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THE CANNIBALS

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The story you are about to witness fell into my hands

in the form of an anonymous manuscript

entitled "A True Story".

tell it at the request

of my friend Niccolo, the brilliant ltalian violinist,

who calls on me frequently,

and people are beginning to talk...

they say he is my eyes and ears.

Lies!

Niccolo!

This tale of mine is a blue-blooded creature,

a beast of aristocratic tastes.

And you, my listener,

are therefore about to enter High Society;

you are about to discover a world where people sing and never speak.

lwill take you to banquets and dances;

lwill talk of love, of jealousy and of the darkest mystery.

At least that's what society novels are full of.

And now... I shall begin.

Niccolo! A mazurka!

Marguerite is a femme fatale.

She makes men desperate.

As a girl, she transformed each and every young man

who had the misfortune to cast his eyes upon her

into a would-be Romeo!

And, if she were to marry, soon after, many would jump

at the chance of suicide

merely to attract her attention!

Why then is Marguerite so sad, why is she in such a daze?

l have not lost hope.

Sheer vanity, Don Juan.

lam an old hand.

l have torn veils

from some of the most modest and chaste faces alive today.

But Marguerite...

She is a woman, I sense her surrender is near.

What makes you think that?

Little things, a look here and there...

You flatter yourself. Believe me.

There is no ambrosia for you there,

nothing to quench your love.

She is one of those rare women:

she has a heart which she will give but once.

Perhaps then I...

It belongs to another.

Ah, so Marguerite is in love!

V\fith you, Baron?

Unfortunately, no.

Who then?

The Viscount.

His honour the Viscount d'Aveleda.

What” he say, what” he say?

What is he bringing?

What mystery here!

Look at him there! A Byronic man, a man of romance!

A thousand rumours fly!

We know he comes now from America,

popular with scholars and savants.

He lives like a prince. He has bought palaces.

And he sings like an angel yet he will never marry.

Of course a story needs a setting,

that is the storyteller's task.

I know. But I would rather brave

the yapping rabble of all the critics

than to tell you what country we are in.

The manuscript is silent on this point.

Put the dance wherever you wish:

in the most splendid palace ever before dreamed.

ln Lisbon lam certain... but that is enough.

Back to the banquet...

Where strange d'Aveleda has made his entrance.

Have you spoken to him?

Just now.

I don't know what to think.

l have never met anyone like him.

You were right, I shudder still.

Do you know that your sorrow affects us very much?

Why are you always so sad?

I cannot pretend to be amused.

That, of course, I can respect,

but such ostentation...

Ah, but the appearance of luxury sometimes hides dismay...

Just as laughter, as you know, sometimes conceals a sea of tears.

There is some misfortune.

I am not complaining.

I do not pity you.

But I cannot ignore your unhappiness.

Do you doubt all this?

I do, I sense the harm

in all your innocence.

Your heavenly, honey-voice is bitter,

if I may say so, like absinth.

Is that a compliment, or merely sarcasm?

Does my unhappy presence deepen your own unhappiness?

Much worse than that.

Yes worse. Picture a traveller lost in the desert.

Under a burning sun, weak and dying.

Next to a stream, deep in a ravine, and thus unattainable.

Can you imagine the torture?

Then tell me how you expect me to look at you?

To hear your heavenly voice and not burst into tears?

l weep inside at the thought of what I am, of what I once was...

And what I might once have been.

I am not sure I understand,

a traveller should not lose hope.

In the desert, not lose hope?

There is comfort in faith.

How should I knoW? Providence... a miracle.

Providence! l have worn my eyes out searching for Providence

and now I am blind.

Blind with eyes like yours?

If only I had no eyes, if only I could not see you

nor see the distance between the earth and the sky,

nor see how impossible it is for you and l to be one.

Why impossible?

All these enigmas...

as if you were torturing me...

Can you not guess?

Must I speak the things I feel?

Very well then, I shall.

If the power to make you happy is mine, then come.

I will give you your happiness.

lmpossible!

A blind man knows the miracles he cannot see about him.

What are you saying?

I adore you, Marguerite, but I cannot... that's all.

You wish to kill me!

I love you too much to wish you chimeras.

Chimeras? What is a chimera?

Speak! Do you not see my distress?

All I can say is a word,

the sacred word of the Apocalypse.

Now, reduced to the pathetic proportions of novelistic intrigue.

What is this word?

Mystery.

I know not what condemned

the protagonists of our true story.

To sit among the divine luxuries of a dance without pleasure.

lntoxicating themselves instead with the sententious language

of poor melodrama.

I would, however,

like to point out the pair of hagard eyes

flashing out from behind the wall-hangings.

Don Juan! If this story were a fabrication,

he would be clutching a glinting dagger.

But I think we can do without the dagger.

I beg of you, Madam,

help me persuade our guest

to sing us one of those ancient melodies for which he's famous.

He will not dare refuse you.

You cannot escape. Your song, please.

Quiet!

A hush fell.

And the viscount's perfect tenor rose above the guests.

Echo! Echo!

Echo, sweet passionate nymph,

so miserable, so hopelessly ardent in your love.

The song was immaculate.

Each of the notes twisted a knife

in the wounds of every heart like a sweet poison.

Unhappy Eccho, you are gone forever.

Only your song remains of you.

Marguerite was whiter than camelias.

To the end, she held her breath.

And then she vanished.

Once alone, she burst into tears.

Do you not love, as I do,

that strange dawn twilight?

lt quickens the imagination...

And carves vague masks in everything.

It is the vagueness that is enchanting.

You understand this, don't you?

It is ecstasy. I know it well.

I knew you would.

Something told me our souls were alike in thought and sentiment.

Is it not so?

Perhaps, but I doubt it...

Do you believe in misfortune?

see it.

feel it in my every limb.

Have you no faith in me?

ln you! My poor child!

You live in a shadow-world...

Where virtue is despised and appearance is everything!

That is the very essence of my misfortune.

My heart is aflame,

but my arms will never cherish a woman, nor give her spirit rest.

Marble is cold and. clay turns to dust.

Enough of your enigmas!

If your heart is aflame, you are in love...

V\fith all of my heart!

And she will not have you?

I don't believe it.

You do not understand that the noble creature which you profess to see in me

is in fact an ignoble brigand.

l have the vanity to believe in your love...

But do you believe that such a love would cure me?

Of leprosy, of cancer, or of festered wounds...?

Imagine the innocent and sensitive young girl on her wedding night!

You do not frighten me.

I know my destiny is exceptional.

I am made for someone heroic!

I can believe that.

But I have a question for you which may seem strange.

If I was inanimate, a living corpse...

Somehow artificially reanimated,

so that my brain could think,

so that my heart could beat, but my body was dead...

Would you still be able to kiss me without disgust?

Could you lay your head on the chest of a corpse?

How fanciful! But I accept your challenge, I shall answer.

V\fith God as my witness,

if my wedding-bed is a tomb, then so be it.

That is what I wish it to be.

My voice is uncertain, but it is truth which makes it so.

l have told you the truth.

Love cannot lie.

I beg your pardon for intruding, Madam.

I could not resist the temptation of confessing my shame.

l have just witnessed your touching scene from my hiding-place.

Madam, your lover...

Please! At least I have the generosity

not to pour useless insults on a rival behind his back.

I will remain discreet.

only hope that you will communicate

to the Viscount this evil thought which has crossed my mind.

Ask him for me, madam, for I am dying to know...

V\fill a bullet go through a gentleman's brain?

Marguerite was ashamed.

She kept Don Juan's threats to herself.

And how would the Don be received at the Viscount's wedding?

It was a splendid occasion.

The bride was magnificent. How else?

The flower of society, all her friends,

her father and brothers gathered around her.

One of her brothers had entered the disreputable world of law.

The other was a man-about-town,

drifting through the wasteland of city life.

But the main thing was her husband. He was there.

Such heights of society she had not yet attained?

Strange! On a day like today!

The groom is eating with his gloves on.

His gloves which he never removes! How fascinating!

He looks like a necromancer! How frightening!

Naturally, nobody says anything nasty about the bridal couple.

I propose a toast and burn a gram of incense

on the holy altar of frankness and friendship

I foresee endless pleasure, such as the pleasure

burning in my veins and clouding my sight today.

raise my glass, then, in defiance of the custom

of offering the bridal couple the usual pathetic congratulations.

Like Caeser, in whose bloody arena in Rome,

passive Christians were fed to the lions.

welcome you, my friends,

and dedicate the bride to the groom.

l have never heard such an odd wedding toast.

taste the bitter taste of bitter herbs.

Your love still burns in vain!

I love her more than ever.

My love is like a man-eating tiger, devouring its own object.

Bacchus be my witness!

No-one saw Don Juan come in from the garden.

He was obviously hatching some kind of plot...

But he is too private a man for us to intrude upon his thoughts.

Let us return to the banquet.

A banquet is an irrational event...

In another age, some magic rite would have been at work...

And no amount of holy water shall prevent the Viscount's canonization.

By midnight, the party was over.

Marguerite, with sweet tears shyly streaming down her cheeks,

embraced her old father and her brothers.

She showed them to their rooms...

Then, at last, crossed the threshold into her own sacred appartment.

The sight of the white curtains, embroidered with gold,

that veiled the mysteries of her nuptual bed.

Through the open window, she saw the moon.

lt watched faithfully over her

and illuminated the heavy foliage outside,

sweetly scenting the breeze.

A virgin heart, swooning with emotion on this the first night of love

its charming dizziness no doubt increased by the mystic harmonies

which mortals can only perceive at such sacred times...

This in unadulterated recitative.

make the point out of obligation to the facts.

But where is her husband? Why is he not at her feet?

Henri? My Henri!

What's the matter? Why don't you answer me?

Thinking what, my lord and master of my dreams?

Do you know the tale of Hero and Leander?

As a girl read it once.

It's similar to our story; it isn't the sea, but death itself menaces us.

I'd rather face the furious Hellespont.

Beware! Oh innocence that will not see the raging clouds of Fate overhead.

Do not frighten me.

What on earth could ever threaten our love?

See here this crystal flask?

It contains an acid which in a minute, brings death.

In the garden, a scream

like the yelp of a boar surprised.

Don Juan! He had thought up some bloody plot...

Considering his nature, it should be assumed he be called an assassin.

Unhappy Juan, teased, despised.

There is no hope for me. I will combat Destiny.

I will not go to my fate alone.

My tormenter will share my misfortune.

You are shrinking away from me?

You should have done so sooner rather than sharing now what I must suffer.

Do you know my love?

Know you how much I love you?

As much as a drowning man must love the life that is leaving him.

Then love me too! These mysteries, the very air you breathe,

everything fills me with cold and...

Feafl

Yes, inexplicable fear.

Unhappy Juan, victimized by fate.

Must I allow this surrendering of my beloved

to the man who stole her from me?

No! He shall die!

Who are you? I do not know you?

lam an abandonned soul with no body to shelter me.

My heart is aflame in a cold body that is like a marble sepulcre.

I told you once before, you would not listen.

You chose the appearance of what I am and would not hear me say.

You were in love!

I tried to speak...

But I could not...

l shrank from the breath that would scatter an angelic vision.

I admit I sacrificed you...

Perhaps I have dragged you down to the depths with me.

What depths?

There is still hope.

If that hope should fade, l have shown you the hidden poison.

You will be rich, a widow and a virgin.

Do not cry, my angel!

Oh unhappiness! lnnocent creature you said, and you were right!

I met you and thus began my dream!

I fell in love with the unreal mystery of you.

lnnocent creature!

Ignorant of the world, I saw only the artifice of passion!

How was I to know my master was on parole, was a criminal!

But I see your tears of repentance.

Trust me, open up your past.

My love is absolution and my kiss is forgiveness.

Thankless fate!

You will die but die revenged!

Come my beloved wife, it is time we spoke openly.

lam no criminal, my life is without blemish.

Else my punishment would be riven deep into my conscience

and your kisses would be my balm.

No! Come! Listen! How brave is my love?

Speak.

Do you remember your promise,

the word you spoke in trembling passionate fear?

l have promised so much, so often!

You promised you would follow me to my grave

if that was where our wedding bed lay.

Mother of God! What is this?

Was this not the truth? An angel's lips do not lie.

Come into my cold arms. Embrace the inanimate body of death.

Why are you afraid?

Henri! Who are you?

Come!

Ah... I cannot! I am terrified! Else it is a dream...

A dream it is. lam not human.

Horror! Who are you then?

A statue! The new myth,

the centaur of a new age, half-man, half-machine.

Buried in my breast is a human heart that adores you.

My tormented head is a man's,

but my limbs are mechanical, they are fake.

At night, they must come off. Come help me.

Ah, you faint!

Done is your courage,

and the valour promised me by the woman who loved me?

Woman, merely like all the others!

Promises... empty words! I am not altered. Nothing is missing.

Love me for what I am.

I am yours!

She is faithless.

Yet the lips which sang her bewitchment

are aflame with the fires that she lit herself!

When Mr Urbano Solar, Marguerite's venerable old father,

lazily opened his eyes still heavy with the caress of sleep,

the blessed man would not have woken so early had it not been for the rumbling,

the complaints of his belly which thus revealed its dreaded hollowness.

In fact he hated an empty stomach

so much that the mere prospect of a solid breakfast

was enough to make him leap from his bed, quickly get dressed

and go out in search of the newlyweds and of his sons.

Where is the Viscount? Where is Marguerite?

My love-doves. Has anyone seen them?

This looks like another of the Viscount's little jokes,

to see how long we can hang on for our breakfast.

But I am a cunning old thing. I have my revenge,

called for them in their room.

What about the masculine pride?

The room was deserted,

save for a curious odour...

Of ambrosia...

No, rather Of roasted meat!

My son-in-law, I know, is full of secret whims. He is an eccentric.

He is not to be found. No-one saw him leave, he and the bride are gone.

The only sign of life is a huge hunk of meat roasting on the coals,

half-charred already.

Yet the visible part is enough to kill the most tragically voracious appetite.

What kind of meat is it?

Something strange. A secret of the Viscount's.

I thought it would be fine punishment

if we were to partake of his own breakfast.

Would it not be too fonNard?

I'll take the blame. Quickly! Before he returns.

Shortly thereafter, the old man was having a ball in the young couple's room

making merry with all the utensils necessary for such a feast.

But how disappointing!

The meat was slimy and tasteless, with a bittersweat aftertaste.

In all his days, Urbano Solar

had never come across meat so impossible to carve.

And only the unforgiving drove him on to consume the unpleasant dish.

Meanwhile the dandy pecked ungratefully at the food on his plate

and the man of law fell into a state of deep melancholy

as he stared at the contours of the hunk they'd put back to where they found it.

Go and fetch the salt and some mustard.

Lamb is a sickeningly dull kind of meat...

Listen to me. There is some mystery here.

The bed has not been slept in.

The servants swear no-one has left the house and...

ln horror, they cease.

The only dish in this banquet of theirs was the Viscount's own flesh

which should, I suppose,

have been twice as tender as less blue blooded meat.

Suddenly, the same thought crossed their minds.

Swiftly glancing at each other

they ran out into the garden which was in an uproar.

What has happened? Speak!

Tell us what's wrong.

A disaster, you have no idea!

Anselm...! You have never lied to me, never disobeyed.

I command you to tell me what has happened!

Poor little lady!

What happened?

She's dead!

What about Don Juan?

He's alive. Perhaps we can save him.

I've already called a doctor...

Chaplain? Do you know if it was Don Juan who killed my sister?

The Viscountess commited suicide.

Speak more softly, man!

There must not be a scandal!

Did Marguerite kill Don Juan?

Don Juan killed himself.

Perhaps the Viscount did too.

Everybody has committed suicide.

Did your master kill himself too?

I don't know. Here's someone who can tell you.

The doctor?

He's coming now. Be brave!

What do I care about the doctor? I am going to die anyway.

Whom are you expecting?

The father of this unfortunate girl.

I am here.

I beg your forgiveness. Approaching death teaches candour: I confess.

I adored your daughter.

l was madly in love with her and slighted love stirred the anger in me

when I learned she was giving in to the Viscount's whims.

I swore I'd have my revenge. Last night, spied on them.

l was consumed with jealousy.

l sneaked up to the window of their room.

There was a hideous death cry.

l hesitated.

There was a sound of bodies crashing to the floor.

I entered the room. It was horrible!

Only the groom did I see. An Inferno!

Terrified, I ran into the garden. I stumbled on Marguerite's corpse.

I shot myself. But death is cruel!

All ask is forgiveness. I loved your daughter to sickness.

Don Juan, my daughter is no more.

As to forgiveness, here is someone who's business it is.

Just tell me in what state was the Viscount?

Look in the flames, look...

In the flames...?

Urbano Solar left the garden in a panic,

taking his sons with him.

They were in awe of their father's silent anguish.

All three locked themselves in a room.

The brothers collapsed on to a sofa, broken-hearted.

Life is a bloody joke that brings us nothing but ruses.

Crying is a woman's duty,

that at least should be left to them.

My conscience is clean. What matters the Viscount? Do you know what I mean?

lndeed. We've eaten him.

Eaten him and not even enjoyed it!

What matters now is my darling girl is gone.

Marguerite, you are gone!

How did I lose you? When? Where?

Trusting in God's grace, l have prayed for death... but to no avail.

He, the all-powerful,

cruel tyrant chooses to ignore an old gentleman's prayers.

He has left me alive!

Very well then, he will have nothing but blasphemy from me.

And not for long. Farewell, I am dead!

What? You too?

Yes, this is it. I've had enough. I need to rest!

If you die, we shall follow you.

I thank you. Let this be the last of the life of Solar.

Let us die! Let us die!

Marguerite awaits us. Let's go now to our sister.

The awful thing is that the Viscount...

We've eaten him and we didn't enjoy it!

The Viscount was rich, he was a multimillionaire...

He always said he had no family.

His wife is dead...

We must go to our sister...

In theory, until we hear anything to the contrary,

we are his legitimate heirs.

There is one problem. The corpse is not identifiable.

We ate it. It's the end of us.

No! lam a lawyer. I shall find a solution.

They said no more.

During this moment of silence,

the man-of-law noticed his brother's expression, recovering its poise

as if a ray of sunlight had come out and scattered the storm-clouds.

The case is a difficult one. But... we shall triumph.

We are saved!

Victory!

The millions are ours.

Glory be to God on High!

Glory be to God the Judge!

And they rushed on the man-of-law like hounds,

sinking their teeth in to the leathery skin of a fine Lamego ham.

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