Gaston Leroux

“ I have made an ape talk like a man, but, for all my efforts, I have not succeeded in giving him a human conscience. Therefore, I have not made a man; therefore, I have made a monster; therefore, convict me, sentence me, imprison me, torture me: I deserve every form of punishment! I am accurst! . . . God has smitten me as I deserved! . . . I wanted to reform or to accelerate His work. To accelerate the work of God is the pride and the crime of man ”

“ The responsibility of that madman of genius is really terrible: terrible in the eyes of history, in the eyes of science and in the eyes of the law. We are not using this last word because we think that it behoves us to draw down the vengeance of justice upon a man who believed that he was accomplishing a great work: we are simply conveying a piece of news. M. Coriolis Saint-Aubin is at this moment in custody! He gave himself up two hours ago. We ourselves, at his own request, took him to our new prefect of police, M. Mathieu Delafosse. ”

“ This was the alarming and tragic heading that appeared in the four o'clock edition of the Patrie en danger. The newspaper-vendors who excited the crowd with their mad rushing and shouting sold their copies up to five sous apiece. The father and mothers, above all, wanted to be informed and did not look at the cost, that day. People stopped drinking outside the cafes, stopped walking on the pavements. They read instead. Everybody read, or listened to others reading. The story was simple enough: since that morning, four girls had disappeared, carried off by the monster. ”

“ For every theatre and every branch of artistic talent was represented around the charming Arlette, who looked perfectly exquisite in white and orange-blossoms. The breakfast promised to be one of the most successful on record and a general gaiety was arising round the tables spread with a Gargantuan banquet, when a most grotesque and deplorable incident came and spoilt everything. ”

“ Barthuiset replied, with a wink of his left eye:
"Show me your pithecanthrope, that's all I ask. There will be time enough to make your will afterwards."
These words did not comfort the prefect of police particularly:
"You can't be sure of your shot," he said.
"If it were a lion, I should never forgive you for saying that, monsieur le prefet de police. But I have never killed a pithecanthrope. There's no harm in trying. There's a first time for everything."
The prefect, therefore, brought him with him, but took care also to bring Coriolis. ”

“ Things, unfortunately, have changed; and we can well understand that people suddenly lose their tempers in the face of the obstinacy of a pea-nut vendor whose wares they have already respectfully refused. Yesterday evening, at the Café Sara Bernhardt, two young attachés of the Japanese Legation, weary of a torment to which they had doubtless never been subjected in the streets of Nagasaki, sent a too-enterprising dealer in pea-nuts flying into the gutter. ”

“ If the long-suffering ratepayers who constitute the Paris public would occasionally take the law into their own hands when tired of the multitudinous annoyances thrust upon them, life in our much overrated metropolis would perhaps become endurable. A few years ago, a man could still sit outside a cafV without being pestered by peripatetic street-vendors, hawkers of every kind, newspaper-boys and dealers in picture-postcards and transparencies ”

“ A young person who had just been discharged from hospital and who was resting on a bench in the Square Montholon owed her safety to the fact that her head had been shaved during her illness. Only her false chignon remained in the monster's hands. As for the monster, he was endowed with infernal speed; and people would still be looking for him in the trees; when he appeared on the other side of the street or boulevard, on a roof, to vanish then and there with his prey.
In conclusion, the Patrie en danger advised ladies and young girls not to walk under the trees. ”

“ If the legends told at certain café-tables were to be credited, that man had killed more lions in Africa than the Atlas Mountains ever contained. It is not a good thing, even for real heroes, without fear and without reproach, that legend should exaggerate their exploits too lavishly. People at certain other, more sceptical cafe-tables began to believe that Barthuiset had never killed anything at all; and it was perhaps because of this that M. Mathieu Delafosse had not at once applied to him in circumstances where a first-class rifle-shot might render the most signal service. ”

“ My scalpel, by cutting a nerve under the tongue and allowing me to bring another close to it, forestalled the work of the evolution of species by a hundred thousand years; but, not possessing the requisite instruments, I could not supply the hundred thousand years of consciousness necessary to enable my pithecanthrope to move among men without danger . ”

“ All these incidents, occurring at the moment when we are about to go to press, cannot be related with all the desired detail; but we shall publish in a few hours a special edition in which we shall continue to expound to our readers the formidable racial mystery in the Rue de Jussieu. For the present, we shall consider that our work has not been in vain if we have helped in any degree, however small, to dispel the morbid terror that was beginning to overcome the bravest of us and if we have restored some little peace to family-life. ”

“ But it is impossible to resist the proofs, as the prefect of police impressed upon the council, after hearing the evidence of certain persons acquainted with M. Coriolis Saint-Aubin and his household.
"In the circumstances, it has been decided that every measure shall be taken to capture the monster at all costs, alive or dead; and the instructions on this point give full powers to the prefect of police. ”

“ This peculiar manner of escaping pursuit resulted in establishing a natural connection in the minds of M. Massepain and his friends between the sham Maharajah of Kalpurthagra and the strange visitor to the Cafe de Mailly. There are not so many people in Paris capable of running away through the tree-tops! Lastly, a local paper published in the Quartier Latin suggested that there must be a relation between the incidents on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, those in the Rue Royale and the climbing of the walls, railings, gutter-pipes and gargoyles of the Musée de Cluny. ”

“ At the same time, we may mention the desire expressed by both the minister of public instruction and the minister of agriculture that the monster should, if possible, be taken alive, as they consider the study of this phenomenon to be of the highest value to universal science. ”

“ And it was then that the press gave way to the panic to which I have alluded at the head of this chapter and lost that presence of mind which it should have communicated to the people of Paris, who were soon to be driven mad by the fantastic and criminal enterprises of the elusive Maharajah. But, between ourselves, it is no use protesting against the "scare-lines" in the evening papers.
The first article to spread consternation was headed:
"GIRLS, DO NOT QUIT YOUR PARENTS' SIDE!" ”