Guignol's Band

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  Ah! They won’t get me!… Bloody mess!… I know all about the traps! The tricks! The murderous war! The pitfalls! The hell with the dopes! So I get up very gingerly… nice and quickly… and oop!… I make a dash!… The opposite pavement… I bolt!… I run!… I hug the walls!… I hit Bond Street!… Marylebone!… I know where I’m going!… My heart’s racing like mad!… A drum!… A tattoo!… But in the right place!… “With heart and soul!…” I still hear the colonel…

  “Cavalry! Sabres in hand!” Sir Colonel Guts!… “With heart and soul!… Gallop!… Chaaarge!” I obey his command!… I dash forward!… Ah! How I dash!… I bolt!… I fly to the charge!… Heart and soul!… All for my country!… I know the itinerary!… I don’t get lost in the heart of London!… I race ahead! Spurt!… Hip! Hip! Hurrah! Cavalcade!… Whirlwind! Heart and soul!… Valour!… Victory’s my law!… Victoria!… Tottenham Court Road!… I change pace!… Neck down! On the bit!… I clap spurs!… I charge the omnibus!… The whole flock! Mastodons! They grunt! Growl! Quiver! Big potbellies! Twenty-five motors!… Stopped, all red, there, alert, muzzle against croup… massed, set… all vibrating at the signal!… Snuffling at the butt ends! Putt! Putt!… Blood buffaloes!… I confront them!… Snuffle as they do!… Brrrooo! Brr… rr… roo… oooo!… And I charge everything! Lightning! Dodge!… Hack the herd!… Cut sideways!… Arrow! Escape!… Right at the crossing!… In front of the Lyons, the giant tearoom, open night and day!… Ah! The stout fellow!… Ah! The hero!… Just look at ’im! The cops are whistling at me!… Whistling!… Whistling! Futile! I step on the gas!… Ah! Every man for himself!… I tear along the walls at top speed!… Racing like mad!… Far off! At the end! It’s Bedford Square! I sniff!… I get my bearings!… I dash forward!… I’m there!… I see the trees! The YMCA!… The grounds, the fine sycamores!… The oaks!… The Consulate!… I see it!… Go on, go, boy!… Shoot ahead!… Fly!… One more dash! Hip! Hop! It’s pouring! It’s teeming! It’s pissing! I’m soaked!… Dripping! Streaming in flight! I dash under the umbrellas… I stumble!… I flop!… Up! On my feet!… Faster and faster!… I don’t feel myself any more!… Bedford Square! The Consulate!… Mine?… No! The Russian!… I’m a bit off!… Another run!… I’ve got too much pep!… Got to lose it!… Use it up!… I’m slowing down!… Now trotting!… There’re at least a dozen consulates… of all countries… around the trees!… All around the square… like a merry-go-round! Against one another!… That one there! The Russian! The biggest! At least three or four buildings… The crowd’s milling in front of the door… I bear down… I dig in!… I’m pushed back!… I succumb! I… I collapse in the mob of Russians!… They’re fuming!… They spit!… They call me names!… I’m at a standstill!… A stricken meteor!… I collapse on the spot!… I’m squeezed in, bundled, ground up in the crush of bodies!… It’s an endless mob!… There’s been a triple line around the square for days and days! For weeks!… They’ve been marking time… they squawk… they cough… in the sun… in the rain… the office door’s closed… it just barely opens… They take only two at a time… They keep them for hours… for days… It’s for their visas!… It’s a teeming mob full of cooties!… And hard to delouse!… I’m scratching too!… It’s a mixture… it’s swarming… forearms… feet… They all flock to the door every time it opens… it’s a mixed sort of mob… they shove one another into the railings… they’re all scraping away at the lice… digging at themselves… tickling… a hotchpotch… and cute specimens… big merchants and moujiks!… Lots of all kinds… show-offs in overcoats… professors with eyeglasses… peasants with kerchiefs… all of them milling, mashing feet, shoving, advancing a hundredth of an inch… Got to go through them!… I’ll never make it! My French Consulate! There! Getting farther away! I find myself deported! Dragged to the left! I brace myself! Tear away! I knock over some Jews in caps… a whole band of them!… Side whiskers with big glasses… two popes with crosses on their bellies… They’re squeezed tightly together. I buck right into them… right into the mash of meat… I cut through… push them all aside!… A burst!… Got to get to my cloister… to my Consulate… French soil!… It’s just as compact there too!… They’re blocking the entrance… a whole yowling furious mixture Franco-Belgo-Russian who-where-what!… They’re all jabbering and shouting… calling each other the lowest names… sour chambermaids… artists… a Greek whom I recognize… a plump little woman spouting away… a girl from Toulouse full of accent… They’re waiting for opening time… it reopens at eight o’clock for visas for the evening train…

  I’m in a much greater rush than anyone else!… I yell it to the populace!… Got to assert myself at once! I didn’t come to wait around!… I want to see the Consul in person!… Himself!… And right away!… I roar it over the crowd’s heads… Monsieur le Consul Général!… That’s the least of things!… I’ve torn my overcoat… it’s just a rag now… getting pushed around by the crowd!… It’s hanging down in tatters!… My expensive raglan… I salute the flag over the door!… And the coat of arms!… Our three colours!… “Attention!” I order… “Atten-shun!” in a stentorian voice over the mob… I beat my way through… I’m trying to penetrate… The women around me, the French teachers, call me a ruffian, a cut-throat… I don’t answer… I bang… I go at it with all I’ve got!… I’m ready to smash anything!… I shove through like mad!… With kicks!… Finally they open after all!… Just a crack!… I barge in head on!… Into the usher!… The concierge!… I’m inside!… I’ve made it!… But my heart can’t take it! I buckle under!… I sit down on the floor!… The effort’s been too much!

  “Monsieur! Monsieur!… Mister!” I exclaim… “Duty calls me!… Allons enfants de la Patrie!…”* I bawl it out!… I give it all I’ve got!… I insult the flunky!… He answers in English, “Go away! Go away! I’m the Commissioner!…” The kind of uniformed lackey who hires himself out by the hour, by the week, who defends anterooms, offices, official places…

  “The French Consul!” I demand… “I want to see the French Consul!… Monsieur le Consul Général!”

  Finally a clerk comes along… A real one, with lustrine sleeves… then three!… Ten others!… All in lustrine and spectacles, wearing celluloid collars… Ah! I stop dead! Oh, celluloid!… They flabbergast me! They’re the first I’ve seen in London!… I sit there dumbfounded! They fascinate me… They’re all wearing bow ties!… “Ready-made!”… I get it!… I know where I am!… It’s my whole youth!… I just sit there stunned, cockeyed… from squinting so hard at their ties!… Ah! I can’t take my eyes off them!… It’s my whole childhood!… My apprenticeship!… The Passage du Vérododat!… God it’s not possible? They’re all wearing them, one and the same kind!… Like my poor father!… Always “ready-made” ties… with chevron stripes like his! Black and white… Ah! Tears are welling up!

  “Gentlemen!… Gentlemen!” I exclaim… “You’ll forgive me!… It’s weakness!… It’s hunger!… Just a fainting spell!”

  “You want some help, young man?… Help?… In the morning around ten o’clock… Come back tomorrow morning!”

  They’re clearing me out.

  “Help?… Help?…”

  Ah! The sneaks!… Ah! My anger!

  “I want to enlist, you bastards!… I want to go back to the war! To save our country!… You shitheads!… I’ve got my fake papers!” I scream it at them! I’m announcing it.

  I can see they think I’m off my nut… They’re making signs to one another.

  “Follow us, young man!… Follow us!… Come up quietly… quietly with us.”

  They invite me… they escort me… they close around me… They don’t want me to run away… Oh! They’re smart!… I know their kind!…

  We get to the first floor… two, three… four offices in a row… all of them filled with typists… homely ones, pale and squint-eyed… a hunchback…

  At the very back, the “Military Office”… written on the outer door… “Medical Officer”… We all b
olt in together… we surge in… and all the typists follow!… They’re clucking away, the scarecrows… They’re accompanying me… They won’t leave me!…

  It’s been some time since I’ve seen medics in uniform… since the hospital, as a matter of fact!… It excites me immediately!… Since Hazebrouck in Flanders…

  “Atten-shun!” I yell… “Atten-shun!”

  Everybody laughs… Haw! Haw! Haw!

  “Let me see your papers, young man!… Let me see your papers!”

  I tear out my inner pocket sewn up in my jacket… well preserved at the bottom of my rags!… I hand my papers to the medic… My record… my citations!…

  “It’s all fake! …” I warn him at the start… “It’s all fake!…”

  I’m warning him good and loud!…

  “Completely fake!…” I emphasize it…

  He tells me to sit down. That’s perfect!… So he can examine them leisurely!… I settle down into the biggest armchair… He’s going to see a thing or two… He’s going to have a treat… Meanwhile I look at the mists outside… the mists floating by the window… dancing… big furbelows… the ballet of the fogs!… While he examines my papers… I hum a little tune!… It all came with the rain… the ballet of the mists… it sweeps off… flies up… toward St Albans… Lightly!… The church, all dark!… The spire in the sky, all gold! Ah! A nice effect!… The clouds are dissolving!… Ah! I dream easily!… I just let myself go right off… Anything can get me dopey… I want him to know it… I let the medic know… I warn him very politely…

  “There’s something magic in the air.”

  A thought.

  Now he knows.

  “Come here, young man!” he answers, polite but firm. “Get undressed!… The rest of you! Leave!”

  Everyone leaves.

  He looks at my arm… my scars…

  “Atten-shun!…” I roar… “Atten-shun!…”

  He feels my leg, my buttocks, my balls… he fiddles all over me… he thumps my chest, he feels me again!… He makes me walk… forward… backwards…

  He nods his head… I can see he’s turning me down…

  “I want to go, doc!… I want to go!” I’m begging him… “Don’t turn me down!… I’ve got to go!… They’re after me!”

  I’m spilling the beans…

  “I’m the murderer, doc!… I killed ten of ’em!… I killed a hundred!… I killed a thousand!… I’ll kill all of ’em next time!… Doc, send me back!… I belong at the front!… A-off to war!”

  “We’ll see!… We’ll see!” he answers quite calmly… “Get dressed!”

  He hadn’t said three words to me… I thought that pretty insolent… I slip on my pants, my bandages, my shredded linen shirt… He looks me over… He’s still nodding… He’s a medico with a goatee, the plump potbellied kind, he’s got round cheeks, he takes his glasses off, puts them back on… He’s wearing leggings, spurs, a big revolver case… I wonder why?… He’s not running any risks in his office!… He sends for another four-eyes… and then for the commissioners… the lackeys again!… The ones who welcomed me at the door… and then they all come back… all the offices… the whole staff… the whole Consulate… all the gals with buns! It’s going to be a big show! I’m surrounded!… They all start jabbering again!… Whispering about my case!… Mimicking to one another!…

  “You may go now, my boy!… You may leave!”

  That’s his decision!

  Ah! I’ll be damned! What an outrage!

  “Off to war!” I scream… “Off to war!… I don’t want to leave any other way!… I want my re-enlistment signed here! Right this minute!… And without delay!… I demand it!… Take it or leave it!… Life or death!”

  They don’t answer.

  “Off to war!” I repeat… “Off to war! Like Little-Arm Pierrot… No-Dough René… like Pretty-Kiss Jojo!… like Lucien-the-Gent!”

  “But you’ve just come back, young man!… You’ve done your full duty!… You’ll soon have your pension!…”

  Ah! A fine how-do-you-do!… He was trying to ease me out!… Ah! The flimsy windbag!… Me, conscience in person!… He wanted to calm my scruples!… Ah! The crazy loafer!… Repulsive!… So I hand him a line!…

  “But my duty hasn’t been done right!… But haven’t you looked at me?… But I’ve still got lots of duties waiting!… And what about yours?… Tell me about them!… A pension?… But I don’t have any pension!… But I’ll never have a pension!…”

  That’s the way I argue!…

  He doesn’t get sore, he’s still reasoning with me… He’s handling me very gently…

  “But you will!… You’ll have it!… You’re going to get it, my dear fellow!… You’ve been badly disabled!… One of our most valiant soldiers!… You’ve got eighty per cent… Ask for an increase!… Eighty per cent is all right!… two thousand francs a year!”

  On the other hand, I’m getting excited!…

  “But I’m a murderer, gentlemen!… A murderer!… Can’t you hear straight?”

  I’m talking to all of them… I bellow it out!… I roar it!… We don’t understand one another at all!… They all make sorry faces!… There’re at least thirty of them in sleeve bands standing around in a circle… stupefied… staring at me! And then they start again… jabbering!… Twaddling… with lots of little sly laughs…

  “I killed two of ’em!”… I start all over… “I killed ten!… And I’ve killed a lot more!… I’ll butcher more than that!… Listen to me, doc!”

  I beg him… I throw myself at his knees!

  This time he’s categorical again! I’m driving him wild!

  “You’re discharged, my boy!… Your papers! Your documents are in order!… Absolutely faultless!… Discharged!… Do you understand me?… Eighty per cent!… You’ve been released by the medical boards! Dunkerque! Béthune! La Rapée!… Do you remember?… Wait for your pension! The formalities are being attended to!… Are you in London with relatives?…”

  He seems to me too curious!… He’s trying to intimidate me again! Ah! I see what he’s up to! Dissuading me from doing my full duty!… Ah! The wretch!…

  “I killed twelve of ’em!” I raise the figure… “I killed a hundred!… It’s not over!… I want to go back! I want to kill a thousand! I want to redeem my errors!… I want to go back to the line!… In the Sixteenth!… Sixteenth Cuirassiers!”

  Whereupon we start talking pleasantly again… He wants me to listen to reason… He’s full of concern… He starts flattering me!… “Hero!… Hero!” he calls me!… The word makes all the pen-pushers… all the office girls writhe with laughter…

  “You’ve received the Military Medal!…”

  “I killed twelve of ’em, doc!… If I go back, I’ll kill ’em all!… I want to get back to the platoon!… Lower my rank!… Lower my rank! But I want to be in service!… And right away!… A private, if necessary!”

  Ah! I mean business!…

  “Come, come, my boy!… You’re nervous, that’s all… You’ve done your duty!… Your whole duty!… Do you want to go back to France?… Do you want to see the Consul?… Are you out of funds?… We’ll repatriate you!… What’s your occupation?…”