I want nothing better!
“Sh! Sh!”
Another mystery!
“Watch out for women! They mess up everything! They muddle up our slightest emanations. They perturb our destiny! I’m going to lock mine up! As soon as she gets back!… What a slut!”
I was being warned!… That was one thing!… But what about Colonel O’Collogham and the gas masks?… What the hell were we going to do at that guy’s place?… take his dough away? Partners? Where else were we going to kick around!
Sosthène was thinking… He’d settled into the armchair… He was looking at me as if I were miles away…
“Monsieur,” I venture, “so Tibet is finished?”
“On the contrary, it’s the very beginning.”
He jumps up.
“You little fool! Ah! Don’t say anything in front of my wife! You talk too much!…” He gives me another order… “Go bring me my tea!… Serve it to me here!”
Now I was the maid!
“It’s cold, master!… It’s cold!”
I go to the stove… I putter about… I prepare… I was beginning to feel at home in the garret!… Only it had a stale stink since he’d come in… His shoes had an awful smell… I’d already noticed that… It’s the humidity of the streets… Shoes are awful in London!… I probably stank too… it’s much worse even than the army… They get spongy in no time… There was some ham in the buffet, a low little buffet… I make myself a sandwich… I serve myself… first! Knock! Knock! Knock!… Someone at the door…
I go to open it.
Pépé’s come back! Cuckoo!
“Ah! My ducky! My love!… My angel!…” Two bounces and she’s on top of Sosthène! The caresses start all over! Ah! It’s love again!… More kisses!… And still more!… They go play together on the sofa… She’s brought some food back, more ham! Some brains! Fresh sardines! Just when I’m ready!… In the nick of time! I see the snack! I’m going to brown it all in butter!… I look around while it’s cooking… the décor, the room, the trunks… those trunks again… gilt chests… black chests… So the ancestor’s in that corner?… The cult of the dead!… I don’t waste time!… The two of them are having fun there! Ah! It’s all made up! It’s full of junk all around… Chinese curios all over the place… masks… grimaces, blue ones, red ones… banners with signs… still more trunks… split… crammed… scrolls hanging out… books… all over the floor… It was smaller than Claben’s place but just as jammed with bric-a-brac, and that’s saying a lot!…
All right! Things are coming along!… Tea, a little snack! I carry it in! It gives a man a lift! I’m going to serve Monsieur and Madame!
Ah! I’m perfect in my line! I know how to manage things in families! All smooth sailing now! They’re just as sweet as pie! The way they go for my sardines! Ah! I’m quite a hand when it comes to broiling them! It’s a real lover’s snack! Ah! I join right in! I enjoy the whole thing! Every time he squeezes her she winks at me, wiggles and gives me the eye! At every kiss! She’s got the devil in her belly, the old buzzard!
“Come on!”… I’m needling him… “Let’s get going!”
It’s true, it’s time!
“You’re right!… Get started, young man! I’ll be right with you!”
Ah! He’s got to make up his mind! They’re not going to neck around for ever!
“Pépé! My green robe!” he orders.
And make it snappy! She goes to get the beautiful robe… it’s in still another trunk… a shot silk with little mimosa seedlings… she rummages about, digs it out, she dresses him, powders him, primps him… now his hat!… The umbrella!…
We’re all set!
“Say, take down the address!”
Already forgotten! I look for the Times clipping. I copy… he repeats slowly… “O’Collogham! Colonel!… 41 Willesden Green… Willesden Mansions.”
That does it! He tries hard to remember it!
“All right! All right!”
And then he looks me over.
“Your shoes are disgusting!”
That’s true… He sighs…
“Your grooming! After all!”
I distress him.
He throws me some cloth… to brighten me up… a piece of kimono…
“Your appearance, young man!”
That does it.
“Ah!…” he’s thinking things over… “You’ll let me speak, won’t you?… You won’t interrupt me?”
Oh no! By no means… that I promise!
Pépé wants to kiss him again… a last embrace!
“Come on! Let’s get going!”
He pushes her off… No more time… He dashes down the stairs… I’m at his heels… I’m following!
We hurry along! But Pépé won’t have it! Ah! She hangs on! Bawls! Miaows! She doesn’t want to stay there all alone! She wants us to take her along!
“Ah! I should have locked her in!”
It’s too late.
Outside, people immediately form a crowd… that makes another scene… we never can escape it! We argue with Pépé! She’s doing it on purpose so that people’ll look at us! She just won’t understand anything! We reason with her, Sosthène kisses her!… She just won’t understand… that it’s about the mask business!… Finally it gets through to her a little… she gives in but we’ve got to pamper her!… That’s the condition… she wants to be coddled!… Sosthène knows her… she walks part of the way with us… just to the corner… Aldersgate… the end of the tramline… Ah! That’s where… to the tobacco and sweet shop!… We have to buy her whatever she wants!… Goodies, all her whims… in the showcase, then at the counter… first a big box of candy, then two Havana cigars… then three bags of marshmallows, then a bottle of cologne… Ah! That just about does it… No! She still wants some toffee… she’s a bloodsucker!… In order to pay we have to take out all we’ve got! All our coins! Sosthène and I! There’s just enough! Just! She’s taking my last pennies! Ah! Finally she’s ready to go home… but it doesn’t satisfy her… she leaves in a sulk… she doesn’t even say goodbye…
Bus 29! Ours! That’s us! Shake a leg! He tucks up his robe!… We jump on!
Notes
p.vii, Denoël: The author’s publisher.
p.14, pyrette: It is not certain what Céline meant by this word. The context seems to imply that it is a device or recipient used in chemistry.
p.16, Pro Deo: “For God” (Latin).
p.20, the Elephant and the Castle, the two limits of Mile End: Actually, Elephant and Castle and Mile End are in two completely separate parts of London. Céline’s geography is at times fanciful in Guignol’s Band.
p.25, the Chinese: A reference to Limehouse, which at the time had many immigrants from China.
p.35, Le Chabanais: A famous Paris brothel.
p.39, In Pau… Naked: An untranslatable pun explains the outburst. “I’m joining up in Pau” (“je rejoins à Pau”) might readily be twisted to “I’m joining up naked”.
p.53, Poincaré: Raymond Poincaré (1860–1934), a French politician who was President of the French Republic from 1913 to 1920, as well as Prime Minister several times.
p.63, Halles… Ternes: References to the Halles marketplace and the Place des Ternes in Paris.
p.75, King Clovis and the Vase of Soissons: Clovis I (c.466–511) was King of the Franks from 509 to 511 and, according to legend, killed, with a sword blow to the head, a soldier who had destroyed the Vase of Soissons, a liturgical vessel which the king had been intending to restore to a bishop.
p.83, a “mail coach”: I.e. a lantern for a mail coach.
p.127, the great Barrymore’s: A reference to the famous theatre actor Maurice Barrymore (1847–1905), or one of his sons, John Barrymore (1882–1942) or Lionel Barrymore (1878–1954).
p.192, Allons enfants de
la Patrie: “Arise, children of the Fatherland” (French), the first line of ‘La Marseillaise’.
p.206, Bonvalot: Gabriel Édouard Bonvalot (1853–1933) was a famous French explorer of Central Asia.
p.234, Davides: Perhaps the narrator means the Dravidian people of southern India.
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