Pensión de París

# Pensión de París

Ralph Barby's "Pensión de París" depicts the picaresque life of Jéróme Sebolix, a drifter living in a decrepit Parisian boarding house run by elderly sisters Marguerite and Hortense near Père Lachaise cemetery. After a life of petty crime and hustling in Montmartre, Sebolix awakens to find his own obituary marked in red in the morning newspaper, announcing his afternoon cremation. Thinking it a prank by the eccentric sisters, he ventures to the crematorium chapel, where he discovers a corpse bearing his exact face and identity. When confronted by the funeral director about this impossible situation, Sebolix insists he is alive, but the official dismisses him with laughter. The story devolves into psychological horror as Sebolix confronts the inexplicable reality of his own death.