Collected Works of Gaston Leroux
Page 138
In 1931, John S. Robertson produced the first English-language film version of Chéri-Bibi for MGM in the film The Phantom of Paris. The script is taken from the novel Chéri-Bibi et Cécily and the title character was played by John Gilbert . In the same year, Carlos Borcosque produced a Hispanic Chéri-Bibi with Ernesto Vilches in the main role and María Fernanda Ladrón de Guevara in the role of Cecilia. In 1937, Pierre Fresnay played Chéri-Bibi in the film adaptation by Léon Mathot, with Jean-Pierre Aumont and Marcel Dalio. In 1952, Marcel Pagliero Franco-Italian actor Jean Richard played Chéri-Bibi in an adaptation of the second Bibi story.
The original frontispiece for this translation
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
EXTRACT FROM THE TIMES
John Gilbert as Cheri-Bibi in ‘The Phantom of Paris’ (1931)
CHAPTER I
NUMBER 3216
“MY OWN AMBITION has always been to be an honest man,” said Little Buddha, casting a glance in the direction of the convict guards who, revolver in hand, were walking between the cages.
“What for?” asked the Toper.
“What for? Why, to set up as the owner of a wine shop, of course.”
“We can’t all keep a wine shop,” said the Toper in a tone of philosophy, “life would be too easy. Every man who comes into the world has his work cut out for him. You, Little Buddha, were certainly intended to grind away in Cayenne. As Chéri-Bibi says, Fatalitas! What is written is written. We can’t cheat Providence. Talking of Chéri-Bibi, do you know what Carrots said to me?”
“I’m not bothering about what Carrots said to you,” replied Little Buddha, lowering his voice, “but it’s time we began to talk seriously. Now then: Is it for to-day or is it for to-morrow?”
The other outlaws repeated in the same tone, gathering round Little Buddha:
“He’s right.... Is it for to-day?... Is it for to-morrow?”
“Shut up!” growled the Toper. “It’s for whenever Chéri-Bibi pleases. But hang it all, shut up!”
As a warder passed stealthily along the bars of the cage, bending his legs in order to counterbalance the rolling of the vessel which was particularly heavy that day, the Toper continued aloud:
“No, but didn’t you hear what Carrots said? How silly the fellow is to talk like a preacher. He’s very squeamish. The only thing that he’s got up against Chéri-Bibi is robbing the body of the Marchioness. He says that cemeteries should be sacred.”
“He makes us laugh,” chuckled Little Buddha, who was seated on his kit bag. “The rich have no occasion to take their trinkets to the grave with them.”
“You see this hand,” said Carrots. “It has made as many victims as there are fingers on it. Well, it wouldn’t have done that. It would loathe that.”
“Chéri-Bibi did what he wanted to do. If he wasn’t in irons you’d hold your jaw.”
“That’s a certainty.”
“Ask the Kanaka if he played the fastidious in the dissecting-room.”
Carrots shook his head obstinately. Chéri-Bibi did what he wanted to do, used the knife, was a thief — and such a thief! — cheeked the judge and all the Court, cleared out ordinary people, but he did not approve of Chéri-Bibi robbing the dead. That brought bad luck. They mentioned the Kanaka, an ex-doctor who had been condemned to ten years’ hard labor because he would not say for what purpose he required the strips of flesh which he had cut out of one of his living patients whom he kept by main force in his house, bound to a leather couch. Well, the Kanaka drove his own trade. Dead meat or living flesh, doctors as well as murderers gambled in it; it didn’t frighten them. And turning to the Kanaka, Carrots added with a vicious laugh:
“They do with it what they like, and it’s not for nothing that they call him the Kanaka.”
At this terrible allusion to the notorious cannibalism of the aborigines of New Caledonia, the Kanaka, who was yellow, became green. The other, obsessed by the one idea, continued:
“Take it from me, Chéri-Bibi was not born for that. There were better things for him to do than that. He showed a lack of delicacy.”
“Chéri-Bibi is a giant and you are a set of pigmies,” rapped out the Kanaka in a voice of contempt, turning his back on them.
“That’s true,” said Little Buddha. “He robbed the dead, but he did it to help the poor.”
“I grant that,” said Carrots, firm in his opinions, “but that throws discredit on the trade. That’s not the way to insure the progress of society. I’ve never read in Karl Marx or Kropotkine that you must do that sort of thing.”
Carrots had not read anything at all. But he never lost an opportunity of quoting the names of great men which were bandied about at public meetings, as if these important persons shared his views regarding the constitution of society.
“Chéri-Bibi has done everything in his time,” explained Little Buddha. “He even began his career by being an innocent victim.”
More often than not Little Buddha expressed himself in studied language, as became a man who had been clerk to a sheriff’s officer. He was nicknamed Little Buddha because with his thick-set, short-legged body as round as a barrel, his neck well sunk between his shoulders, and his arms folded across his chest, he resembled those little Asiatic gods which are to be found in second-hand dealers’ shops.
“Yes, he was innocent; at least that’s what he said,” he went on with a sigh, “and I quoted his case in my book on the ‘Reform of the Magistrature.’ Oh, the rotters...”
Little Buddha sighed as he thought of the sentence of penal servitude for life to which “they” had condemned him for having in “an attack of nerves” — so this sluggish person declared — taken the law into his own hands in a struggle with an old woman who had refused to hand over to him the key of her cash-box.
“That’s the way of the world now,” groaned Carrots. “It’s enough for you to have done nothing for them to send you to a convict settlement. I have ‘done in’ five, I give you my word. Not one more and not one less. Well, it’s for the sixth whom I never saw that you have the pleasure of my company. I say what I think. I’ve never committed a useless crime. I’ve always had a conscience. I’m a miserable wretch, ’tis true; a thief, ’tis true; I’ve used the knife, ’tis true; but that’s no reason why they should condemn an innocent man.”
“That’s the only thing society has ever done for you,” said Little Buddha in a tone of philosophy.
“While Chéri-Bibi is always doing something for society,” broke in the Toper, who was nervously following with a watchful eye the movements of the convict guard. “Did you see how he spat in the Commander’s face? There’s another man who gives me the hump with his doleful countenance. Do you know what he said to Chéri-Bibi?— ‘Do you want anything, are you ill, Chéri-Bibi?’ And here was Chéri-Bibi spitting in his face! He did the right thing. We don’t want pity. What we want is justice.”
“Is it for to-day, or is it for to-morrow?” came from the hoarse voices of the men at the back of the cage.
The Toper growled louder than ever so as to drown their murmurs:
“If the Captain sings small to Chéri-Bibi, it’s because he funks him, just as the juries were too funky to condemn him to death for fear of reprisals. Everyone funks Chéri-Bibi.”
At these words the shadows at the back of the cage who were reclining on their kit bags and hammocks, which were rolled up in accordance with regulations, rose to their feet, and a humming sound, soft and rhythmic at first, but soon growing in volume, came from between decks.
Who is it pads the hoof in gore,
And sets the dynamite a-roar,
And scares all Paris more a
nd more?
Sing ho for Chéri!
The guv’ment will not leave us free,
From the Bois d’Boulogne to Gay Paree;
Who blows the blooming lot UP?
Sing ho for Chéri-Bibi!
Sing ho for Chéri-Bibi!
The Toper with a few blows of his fist and a few rough words imposed silence, rapping out in a hollow voice:
“Look out!... warder’s coming.”
“Chouia, silence!” ordered the African, who was notorious for the extraordinary cruelty with which he had treated his mistress.
The overseers came hurrying up. They were furious. Keys grated in the locks. In the diffused light which feebly poured in from the railed portholes, the men could see through the bars, warders, revolver in hand, surrounding the men who were carrying the mess.
“Eyes front!”
The cage which contained the Toper, Little Buddha, Carrots and the Kanaka was the first in the upper gun deck next to the Bayard’s forecastle. She was an old cruiser which had been converted into a transport and commissioned recently to convey convicts and persons deported from their country, from the Isle de Ré to Cayenne, since the Loire alone was not equal to the work.
The issue of rations began at this cage. As soon as the order “Eyes front” rang out the fifty convicts who crowded the cage leapt to their feet. There were tragic faces among them; pallid faces, faces tinged with green; hollow cheeks, feverish eyes. Their heads and faces were clean-shaven, and they were dressed alike in the same square cap, the same jacket and trousers of coarse brown cloth, the same heavy yellow shoes. Round their arms was a hand on which a number was inscribed, for in the eyes of the authorities these men no longer possessed a name. They lined up, elbowing each other so as to get in position, for they had caught sight of the second-in-command, a terrible martinet, who sent them to the cells, and put them in irons for next to nothing. The convict guards were subservient tools, cursing and swearing and striking hard at the men, ever ready with their “shooters,” as if the revolvers themselves were choking with the shot that filled their mouths, and longed to be relieved of their powder and their “suppressed lightning.” The criminal fraternity were smartened up a little by the wards’ bullying methods.
The guards enter the cages like animal tamers going among wild beasts. With revolver cocked, erect and on the alert, they encounter the eyes of each man in turn, and read in them rebellion, fury, impotent rage, and they compel them to shrink from the gleaming barrels. “Eyes front!”
The men who do not move to their places smartly enough with a click of the heels, their hands at their sides, are roughly hustled and soundly thrashed.
Nothing escaped the little piercing eyes of Lieutenant de Vilène, the second-in-command of the Bayard. There was but one word on his lips: “Cells.” He would have broken Chéri-Bibi if he had been in the Captain’s place. And nothing more would have been heard of the monster. The Captain and he would no longer have had to look after a man who had escaped from penal servitude once, from the lock-up twice, from a departmental prison thrice, and for whom doors seemed to have been built only to open of themselves, and bars erected only to support the rope or the bedclothes which set him free. They could very well have done without such a charge; and they both lived in dread of letting this terror loose on society.
However, Chéri-Bibi was in irons. At any rate that was something. And he would remain in irons during the voyage on board ship. De Vilène had made Captain Barrachon swear it. The latter had not yet got over Chéri-Bibi’s gross insult to him — him who was always so considerate with the convicts and professed humanitarian sentiments.
“That will teach you a lesson,” de Vilène said to the Captain.
The Lieutenant entered the cage in a fury, behind the warders, accompanied by the Overseer General, who himself had come hurrying up on hearing the unusual noise from the lower deck.
“Suppose I stop your rations. You know well enough that you’re not allowed to sing,” said the Inspector.
“If anyone wants to join No. 3216 in the hold let him say so,” exclaimed de Vilène. “Two days in the cells for you, Corporal, for not rolling up Chéri-Bibi’s hammock.”
The Corporal was no other than the African and he was on the point of receiving three tubs, which were being delivered to his cage, containing rations for his hundred and fifty men, and slinging the “dishes” to the deck above by means of the chain.
When he heard the sentence he said like a schoolboy:
“We’re going it!”
“Four days.”
He was silent. De Vilène shot a devastating look at him. He did not understand how a man with the African’s record could reply “We’re going it” to a naval lieutenant. He was beside himself. His wrath deprived everyone in the cage of the power of movement. The convicts around him held their breath. They knew that punishments incurred during the voyage would have a terrible influence on the treatment which would be meted out to them when they arrived in Cayenne.
“You’re so happy here, you sing,” snarled the officer. “Apparently because the absence of No. 3216 gives you more room.”
It was true that the departure of Chéri-Bibi had given them more room for they were packed in the cage like sardines in a tin. When Chéri-Bibi was ordered below in irons, two warders, who never left him, went with him; for, of course, they did him the honor of keeping a special watch over him. To begin with, the convict guard had been doubled in the passage outside his cage; afterwards two warders kept their eyes on him day and night in the cage itself. And at the end of the passage near the hatchways, and at all the entrances leading to the cages, soldiers were posted ready to fire at the first alarm.
The Lieutenant made the tour of the cage, turning the kit bags upside down as though he scented a surprise of some sort, some malevolent trick, devised in the dreadful gloom of this corner of the infernal regions. He opened one at haphazard. He knew quite well that after the perfect search to which the men had been subjected on leaving, he would find in it only the regulation outfit; but, even then one could never be easy in one’s mind, never be sure of anything with such miscreants. Finding nothing out of the way in the kit bag, he vented his spleen on the floor which he considered had not been properly swabbed.
“Who swabbed the deck?” he shouted; and turning to his escort, “For the future the cleaning for the cages will be done by men told off for the purpose. The overseer in charge of the men on fatigue duty must be satisfied that the work has been properly done, and must report to the Overseer General, who will inform me or my assistant.”
Then turning on his heel he confronted the men:
“And you.... Listen to me.... The men on fatigue duty, doing their twenty-four hours service, will not be allowed to go on deck with the others for the daily half-hour’s exercise. They must wait till they’ve finished their work. You will receive some small scrapers for this work, in addition to the swabs, for you don’t wet them enough. Damme, I want your cages to be as clean as the Commander’s sitting-room. Do you follow me? Do you understand — you Chouïa — you Corporal.”
“But the Commander said that...” murmured the African with a sigh.
“There’s the Commander,” interrupted the Lieutenant as he thrust his revolver in the man’s face.
The warders were in a state of immense elation. The Lieutenant was not the man to let the grass grow under his feet. But one of them, unluckily for him, laughed a little too loudly. The Lieutenant ordered him twenty-four hours in the cells, which would teach him to take the service seriously. It was the turn of the convicts to be delighted, and one of them cried out in the dusk:
“Bravo!”
On hearing this word of approval de Vilène, who was certainly very touchy, ordered one of the three dishes containing food for the cage to he taken away. It would make them tighten their belts. It would teach them to express an opinion when it wasn’t wanted.
He left them in a silence that could be felt.
“Is it for to-day?... Is it for to-morrow?”
“It’s for whenever Chéri-Bibi decides.”
On account of the rolling of the vessel the “dishes” — the two tubs — were suspended on a chain.
The Corporal was in charge of the first two parties of men who took their places round the tubs, and began to forage in the nauseous mixture which was simmering in them. The mess cooks kept a sharp look out on the movements of the wooden spoons plunging in this glue-like skilly consisting of odds and ends of carrots, turnips and leeks that at the finish were done to rags, or rather the residue of the stuff containing haricots so hard that nothing could soften them or make them lose their shape and identity. Each tub had, on this occasion, to satisfy the hunger of seventy-five instead of fifty men, because of the “privation.” Fortunately some of them suffered from the rolling of the ship, and being in a state of collapse in the corners, near the buckets, refused to answer the call. The convicts ate their food with mouths bent over the tubs like pigs bending over troughs. As they ate they continued their growls against the Lieutenant and the convict guards; the “warders” as they called them, although these men had the title and rank of “Military Overseers.”
The overseers passed and repassed the cages rapping out frightful oaths and jeers and threats. At one moment a loud clamor of slamming bars and a cry of pain could be heard from a distant cage on the gun deck. The convicts who were eating did not even look up. They knew the meaning of it. It was another old offender who had served his sentence in the cells, and on being brought back to his den had failed to enter it quickly enough. So they slammed the grille on his fingers.