Maldoror and Poems

  3

  A gallows rose up from the ground. A yard above the ground a man was hanging from his hair, with his hands tied behind him. To increase his agony, and make him want anything but to have his hands tied, his feet had been left to dangle freely. The skin of his brow had been so stretched by his hanging that his face, condemned by the circumstances to the absence of its natural expression, looked like the stony concretion of a stalactite. For three days he had endured this torture. He shouted out: 'Who will untie my hands? Who will untie my hair? I am dislocated by movements which only separate my head further from the root of my hair. Hunger and thirst are not the main reasons which prevent me from sleeping. It is impossible for me to live for more than an hour. Someone to slit my throat with a sharpened stone!' Each word was prefaced and followed by vehement shrieks. I darted from the bush behind which I was sheltering and went towards the puppet or piece of lard hanging from the yardarm. But now two drunken women came dancing along from the other side. One was carrying a bag and two whips with ropes of lead and the other was carrying a barrel full of pitch, and two paint-brushes. The greying hair of the older woman blew in the wind like the tatters of a torn sail and the legs of the other one clacked like the beating of a tunny on the deck of a ship. Their eyes shone with such a strong black flame that I did not think at first that these two women belonged to my species. They were laughing with such selfish unconcern and their features were so loathsome that I did not for a moment doubt that I had before my eyes the two most hideous specimens of the human race. Once more I hid behind the bush, and kept quiet, like the acanthophorus serraticornis, which only shows its head above its nest. They were approaching with the speed of the tide; putting my ears to the ground, the sound which I clearly heard brought me the lyrical clatter of their walk. When the two female orang-outangs arrived beneath the gallows, they sniffed the air for a few seconds. They showed by their absurd gestures the truly remarkable extent of their amazement at the result of their experiment, when they noticed that nothing had changed in these parts: the denouement of death had not, in conformity with their wishes, occurred. They had not deigned to look up to see if the mortadella was still in the same place. One of them said: 'Is it possible that you are still breathing? You are hard to kill, my well-beloved husband.' And as when two choristers, in a cathedral, sing the alternate verses of a psalm, the second one answered: 'You do not want to die then, my gracious boy. Tell me how you have managed (surely it was by some spell) to scare off the vultures? Your body really has got so thin. The wind blows it like a lantern.' They each took a brush and tarred the hanging man's body...they each took a whip and raised their arms...I was admiring (it was absolutely impossible to do otherwise) the powerful accuracy with which the blades of metal, instead of sliding along the surface, as when one is fighting a negro and making vain efforts, as in a nightmare, to grab him by the hair, went, thanks to the pitch, right into the flesh, which was marked with furrows as deep as the bones' resistance would reasonably permit. I refrained from the temptation of taking pleasure in this excessively curious spectacle, which was less profoundly comic than one had the right to expect. And yet despite the good resolutions I had made in advance, how could I not acknowledge the strength of these women, the muscles of their arms? Their skill, which consisted in striking the most sensitive parts, will not be mentioned by me, unless my ambition is to aspire to total truth! Unless, putting my lips against one another (not everyone is unaware that this is the most common manner of bringing about this pressure). I prefer to maintain a tear-swollen and mysterious silence, the painful manifestation of which would be unable to hide, not only as well as but even better than my words (for I do not believe I am mistaken, although one must not, at the risk of failing to comply with the most elementary rules of cleverness, deny the hypothetical possibilities of error) the baleful results caused by the rage which sets the dry metacarpi and the strong joints to work: even if one were to take the viewpoint of the implacable observer and experienced moralist (it is almost quite important that you should know that I do not at least entirely admit this more or less fallacious restriction), even then doubt would not be able to spread its roots in this matter; since I do not at the moment suppose him to be in the hands of a supernatural power and he would inevitably perish, though not suddenly perhaps, due to the lack of a sap which fulfilled the simultaneous conditions of being nutritious and free of poisonous matter. It is understood (if not, then do not read me) that in saying this I am merely introducing the timid personality of my own opinion: yet far be from me the thought of renouncing rights which are indisputable! And I most assuredly do not intend to take exception to this statement in which the criterion of certitude glitters, that there is a simpler means of reaching agreement; this would consist, I express it in but a few words, which are worth more than a thousand, in not discussing anything; and this is far more difficult to put into practice than the generality of men would like to think. Discuss is the grammatical word, and many persons will find that they should not contradict what I have just set down on paper without a voluminous dossier of proofs. But the matter is significantly different, if one may allow one's instinct to use rare sagacity in the service of circumspection, when it formulates judgements which, I can assure you, would otherwise be so bold as to coast the shore of braggadocio. To close this incident, which has been deprived of its vein-stone by an act of frivolity as irremediably deplorable as it is fatally interesting (a fact which everyone will certainly attest to, once he has sounded out his most recent memories), it is good, if one's faculties are in perfect equilibrium, or better if the scale of imbecility does not outweigh by too much the scale on which the noble and magnificent attributes of reason are placed, that is to say, to be clearer (for hitherto I have merely been concise, a fact which several will not even admit, because of my longueurs which are only imaginary, since they achieve their goal, which is to track down with the scalpel of analysis the fleeting appearances of truth, even in their last entrenchments), if the intellect still sufficiently predominates over the defects with which habit, education and nature have weighed it down and choked it, it is good; I repeat for the second and last time, for, by dint of repetition, one would end up in most cases by understanding each other, to return with my tail between my legs (if it is even true that I have a tail) to the dramatic subject wedged in this strophe. It is wise to drink a glass of water before I attempt to continue my work. I prefer to drink two rather than do without. Thus, when a runaway negro is being pursued through the forest, each member of the party hangs his rifle from the bindweed and they all meet in the shade of a thicket to quench their thirst and stay their hunger. But the halt only lasts a few seconds, the chase is eagerly taken up again, and the wild cries of the pursuers are soon heard once more. And just as oxygen is recognized by the property which it unassumingly possesses of lighting up a match which is still flickering in places, so will the accomplishment of my duty be recognized by the haste with which I return to the matter in hand. When the two females were no longer able to hold the whip, which exhaustion forced them to drop, they wisely called of this gymnastic labour which they had been engaged in for nearly two hours, and withdrew with an expression of joy on their faces which was not without menace for the future. I went towards the man who was calling out to me for help (for his loss of blood was so great that weakness prevented him from speaking and my opinion, although I was not a doctor, was that a haemorrhage had set in his head and in his loins), and, having freed his hands, I cut his hair with a pair of scissors. He told me that one evening his mother had called him into her room and ordered him to undress and spend the night in her bed, and that then, without waiting for his answer, motherhood had stripped off its clothes and had made the most indecent movements in front of him. Then he had left the room. Moreover by his persistent refusals he had brought upon himself the anger of his wife who had lulled herself into the hope of a reward if she could get her husband to use his body to satisfy the old woman's passions.
They had plotted and resolved to hang him from a gibbet in some unfrequented region, and there to let him perish by degrees, wretched and exposed to all kinds of dangers. It was only after numerous and serious reflections that they had at last hit upon this clever torture which had only been brought to an end by my unhoped-for intervention. Each expression was accompanied by signs of the most heartfelt gratitude and this was not the least merit of his confidences. I carried him to the nearest cottage; for he had just fainted, and I did not leave the ploughmen until I had given them my purse that they might attend to the wounded man and until I had made them promise to be as consistently compassionate to the poor wretch as if he were their own son. And I in turn told them what had happened and went towards the gate to set off again along the path; but after I had gone a hundred yards I came back to the hut again and, addressing its simple owners, I shouted: 'No...no...do not think that that surprises me!' This time, I went away for good; but I could not get a proper foothold: another man might not have noticed this! The wolf no longer passes beneath the gibbet erected one day by the hands of a wife and a mother, as when his charmed imagination would take the path towards an illusory meal. When he sees that black hair blowing in the wind on the horizon, he starts and, without losing any time, takes flight with incomparable speed. Should one see in this psychological phenomenon an intelligence superior to the common instinct of mammals? Without certifying or even anticipating anything, it seems to me that the animal realized what crime was. How could it fail to understand, when human beings have rejected the rule of reason to such an unspeakable extent leaving only savage vengeance in the place of this dethroned queen!

  4

  I am filthy. I am riddled with lice. Hogs, when they look at me, vomit. My skin is encrusted with the scabs and scales of leprosy, and covered with yellowish pus. I know neither the water of rivers nor the dew of clouds. An enormous, mushroom with umbelliferous stalks is growing on my nape, as on a dunghill. Sitting on a shapeless piece of furniture, I have not moved my limbs now for four centuries. My feet have taken root in the ground; up to my belly, they form a sort of tenacious vegetation, full of filthy parasites; this vegetation no longer has anything in common with other plants, nor is it flesh. And yet my heart beats. How could it beat, if the rottenness and miasmata of my corpse (I dare not say body), did not nourish it abundantly? A family of toads has taken up residence in my left armpit and, when one of them moves, it tickles. Mind one of them does not escape and come and scratch the inside of your ear with its mouth; for it would then be able to enter your brain. In my right armpit there is a chameleon which is perpetually chasing them, to avoid starving to death: everyone must live. But when one party has completely foiled the cunning tricks of the other, they like nothing better than to leave one another in peace and suck the delicate fat which covers my sides: I am used to it. An evil snake has eaten my verge and taken its place; the filthy creature has made me a eunuch. Oh if only I could have defended myself with my paralysed hands; but I rather think they have changed into logs. However that may be, it is important to state that my red blood no longer flows there. Two little hedgehogs, which have stopped growing, threw the inside of my testicles to a dog, who did not turn up his nose at it: and they lodged inside the carefully washed epidermis. My anus has been penetrated by a crab; encouraged by my sluggishness, he guards the entrance with his pincers, and causes me a lot of pain! Two medusae crossed the seas, immediately enticed by a hope which was not disappointed. They looked attentively at the two fleshy parts which form the human backside, and, clinging on to their convex curve, they so crushed them by constant pressure that the two lumps of flesh have disappeared, while two monsters from the realm of viscosity remain, equal in color, shape, and ferocity. Do not speak of my spinal column, as it is a sword...Yes, yes...I was not paying attention...your request is a fair one. You wished to know, did you not, how it came to be implanted vertically in my back. I cannot remember very clearly; however, if I decide to take for a memory what was perhaps only a dream, I can tell you that man, when he found out that I had vowed to live disease-ridden and motionless until I had conquered the Creator, crept up behind me on tiptoe, but not so quietly that I did not hear him. For a short moment, I felt nothing. This sword was buried up to the hilt between the shoulder-blades of the festive bull, and his bones shuddered like an earthquake. Athletes, mechanical experts, philosophers and doctors have tried, in turn, all kinds of methods. They did not know that the evil man does cannot be undone! I forgave them for the depth of their native ignorance, and acknowledged them with a slow movement of my eyelids. Traveller, when you pass near by me, do not address the least word of consolation to me, I implore you. You will weaken my courage. Leave me to kindle my tenacity at the flame of voluntary martyrdom. Go away...let me not inspire in you any act of piety. Hatred is stranger than you think; its action is inexplicable, like the broken appearance of a stick in water. Such as you see me, I can still make sorties as far as the walls of heaven at the head of a legion of murderers, and then come back and, resuming this posture, meditate again on noble projects of vengeance. Adieu, I shall delay you no longer; and, so that you may learn a lesson and keep out of harm's way, reflect on the fatal destiny which led me to revolt, when I was perhaps born good! You will tell your son what you have seen; and, taking him by the hand, you will make him admire the beauty of the stars and the wonders of the universe, the robin's nest and the temples of the Lord. And you will be surprised to see how amenable he is to your paternal advice, and you will reward him with a smile. But as soon as he knows he is unobserved, take a look at him and you will see him spitting his slime on virtue; he has deceived you, he who is descended from the human race, but he will deceive you no longer; thenceforward you will know what is to become of him. Oh unfortunate father, prepare, to accompany the steps of your age, the ineffaceable guillotine which will cut off the head of a precocious criminal, and the sorrow which will show you the way which leads to the grave.