“It is very agreeable,” he confided to me. “I stop where I please and go on when I please, a regular land yacht. And I am alone.”

“Alone?” I said, “But people . . .”

“Yes, that’s true, but one can avoid the villages. Mussolini, whom I went to see in Rome, made the same remark. I replied that he did not need such an automobile to attract the attention of the crowd. Ah! the pope too, wished to see my auto. But as he cannot leave the Vatican and I could not decently – I wonder why – drive my roulotte in there, he sent someone, the nuncio, who went away filled with admiration.”

(Raymond Roussel, in conversation with Roger Vitrac)