there's the rules. They put me off. They weren't made for amateurs. All this is already pretty badly written. Oh well. At any rate, I saw something today which I'd like to set down in writing. Set down in writing doesn't seem att that marvelous to me. It's probably one of those ready-made expressions which are objected to by reader who read for the publishers who are looking for the originality which they seem to think is necessary in the manuscripts which the publishers publish when they've been read by the readers who object to ready-made expressions like "to set down in writing" which all the same is what I should like to do about something I saw today even though I am only an amateur who is put off by the rules of tragedy or sonnet or the ode because I am not used to writing. Hell, I don't know how I did it, but here I am back at the beginning again. I'll never get to the end. So what. Let's take the bull by the horns. Another platitude. And anyway, there was nothing of the bull about that chap. Huh, that's not bad. If I were to write: let's take the fancy-pants by the plait of his felt hat which hat is conjugated with a long neck, that might well be original. That might well get me in with the gentlemen of the French Academy, the Café Flore and the Librarie Gallimard. Why shouldn’t I make some progress, after all. It's by writing that you become a writesmith. That's a good one. Have to keep a sense of proportion, though. The chap on the bus platform had lost his when he started to swear at the man next to him claiming that the latter trod on his toes every time he squeezed himself up to let passengers get on or off. All the more so as after he'd protested in this fashion he went off quickly enough to sit down as soon as he'd spotted a free seat inside as if he was afraid of getting hit. Hm, I've got through half my story already. Wonder how I did it. Writing's really quite pleasant. But there's still the most difficult part left. The part where you need the most know-how. The transition. All the more so as there isn’t any transition. I’d rather stop here.

The general effect is green with a white top, oblong with windows. 'Tisn't as easy as all that to do windows. The platform isn't any color, it's half grey half brown if it must be something. The most important thing is it's full of curves, lots of esses as you might say. But the way it is at midday, rush hour, it's an extraordinary mess. To get somewhere neat it you'd have to extract from the magma a light ochre rectangle, put a light ochre oval on top, and then on top of that again, stick a darkish ochre hat which you'd encircle with a plait of burnt Siena, all mixed-up at that. Then you'd shove in a patch the colour of duck's muck to represent fury, a red triangle to express anger, and just a pissworth of green to portray suppressed bile and squittery funk.

After that you'd draw one of those sweet darling little navy blue overcoats and, near the top of it, just below the opening, you'd put a darling little button drawn with great precision and loving care.

Quacking and letting off, the S came rasping to a halt alongside the silent pavement. The sun's trombone flattened the midday tone. The pedestrians bawling bagpipes, shouted out their numbers. Some went up a semitone, which sufficed to carry them off towards Porte Champerret with its chanting arcades. Among the panting elite was a clarinet tube to whom the untowardness of the times had given human form, and the perversity of a hatmaker had given to wear on the coconut an instrument which resembled a guitar that might perhaps have plaited its string together to make a girdle. Suddenly in the middle of some minor arrangements between enterprising passengers and of bleating tremolos from the covetous conductor, a ludicrous cacophony broke out in which the fury of the double bass was blended with the irritation of the trumpet and the jitters of the bassoon.

Then after sigh, silence, pause, and double pause, there rang forth the triumphant melody of a button in the process of going up an octave.

This particular bus had a certain taste. Curious, but undeniable. All buses don't have the same taste. That's often said, but it's true. Just try the experiment. This one—an S, not to make too great a mystery of it—had the suspicion of the flavor of grilled peanuts, not to go into too great detail. The platform had its own special bouquet, peanuts not just grilled, but trodden as well. One metre 60 above the trampolin, a gourmand, only there wasn't one there, would have been able to taste something rather sourish which was the neck of a man about 30. And twenty centimetres higher still, the refined palate was offered the rare opportunity of sampling a plaited cord just slightly tinged with the flavor of cocoa. Next we sampled the chewing gum of dispute, the chestnuts of irritation, the grapes of wrath and a bunch of bitterness.

Two hours later we were entitled to the dessert: an overcoat button…a real delicacy.

In that meridian S, apart from the habitual smell, there was a smell of a beastly seedy ego, of effrontery, of jeering, of H-bombs, of a high jakes, of cakes and ale, of emanations, of opium, of curious ardent esquimos, of tumescent venal double-usurers, of extraordinary white zoosperms, there was a certain scent of long juvenile neck, a certain perspiration of plaited cord, a certain pungency of anger, a certain loose and constipated stench, which were so unmistakeable that when I passed the gare Saint-Lazare two hours later I recognised them and identified them in the cosmetic, modish and tailoresque perfume which emanated from a badly placed button.