Mr. Peek-a-Boo (Garou-Garou, le passe-muraille)

I congratulate you, my friends.

I congratulate and envy you to be able to keep standing for hours like this,

in order to admire a hugely talented painter.

- So, do you like it, little man? - Yes sir.

I can see you're an expert. What about you, butcher boy?

Oh, all right, you like your meat better.

What about you, grown man? Is it too modern for you?

OK, I see the problem: you're a bloke like the ignoramus who refused...

...one of my paintings last week.

I told him: "You're sentencing a painter to starvation"!

He answered: "Stop buying paint pots and you'II keep yours boiling. "

- Jean-Paul! Jean-Paul! - Hey, Leon!

I must talk to you, I must see you, something fantastic happened to me.

- The usual family trouble? - If it were only that!

Were you shown the door of your office?

The door? If you only knew how little I care about doors now!

No, this is far more serious. Come on! Come on!

All right, I'll join you directly.

Dear admirers and friends, we now have to part.

My union forbids me to work more than two hours a day.

Now, should you elect to stay, I'll be back here at the same time tomorrow.

Go in.

I hope that you're going to tell me what's happening to you now.

Shhh! Here yes, but I didn't want to talk in the street, this is too serious.

You're scaring me. You did not do anything stupid, did you?

No, of course not.

You promise that I won't read in tomorrow's newspapers:

"Humble civil servant in the Ministry of Records

- Revealed to be international gang leader!" - If it were just that!

- Damn! Well, shoot, I'm listening. - Yes, but you won't believe me.

- Will you speak already? - All right, calm down, come, sit down...

And brace yourself. You'll see, it's incredible! It's crazy.

And you're the first person I've told, because you were always swell with me.

- How rambling you can be! - You always treated me like a brother.

We all have our charities. You're mine:

- I love weak people. - I won't be weak anymore.

Either you talk or I break this bottle on your head.

All right, all right. Sit down and brace yourself.

Listen. Forget about the bottle.

You do remember that I came to see you last night,

to make some music as we do every Wednesday?

- Yes. - And I told you of my problems

with my sister and her bully of a husband. You know the jerk, don't you?

- Yes. - You told me to stay for dinner,

- You made me drink a little... - No, no. You drank a lot.

Well, anyway, when I came home around midnight, I was a little drunk.

So I'm climbing up the stairs, all the while telling to myself:

"Gaston's going to give you hell". Cause that bloke doesn't like me, oh no.

If he could only throw me out of my flat, on the grounds that he married my sister...

Oh, well. I reach my floor. It's the fourth floor, isn't it? Yeah.

Then I look for my keys in my pocket... Where are they? Ah, here they are.

I try to open the deadlock but... he had blocked it.

I try the other lock... blocked too.

So I say to myself: " I'm going to ring the bell. "

Leon is my brother, in spite of everything.

I tell you again, Germaine, that I won't go and let him in.

And I forbid you to go!

I tolerated his cornet, I won't tolerate his base partying.

We can't live under the same roof anymore.

This is HIS flat, mind you.

It's yours too since it belonged to your parents.

And you're his elder anyway. And you're married.

- And I don't give a damn! - Where will he sleep?

Let him go to Greece. Or anywhere else, It's all the same to me.

Oh, he's not going to ring the bell all night, is he?

- Where are you going? - Where I'm going? Ah!

I'm going to give your brother a rooming ticket.

I'll give him his marching orders, that's what I'll do.

- Who is it? - It's me, Leon.

- Never heard of him. - Leon. Your wife's brother.

- Your brother-in-law. - I have no brother-in-law.

Or rather, I don't have one anymore.

Do me a favour and go back to wherever you come from. You night-owl.

Gaston! This is my place, isn't it?

A very good reason to stay there and never come to OUR place again.

The nerve of the bloke...

I was really appalled. What could I do? Just then, the time-switch goes off.

Here I am, lost in darkness. So I grope for the switch,

I find it, I push it... Hey... I wasn't on the landing anymore,

I was in the bedroom... flabbergasted... Now, that was something...

- Well, what do you say? - I say... I say...

- I say you didn't prove anything yet. - Oh, but...

You were so drunk you didn't remember that your brother-in-law,

when your sis mollified him, finally opened the door for you.

Yes, but wait for the rest. The rest.

You're not going to tell me about your whole night, are you?

No, but I'II tell you of the day after, that is this morning. Sit down.

- What? Again? - And be quiet.

- Yeah. - And brace yourself again...

As he does every morning, his torso stretching a ridiculous sport shirt,

My dear brother-in-law was doing his exercises,

while my very dear sister put his breakfast on the table.

The more I think about it, the more I think that you didn't have a right to throw Leon

- Out of his home. - And, pray, why is that?

Because when you married me, you didn't have a flat

- And were quite happy with his. - True. And I'm still quite happy with it.

So much that I intend to live in it alone from now on.

If Leon doesn't come back, you'll have to work. HE's working.

Oh, what a laugh. An assistant at the Ministry of Records.

18.000 francs a month. Petty. Laughable.

Maybe so. But the three of us lived on that.

You dope. I've been slaving for five years to perfect an auxiliary jet engine for bicycle

and you'd want me to go and work in a factory?

Don't you ever think of anything but eating?

You really are your idiot brother's sister.

What a nice family, the Dutilleuls!

Good morning, Memene! Good morning, Gaston!

- So, how are you this morning? - Where do you come from?

From my bedroom, of course. What's with him?

- He's crazy this morning. - How did you come in last night?

What kind of a question is that? Through the door, of course.

Impossible. The deadbolt is locked and the security bar is still in place.

Through the window then, if it pleases you.

No nonsense now! I command you to answer!

Come on, answer, will you? You'll increase his blood pressure!

But answer what? If I didn't come in either through the door or the window,

maybe I walked in through the wall.

Don't you dare make fun of us!

Nobody walks through walls, you know that as well as I do. So?

So... So... why don't you find an explanation?

And try to have it when I come back for lunch.

- I'm going to the office. Bye, chum! - Chum...

So you don't walk through walls anymore?

Never when there's an open door. Here! Bye.

How do you think he got in?

I don't know and I don't want to see him here anymore.

As for his cornet, you'll oblige me by throwing it in the trash. Take this.

No, this is ridiculous...

When I reach the second landing, I suddenly want to experiment again.

No one is coming down, no one is coming up,

so I discreetly walk to the wall, I try one finger...

Oh! It's going in. A second one... A third one... Oh, gee,

my hand enters the wall like it were made of butter.

So I say to myself: " let's try my whole arm "...

That was really something else, old boy.

Oh, no, come on, you're pulling my leg, aren't you? Come on! That's impossible.

Impossible? That's what I thought. But it's just as I told you.

So I say to myself: " If my arm can go in, why not the rest of me?" So...

Come on, kitty, you're broke something again. You naughty beast you!

Oh, this dress! What's with this dress!

This dress...

Help! Help! Help! Sir, Sir, there's a man in my apartment.

I'm frightened. Come quick! Come with me.

- There! He's there! - I fail to see...

- Here. He was here... - I don't...

I was standing in front of my mirror... Pulling down my dress, like this.

And then...

You may stare at me with those eyes, but I'm telling it like it is.

- And you've seen nothing yet... - Look, little Leon...

There no little Leon anymore. Little Leon is a thing of the past.

And if you didn't have a weak heart, I would perform for you,

but I'd rather stick to the description. Let me go on...

The woman has fainted.

I'm not staying any longer, for fear of being late for work again.

And just then I think about my little chum Gaston, my dear brother-in-law.

I say to myself: "You bugged me so much that, now, you're going to pay. "

So I climb up the stairs again...

I wish you'd seen Gaston. He looked so foolish on his bicycle.

The gentleman was making some adjustments.

What's going on? Oh, my God, poor darling, what happened?

If you want to fly a plane, kid, you'll need a pilot license.

Old boy, if you just said is true, we mustn't waste one minute.

- You must go and see a doctor now! - I'm not ill.

- I never felt better in my life. - That what you say.

- Come, I'll take you to a specialist's. - A specialist in what?

I don't know. In psychiatry... Well, we'II see, won't we?

You're disintegrating, old boy, you're disintegrating. I'II phone a doctor.

But I have to go to the office. I don't want my boss to give me hell.

And here are the thoughts of the first man ever to walk through walls.

- You civil servant! - Civil servant, civil servant...

Find a cheap one, will you! Because...

- Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. - You'll have to admit, professor,

- That it's... it's mind-blowing. - Mind-blowing? Come on. It's funny.

Funny? Is that all?

I thought that a man able to walk through walls would be...

I grant you that it's uncommon. An important question:

do you obtain the same results when walking backwards?

I didn't try it yet. But I think so.

Let me see.

All right, I'll show you, professor. This way, isn't it?

So you said: walking backwards? Watch me, OK?

- Well, go on. - Well... OK.

Please excuse me, ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you.

Tell me something: have you had your tonsils removed?

- Yes, professor. - How old were you?

- Six and a half. - Did you have mumps?

- No, professor. - Too bad.

- I'm sorry. - Oh, well, too bad, too bad...

and another question:

when you wake up, do you ever feel a throbbing pain in your jugular vein?

- In the... er, no. - But, professor,

do you really think that there's a connection between...

The tiniest detail often sheds light on the diagnosis.

- Take off your clothes. - All of them?

- No, the jacket should be enough. - Oh? Right. Here? Right.

Give me your jacket. Give.

I'm going to examine you. Say thirty-three.

Thirty-three. Thirty-three. Thirty-three. Thirty-three.

Stop counting. Breathe!