Pierre D. 's address book is a 12 x 15 cm bound book, with alphabetic index. It has a red cover with
a black spine. It is thick and well worn. The binding is torn. The addresses have been written with
a blue vall-point pen. L., a graphologist whom I consulted, felt the handwriting was rather ordinary
and did not have much to reveal. However, in the words “British Film Institute,” he sensed someone
intelligent, learned, structured, with a sharp, dry humor. He added, “I don’t see any maliciousness
in this handwriting.” On the first page Pierre D. wrote his first name, last name, address and phone
number. Opposite this he made a note of the letter codes used on the dials of French telephones:
2=ABC, 3=DEF, etc.
Listed in Pierre’s address book are 408 names divided in the following manner.
25 A’s, 63 B’s, 35 C’s, 38
D’s, 6 E’s, 22 F’s, 18 G’s, 3
H’s, 6 I’s, 5 J’s, 14 K’s, 28
L’s, 42 M’s, 8 N’s, 10 O’s, 21
P’s, 13 R’s, 19 S’s, 13 T’s, 1
U, 12 V’s, 3 W’s, 3 Z’s,
Most of Pierre D.’s acquaintances live in Paris, as he does, but I notice that there are a great number of Italian addresses, twenty nine to be exact. The other countries include:
and five addresses outside Paris.
I leaf through the book. Sometimes different annotations, in parentheses accompanied the addresses and phone numbers. I find a few husband of ….,” “wife of …,” “friend of…,” “transvestite,” one “black actor, good comic,” next to it with the month and year, not the day. When a birth occurs, he writes the first name of the child below those of the two parents. This information is usually added in red ink.
Isolated in the lower right corner of the last page is this sentence: