The mummy of Monte Cristo
Voici une variation sur le thème du Comte de Monte-Cristo originale, bien menée et extrêmement bien écrite. Une réussite d’autant plus marquante qu’elle s’inscrit dans un genre difficile, celui des « mashup novels », dont le principe consiste à réécrire un grand classique de la littérature en y injectant un contenu fantastique. L The mummy of Monte Cristo reprend la même approche que ce dernier livre mais de façon plus ambitieuse. Cet épais roman combine en fait deux éléments : l’ajout de forts éléments fantastiques dans le roman de Dumas, donc, mais aussi une réécriture intégrale de celui-ci qui, tout en respectant l’intrigue d’origine, donne au lecteur de nombreuses scènes qui ne figurent pas dans l’original. Le monde de The mummy of Monte Cristo est identique au nôtre avec l’adjonction d’éléments de magie et de nombreux êtres fantastiques : un kraken rôde dans la baie de Marseille, des lutins, des loups-garous, des zombies apparaissent ici ou là. Des êtres mécaniques animés par la magie servent de gardes au château d’If. Les membres de la tribu des Catalans de Marseille ont le pouvoir de créer des flammes au bout de leurs doigts (pouvoir dont disposent donc Mercédès et Fernand). Comme le dit Eugénie Danglars lors d’une conversation portant sur l’existence ou non des vampires, « nous vivons dans un monde étrange. Les hommes peuvent devenir des loups à la pleine lune, les morts peuvent faire la guerre aux vivants, et une colonie de sorciers vit près de Marseille. L’idée qu’un autre monstre puisse évoluer au milieu de nous sans que l’on s’en doute et nous attaque pour se nourrir n’est pas tellement tirée par les cheveux ». Elément historique important qui joue dans ce Monte-Cristo revisité : le monde a été la proie à la fin du XVIIIème siècle d’une terrible invasion de zombies. C’est elle qui a occasionné des événements comme l’effondrement de la monarchie, la Révolution et l’accession au pouvoir de Napoléon. C’est en fait parce que ce dernier avait mis la main sur les cristaux permettant d’animer et de détruire les armées de zombies qu’il a pu installer son Empire. Dans ce monde empreint de magie, les personnages de Dumas évoluent. Les « méchants » ne sont plus simplement méchants, ils sont monstrueux – pas forcément toujours de manière surnaturelle, d’ailleurs. Benedetto devient anthropophage : il ne se contente pas d’assassiner, il dévore ses victimes. Villefort est pris d’une addiction : il a besoin de boire du sang humain. Le sien propre pour commencer, puis celui de nombreuses victimes. Le tout en restant parfaitement humain, il n’est pas devenu un vampire pour autant. Dans le cas de Morcerf, le surnaturel intervient. Un bijou magique volé au pacha de Janina lui permet d’absorber l’énergie vitale de ses victimes, ce qui lui donne un développement physique et une force hors du commun. La principale transformation est bien sûr celle d’Edmond Dantès. Le legs de Faria comprend deux éléments : le trésor et un pouvoir terrible, celui de se transformer en momie. Pas une momie à l’égyptienne enfermée dans un sarcophage, mais une momie du type film fantastique : « vivante » à sa façon, dotée d’une force immense, impossible à tuer puisque son cœur a été retiré de son corps et continue à battre dans une urne conservée à l’écart… La momie en question est enserrée dans des bandelettes qui peuvent s’animer et lui servir de membres supplémentaires mais elle peut se faire passer pour un humain grâce aux masques et maquillages appropriés. C’est après avoir enquêté sur ses anciens ennemis et avoir constaté qu’ils avaient atteint des positions extrêmement puissantes dans la société parisienne qu’Edmond Dantès, après mûre réflexion, décide de sauter le pas et d’accepter la terrible transformation en un être qui n’est plus véritablement humain : le seul moyen, estime-t-il, de réussir à se venger de ceux qui l’ont trahi. Autrement dit, là où le héros de Dumas se demande, à la fin de l’histoire, s’il ne s’est pas transformé en monstre (moral) dans sa quête de vengeance, celui de Robinson accepte d’amblée de renoncer à son humanité pour parvenir à ses fins. La première partie du roman, jusqu’à la découverte du trésor, demeure très proche de son modèle. C’est avec la deuxième partie, celle de la vengeance, que des divergences significatives apparaissent – comme c’est d’ailleurs le cas dans de très nombreuses variations sur le thème de Monte-Cristo. Afin sans doute de simplifier le récit et de le raccourcir, l’épouse de Villefort ne figure pas dans ce remake et ne cherche donc pas à empoisonner Valentine. Monte-Cristo, sous un nom de plume, écrit de nombreux articles dans les journaux pour attirer l’attention sur les morts mystérieuses entourant Villefort et le déstabiliser. Les personnages féminins, Eugénie Danglars, son amie Louise, Valentine de Villefort et même Haydée, qui sont toutes de très bonnes amies, créent pour s’amuser le Parisian Ladies Vampire-Hunting Club (le Club des Parisiennes Chasseresses de Vampires), et finissent par traquer Villefort le buveur de sang. Une divergence modeste mais astucieuse : totalement compromis et reconnu coupable de nombreux meurtres, ce même Villefort souffre d’une attaque qui le laisse dans le même état végétatif que son père Noirtier. Monte-Cristo se réjouit à l’idée des années d’immobilité et de solitude qui attendent le magistrat qui l’a fait jadis condamner. Un ajout majeur dans la trame du récit : Danglars s’étant procuré les cristaux qui commandent l’existence ou la destruction des zombies, il échafaude un plan proprement démoniaque pour se rétablir financièrement et se faire passer comme le sauveur du monde. Après avoir investi dans les entreprises d’armements qui bénéficieront massivement d’une reprise de la guerre contre les zombies, il fait réapparaître ces derniers à Rome, lors de sa fuite à la fin du roman. Quand le chaos règnera sur l’Europe comme quarante ans plus tôt et qu’il aura rétabli sa fortune, il mettra un terme à l’invasion des morts vivants et apparaîtra comme un héros. Monte-Cristo intervient et fait échouer ce plan, bien sûr, ce qui vaut quelques belles pages sur l’horreur déchaînée dans les rues de Rome et le combat final contre les zombies. Tous ces éléments fantastiques ne doivent pas faire oublier que la trame de l’histoire demeure virtuellement identique à celle de Dumas qui est re-racontée de bout en bout. Mais là où Seth Grahame-Smith avait assuré la réussite de son Pride and préjudice and zombies en conservant l’essentiel du texte original de Jane Austen, Robinson adopte un parti-pris inverse : il réécrit intégralement le roman de Dumas en introduisant toutes sortes de scènes et de développements qui étaient implicites dans son modèle. On assiste par exemple aux états d’âme et aux remords qui assaillent Villefort quand il envoie Dantès au château d’If ; les histoires de Caderousse ou de l’armateur Morrel sont abordées avec des points de vue différents ; le petit-déjeuner offert par Albert à ses amis lors de l’arrivée du mystérieux comte de Monte-Cristo à Paris donne lieu à une très belle scène ; les relations entre Maximilien Morrel et ses amis, ou avec Valentine sont également développées ; un beau passage voit Danglars expliquer, lancer de poignard à l’appui, à son épouse et à Lucien Debray comment il entend être remboursé des pertes qu’il a subies du fait des fausses informations qu’ils lui ont transmises (voir extrait ci-dessous), etc. La justesse de ces nombreuses scènes qui viennent en quelque sorte « compléter » le roman original, les rend extrêmement intéressantes. A la limite, un lecteur allergique au fantastique mais passionné par Le comte de Monte-Cristo pourrait lire The mummy pour le seul plaisir de ces ajouts. Pour apprécier pleinement ce nouveau roman, il vaut mieux, évidemment, accepter le principe de départ : la transformation du comte en momie animée ne peut être du goût de tous les admirateurs du chef d’œuvre de Dumas… Des scènes comme le duel qui oppose Monte-Cristo à Morcerf, c’est-à-dire une momie à un lanceur de feu, avec un côté « Frankenstein contre Dracula », peuvent sembler un peu grand-guignolesque. On peut aussi s’interroger sur une modification étrange : la transformation de Faria qui n’est plus abbé mais devient… conseiller financier ! Ce qui lui permet de développer quelques théories inspirées des thèses libérales de l’école autrichienne d’économie dont l’insertion dans Monte-Cristo ne s’impose pas. Reste le plus important : l’inventivité de l’ensemble et la très grande qualité de l’écriture de Robinson font de cette réécriture de Monte-Cristo un plein succès. Et il ne faudrait pas oublier le très joli mot de la fin. Tout le monde se souvient, bien sûr, des paroles d’adieu de Monte-Cristo à ses amis dans le roman de Dumas : « toute la sagesse humaine est dans ces deux mots : attendre et espérer », maxime fort belle mais un peu passive. Dans le monde plein de monstres et d’horreurs incessantes de The mummy of Monte Cristo où l’on ne peut se permettre de simplement attendre, ces préceptes deviennent « adapt and overcome », « s’adapter et vaincre» ! Pour refléter les deux composantes de ce roman, je présente exceptionnellement deux extraits : le premier donne un exemple de la réécriture du texte de Dumas, le second montre la dimension fantastique. Voir l'interview de J. Trevor Robinson: « trouver la bonne espèce de monstre en laquelle transformer Monte-Cristo a nécessité beaucoup de brainstorming ! »
Extrait n°1, Livre deux The count of Monte Cristo, chapitre 67 A conjugal scene Lucien stood behind Hermine and brushed his fingers against her bare arms. He lowered his head to within an inch of her neck and breathed in the smell of her, an act which never failed to elicit a grateful shudder from Hermine as she felt the gentle movement of the air. "Oh, Lucien," Hermine whispered. "Make me forget the stress of this evening." "As you wish," Lucien murmured against her skin. Their lovemaking on the sofa left them oblivious to the rest of the world. Debray steadied himself against the wall with his left hand while his right was otherwise occupied. For a few glorious moments, Hermine closed her eyes and forgot about the looming spectre of her awful secret. The sound of an object striking the wall broke the spell. Frustrated, Hermine opened her eyes to find Lucien staring in disbelief at his left hand. The blade and handle of a double-edged throwing knife protruded from the exact middle of the hand in perfect vertical alignment. Between and below the knuckles of his middle and ring fingers, it pinned Lucien to the wall. In the time it took Hermine to notice this, Lucien's brain received the first signals of pain from his wounded appendage, and he responded with a disbelieving scream. Hermine recognized the shape of the knife well enough, having found them in walls and furniture all over the house whenever her husband was in a mood, and looked past Lucien's shoulder. Danglars stood at the door. He held his coat open with one hand, revealing four more knives in the brace he often concealed on his person. No fury coloured his rubbery face, only the satisfaction of a well-placed throw. "Good evening, madame. Good evening, M. Debray," Danglars said. "You know, the old saying really is true. If you can perfect your throw on a rolling ship, you'll never miss a target again. Thank you for the opportunity to demonstrate that, Lucien." All of Lucien's attention remained focused on his hand and the trail of blood oozing down the pink wallpaper. Hermine gawked at her husband, thinking that perhaps God had chosen murder by a jealous husband to punish her for what she and Villefort had done. Rather than propel a knife into her exposed breast, Danglars instead pulled a folded newspaper from his pocket. "I have here the end-of-day values for the Russian bonds which you two convinced me to sell," Danglars said evenly. "I won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say they've risen even further since we sold, compounding our original loss." Danglars found Lucien's jacket laying on the floor, finer than the young man's secretarial salary could afford, and used it to clean the dirt from his boots. "M. Debray, I don't resent you for pleasuring my wife. The wealthy should share their wealth, and the beautiful should share their beauty," Danglars said. "Nor do I resent you giving her inside information to aid her gambling with my money, since I've indirectly benefited from it for so long." Lucien didn't answer with more than a whimper, and tried to steady his legs beneath him so gravity wouldn't make the wound worse. His other hand wavered near the handle as he considered whether he could handle the pain of pulling it out. "What I do resent you for," Danglars continued, "is passing along this unverified claptrap about the Russians that has caused me to lose over one million francs for nothing. Or perhaps not for nothing; your employer, the Minister, and I are on opposite sides of the Chamber, after all. Perhaps this was all an attempt to discredit me on the political stage." Danglars walked over to Lucien, giving him a deliberate nudge with his expansive belly and prompting a small yelp of pain as the movement jostled Lucien's hand. Lucien could smell eels and exotic wine on Danglars' breath. "For a proper throwing knife, the shape of the blade is nearly as important as the balance," Danglars said in a cheerful tone that didn't match his face. "The knife must be double-edged to ensure that it passes easily into the target. This feature also facilitates easy removal." Danglars grasped Lucien's forearm and pulled down with all of his weight. The motion pulled Lucien's hand against the knife, or more accurately, pulled the knife through Lucien's hand. Lucien shrieked at the long gash bifurcating his hand from the centre of his palm to what was no longer the webbing between his second and third fingers. Danglars rang for the maid. "Take M. Debray to the kitchen and bandage his injury. You may take him to the hospital, but don't clothe him if you hope to keep your job," Danglars said when she arrived. Too frightened to question the order, the maid led a sobbing and nude Lucien from the room. Danglars turned to Hermine and spoke to a space several inches above her head. "I know all about your dalliance with M. Debray," Danglars said. "I know about all of the young men you've laid with during our marriage. Truth be told, I've found it thrilling. There's a certain delightful ache in knowing that a younger and more handsome man is taking my place, and I relish it the way one relishes poking at a tender bruise." Hermine was too stunned at this change from Danglar's usual submissive attitude towards her to reply. "Up until now, your tips from M. Debray have been profitable ones. And your various charades about where you found your information were amusing," Danglars said. "Of course, it was obvious from the start that your hunches came directly from his desk. As I've grown rich off your suggestions, I've dutifully given you one-fourth of the earnings as a courtesy. Well, it's only fair that you reimburse me for one-fourth of the loss I took thanks to this fake news from Russia." The ultimatum shook Hermine loose from her surprise. "Reimburse you for a quarter of a million? How absurd!" she proclaimed. To reclaim her dignity, Hermine snatched Lucien's abandoned shirt from the arm of the couch. As Lucien was a very slim man and Hermine a rather well-proportioned woman, the buttons refused to close. In the end she settled on holding the garment in place to cover her nudity. "Oh, it's not so absurd at all. I suspect that between yourself and M. Debray you'll be able to acquire the necessary funds, and until you do, I had better not find the little secretary in my house again," Danglars said.
Extrait n°2, Livre deux The count of Monte Cristo, chapitre 46 The break-in Like the Morcerf home, the Count of Monte Cristo's residence had a less conspicuous side-entrance. Near this gate to the Rue Ponthieu, a figure sprang over the wall in the night and crossed the lawn to the mansion. He pried open a lower window with a crowbar and admitted himself to the count's house. This burglar had heard of some fop with more wealth than sense buying the house and filling it with treasures before he even arrived. The burglar, whose name was Brogue, planned to take some of those riches for himself. The first rooms Brogue prowled through proved the stories; priceless Oriental vases caught his eye at every turn, but as beautiful as they were, he dared not toss them into his sack and risk breaking them. Small paintings, however, he plucked from the wall like ripe fruit as well as silverware and jeweled ornaments from display cabinets. Brogue moved at random through the house, snatching valuables with all the discretion of a magpie and all the glee of a child at Christmas. As Brogue reached the second story, an enticing waft of perfume from behind a door caught his interest. With care not to make a sound, he turned the handle and found himself in a feminine sitting room which opened onto a bedchamber. There, a beam of moonlight through a glass panel in the ceiling fell across an exquisite specimen of beauty. Her thick dark hair and olive skin were of the Greek type, with thick lashes laid across delicate cheeks. Sleep had parted her full lips, and she had thrown the covers off of herself enough to reveal the curve of her waist and a generous bosom, only just covered in silk nightclothes and moving with her breath. Brogue's greedy and vulgar mind realized he had found treasure of a different sort, likely the millionaire's mistress. To someone who has already decided they are entitled to what does not belong to them, one kind of plunder is not so different from another. Brogue set his sack and crowbar on the floor and drew a dagger from his belt as he advanced on the bed. A floorboard creaked behind him, and before Brogue could react, a rough band wrapped around his throat and pulled him back into the hall. His feet never touched the ground as he flew around a corner and was released to slam against a distant wall. Dazed, Brogue looked around to find the source of this attack. He saw the slender figure of a man approaching. He coughed and groaned at a sharp pain in his ribs, and cursed his bad luck. Brogue had known about the house for days, but had waited too long and the owner had arrived. He saw only one way out and waited hunched over on the floor with his dagger hidden against his breast. "I may have let you leave," said the slender man without a trace of mercy in his voice. "I was willing to consider that you were not evil, but merely misguided. I was even in a charitable frame of mind after a chance encounter this morning, and may have offered you a job. After all, I have many plans in motion, and require many hands to do the work." The slender man's footsteps drew closer, and Brogue tightened his grip on the dagger. When the man stood above him, Brogue struck. He lashed out with the dagger, carving a deep gash in the man's leg as he stood up, and buried it to the hilt in the man's chest. Breathing hard, Brogue stepped back to watch the millionaire die; when that distasteful business was done, he could return to his loot and escape. The millionaire did not so much as flinch, dumbfounding Brogue. Instead, he pulled the dagger out of the wound as if shooing a fly before tossing it away. The blade remained dry and clean, and the wound did not weep even a single tear of blood. Brogue got his first clear look at the man whose home he burgled, the fabled Count of Monte Cristo. He wore dark trousers and a white silk shirt, open at the chest and marred only by the dagger-hole Brogue had made. White bandages wrapped his hands and chest, also extending up to cover his head and neck. His face remained partly in shadow, but the moonlight reflected against red eyes burning with fury. White tendrils crept out from under the count's sleeves and lashed forward. They entwined Brogue's arms from wrist to shoulder with the same rough texture that had pulled him from Haydee's bedroom. As the bandages extended, they exposed patches of dry grey flesh. Brogue stood helpless and restrained as another tendril emerged from the ragged hole where he had stabbed the count. This band of living cloth snaked forward to cover his mouth, stifling his panicked cries. "I may have forgiven you just for stealing from me, but then you threatened someone under my protection," the count said. "I can't let that pass." "What's happening?" a woman's voice asked. Haydee stood at her chamber door, rubbing sleep from her eyes. "Just an unwanted visitor, my dear," the count said. "I was about to show him out." A chorus of muffled clicking reached Brogue's ears, and a glistening black beetle emerged from beneath the bandages on the count's collarbone. Another beetle emerged from his sleeve, and dozens more followed. They marched across the trail of bandages connecting Brogue to the count and crawled beneath Brogue's clothing wherever they found an opening. Brogue screamed against the cloth enclosing his mouth as the beetles bit down and tore away chunks of his flesh. "Some people have no manners," Haydee said, yawning and returning to her bedroom. "It's far too late for visitors."
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