Maldoror and Poems

  2

  Before I begin, I must say that I find it absurd that is should be necessary (I do not think that everyone will share my opinion, if I am wrong) for me to place beside me an open inkstand and a sheet of vellum. In this way I shall be enabled to begin the sixth song in the series of instructive poems which I am eager to produce. Dramatic episodes of unrelenting usefulness! Our hero perceived that by frequenting caves and taking refuge in inaccessible places, he was transgressing the laws of logic by arguing in a vicious circle. For if, on the one hand, he was indulging his loathing of mankind by the compensation of solitude and remoteness and was passively circumscribing his limited horizon amid the stunted bushes, brambles and wild vines, on the other hand his activity no longer found sustenance to feed the minotaur of his perverse instincts. Consequently, he resolved to approach the great clusters of population, convinced that, among so many ready-made victims, his several passions would find objects of satisfaction in abundance. He knew that the police, that shield of civilization, had for many years, doggedly and single-mindedly, been looking for him, and that a veritable army of agents and informers was continually at his heels. Without, however, managing to catch him. Such was his staggering skill that, with supreme style, he foiled tricks which ought indisputably to have brought success, and arrangements of the most cunning meditation. He had a particular gift for taking on forms which were unrecognizable to the most experienced eyes. Superior disguises, if I speak as an artist. Truly base accoutrements, speaking from a moral standpoint. In this respect his talent bordered on genius. Have you not observed the slenderness of the charming cricket, moving with agile grace in the drains of Paris? It was Maldoror! Mesmerizing the towns with a noxious fluid, he brings them into a state of lethargy in which they are unable to be as watchful as they ought to be. A state which is all the more dangerous because they do not realize they are in it. Today he is in Madrid; tomorrow he will be in Saint Petersburg; yesterday he was in Peking. But to make a precise statement as to the place which this poetic Rocambole is at present terrorizing with his exploits is a task beyond the possible strength of my dull ratiocination. That bandit is perhaps seven hundred leagues from land; perhaps he is a few paces away from you. It is not easy to kill off completely the whole of mankind, and the laws are there; but, with a little patience, the humanitarian ants can be exterminated, one by one. Now since the first days of my infancy when I lived among the first ancestors of our race and was still inexperienced in setting traps; since those distant times before recorded history when, in subtle metamorphoses, I would at different periods ravage the nations of the globe by conquests and carnage, and spread civil war among the citizens, have I not already crushed underfoot, individually or collectively, entire generations, the precise sum of which it would not be impossible to conceive? The dazzling past has given brilliant promises to the future: they will be kept. To rake my sentences together, I shall perforce use the natural method of going back to the savages, that I may learn from them. Simple and imposing gentlemen, their gracious mouths ennoble all that flows from their tattooed lips. I have just proved that there is nothing ridiculous on this planet. Adopting a style which some will find naive (when it is so profound), I shall use it to interpret ideas which will not perhaps appear awe-inspiring! In this very way, throwing off the frivolous and sceptical manner of ordinary conversation and prudent enough not to put...but I have forgotten what I was going to say, for I do not recall the beginning of the sentence. But let me tell you that poetry is everywhere where the oafishly mocking smile of man, with his duck's face, is not to be found. First of all, I am going to blow my nose, because I need to; and then, powerfully assisted by my hand, I shall pick up the penholder which my fingers had dropped. How can the Carroussel bridge maintain its relentless neutrality when it hears the harrowing cries which the sack seems to be uttering!

  3

  The shops of the Rue Vivienne display their riches to wondering eyes. Lit by numerous gas-lamps, the mahogany caskets and gold watches shed showers of dazzling light through the windows. Eight o'clock has struck by the clock of the Bourse: it is not late! Scarcely has the last stroke of the gong been heard than the street, the name of which has already been mentioned, starts to tremble, and is shaken to its foundations from the Place Royale to the Boulevard Montmartre. Those who are out walking quicken their steps and thoughtfully retire to their houses. A woman faints and falls on the pavement. Nobody helps her up; everyone is anxious to get away from those parts...Shutters are closed with a slam, and the inhabitants bury themselves under their blankets. One would think that the bubonic plague had broken out. Thus, while the greater part of the town is getting ready to plunge into the revels of night, the Rue Vivienne is suddenly frozen in a kind of petrifaction. Like a heart which has ceased to love, the life has gone out of it. But soon the news of the phenomenon spreads to other parts of the populace, and a grim silence hovers over the august capital. What has happened to the gas-lamps? What has become of the street-walkers? Nothing...dark and empty streets! A screech owl, its leg broken, flying in a rectilinear direction, passes over the Madelaine and soars up towards the Trone, shrieking: 'Woe to us.' Now in that place which my pen (that true friend, who acts as my accomplice) has just shrouded in mystery, if you look in the direction where the Rue Colbert turns into the Rue Vivienne, you will see, in the angle formed by the intersection of those two streets, the profile of a character moving with light footsteps towards the boulevards. But if you come closer, in such a way as not to attract the attention of this passer-by, you will observe with a pleasant surprise that he is young! From a distance one would in fact have taken him for a mature man. The total number of days no longer counts when it is a matter of appreciating the intellectual capacity of a serious face. I am an expert at judging age from the physiognomic lines of the brow: he is sixteen years and four months of age. He is as handsome as the retractility of the claws in birds of prey; or, again, as the unpredictability of muscular movement in sores in the soft part of the posterior cervical region; or, rather, as the perpetual motion rat-trap which is always reset by the trapped animal and which can go on catching rodents indefinitely and works even when it is hidden under straw; and, above all, as the chance juxtaposition of a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissecting table! Mervyn, that son of fair England, has just had a fencing lesson from his teacher, and, wrapped in his Scotch plaid, is returning home to his parents. It is eight-thirty, and he hopes to be home by nine. It is a great presumption on his part to pretend to know the future. Who knows what unforeseen obstacle might stop him on the way? And however uncommon this circumstance might be, ought he to take it upon himself to consider it an exception? Should he not rather consider as an abnormal fact the capacity he has shown up to now to feel completely free of anxiety, and, so to speak, happy? By what right, in fact, would he claim to reach his abode unscathed when someone is in fact lying in wait for him and following his intended prey? (I would be showing little knowledge of my profession as a sensational writer if I did not, at least, bring in the restrictive limitations which are immediately followed by the sentence I am about to complete.) You have recognized the imaginary hero for who a long time has been shattering my intellect by the pressure of his individuality. Now Maldoror approaches Mervyn, to fix in his memory the features of the youth; now, backing away, he recoils like an Australian boomerang in the second phase of flight, or rather like a booby-trap. Undecided as to what he should do. But his consciousness feels not the slightest trace of the most embryonic emotion, as you would mistakenly suppose. For a moment I saw him moving off in the opposite direction; was he overwhelmed with remorse? But he turned back with renewed eagerness. Mervyn does not know why his temporal veins are beating so violently and he hurries on, obsessed with a dread of which he, and you, vainly seek the cause. He must be given credit for the determination he shows in trying to solve the riddle. But why does he not turn round? Then he would understand everything. Does one ever think of the simplest means of p
utting an end to an alarming state of mind? When a loiterer goes through the outskirts of town with a salad-bowl full of wine in his gullet and a tattered shirt, if in some shady corner he should see a sinewy cat, contemporary of the bloody revolutions witnessed by our fathers, melancholically contemplating the moonbeams which fall on the sleeping plain, he slinks forward in a curved line and gives a sign to a mangy dog, which leaps. The noble animal of the feline race bravely awaits in its adversary and fights dearly for its life. Tomorrow a rag-and-bone man will buy its electrifiable skin. Why did it not flee? It would have been so easy. But in the case which concerns us at the moment, Mervyn compounds the danger of his own ignorance. He has, as it were, a few exceedingly rare glimmerings, it is true, the vagueness of which I shall not now stop to demonstrate; yet it is impossible for him to guess the reality. He is no prophet, I do not deny it, and he makes no claims to be one. Arriving on the main arterial road, he turns right and crosses the Boulevard Poissniere and Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle. At this point along his way he goes into the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis, leaving behind him the platform of Strasbourg railway station, and stops before a raised portal, before reaching the perpendicular superposition of the Rue Lafayette. Since you advise me to end the first strophe at this point, I am quite willing, this once to accede to your wish. Do you know that when I think of the iron ring hidden under a stone by a maniac's hand, an uncontrollable shudder runs through my hair?

  4

  He pulls the copper knob, and the gate to the modern town house turns on its hinges. He strides across the courtyard, strewn with fine sand, and mounts the eight steps leading up to the front door. The two statues on each side, like guardians of the aristocratic villa, do not bar his way. He who has denied everything, father, mother, Providence, love, and the ideal, in order to think only of himself, has taken good care to follow the steps which went before him. He saw him enter a spacious ground-floor salon, with cornelian wainscoting. The son of the family flings himself on the sofa, and emotion chokes his speech. His mother, in a long flowing dress, smothers him with her loving attention, taking him in her arms. His brothers, younger than he, stand around the sofa, their hearts heavy; they do not know life well enough to be able to form a precise notion of the scene before them. At last the father raises his cane and looks with great authority at those present. His hands on the arm of the chair, he slowly gets up and, moving away from his accustomed seat, advances anxiously, though weakened by years, towards the motionless body of his first born. He speaks in a foreign language and they all listen to him in devout and respectful silence: 'Who did this to you, my boy? The foggy Thames will shift a notable amount of mud yet before my strength is completely exhausted. Protective laws do not seem to exist in this inhospitable land. If I knew who was responsible, he would feel the force of my hand. Though I have retired and am now far from the scene of maritime combat's, my commodore's sword on the wall is not yet rusty. Besides, it is easy to sharpen the blade. Mervyn, be calm. I shall give orders for the servants to start tracking down him who, henceforward, I intend to seek and kill with my own hands. Wife, begone from here, go and weep in a corner; your eyes move me, and you would do better to close up the ducts of your lachrymal glands. My son, I implore you, come to your senses, recognize your family. This is your father speaking to you...' His mother stands apart and in obedience to her master's orders has taken up a book and is trying to remain calm in face of the danger facing the son to whom her womb gave birth. 'Children, go and play in the park and take care, as you admire the swans swimming, not to fall into the water...' The brothers, their arms dangling by their sides, remain silent; they all, with feathers of the Carolina fern-owl in their hats, velvet breeches to the knees and red silk stockings, take one another by the hand and leave the room, taking care to touch the parquet floor only with the tips of their toes. I am sure they will not have much fun, but will walk solemnly between the plane-trees. They are precociously intelligent. So much the better for them. 'All my loving care is in vain, I lull you in my arms and you are impervious to my supplications. Will you lift up your head? I will kiss your knees, if necessary. But no...his head falls back again, inert.' 'My gentle master, if you will permit your slave, I shall go and look in my room for a phial of turpentine spirit which I habitually use when migraine invades my temples after I have returned from the theatre or when reading a stirring chronicle of British chivalric history throws my dream-laden mind into bogs of drowsiness.' 'Wife, I did not invite you to speak, and you had no right to do so. Since our lawful union, no cloud has come between us. I am content with you, I have never had a complaint to make against you; nor have you against me. Go and look in your room for the phial of turpentine spirit. I know there is one in the drawers of your dressing-table, there is no need to tell me. Hurry and mount the steps of the spiral staircase and then return to me with a look of gladness on your face.' But scarcely has this sensitive London woman reached the first step (she does not run as quickly as a member of the lower classes) than she sees one of her ladies-in-waiting coming down the stairs, her cheeks red with sweat, bringing the phial which perhaps contains the liquid of life within its crystal walls. The lady curtsies gracefully as she hands her the phial, and his mother moves towards the fringes of the sofa, where lay the sole object of her tenderness. The commodore, with a proud but kindly gesture, accepts the phial from his wife's hands. An Indian foulard is dipped in it, and Mervyn's head is swathed in orbicular windings of silk. He breathes the salts; he moves an arm. His circulation improves, and the joyous cries of a Philippine cockatoo, perching in the embrasure of a window, are heard. 'Who goes there?...Do not stop me...Where am I? Is this a coffin bearing up my heavy limbs? The wood seems soft. Is the locket with my mother's portrait in it still around my neck? Back, evil-doer with your hair awry. He could not catch me and was left with a piece of my doublet in his hands. Let the bulldogs off their chains, for this night a recognizable thief may break into our home while we are plunged in sleep. My father and mother, I recognize you, and thank you for your pains. Call my little brothers. I bought sugared almonds for them, and I wish to kiss them.' With these words, he falls into a deep lethargic state. The doctor, who had been hastily sent for, rubs his hands and exclaims: 'The crisis is over. Everything is all right. Tomorrow your son will wake up fit and well. Go now all of you to your respective beds, that I may remain beside the patient till the coming of dawn and the nightingale's song.' Maldoror, hidden behind the door, heard every word. Now he knows the character of those who live in this town-house, and will act accordingly. He knows where Mervyn lives, and wishes to know no more. He has noted in a pocket0book the name of the street and the number of the building. That is the main thing. He is sure to remember them now. He advances like a hyena, unseen, and slinks along the walls of the courtyard. He climbs the iron railing with agility, and for a moment his feet are caught in the iron spikes; in a leap, he is on the road. He creeps stealthily away. 'He took me for an evil-doer!' he exclaims. 'He is an imbecile. I should like to find a man to whom the accusation the sick boy has made against me does not apply. I did not tear off a piece of his doublet as he said. A simple hypnagogic illusion, brought on by fear. It was not my intention to seize him; for I have far different designs on this shy youth.' Make your way towards the lake where the swans are. And I will tell you later why there is a completely black one among them, with an anvil on his body on top of which is the putrefying corpse of a great crab, and I will tell you also why he rightly inspires mistrust in his aquatic fellows.

  5

  Mervyn is in his room. He has received a letter. Who could this be writing to him? His perplexity was such that he forgot to thank the postman. The envelope has a black border, and the words are written in a hurried hand. Will he go and take the letter to his father? And what if the signatory should expressly forbid it? Full of anxiety, he opens the window to breathe in the fragrance of the atmosphere; the sun's rays reflect their prismatic irradiations on to the Venetian mirrors and the damask
curtains. He throws the missive to one side amongst the gold-edged books and the albums with their mother-of-pearl bindings, all strewn over the repousse leather which covers the surface of his desk. He lifts the lid of the piano and runs his slender fingers along the ivory keys. The brass chords scarcely make a sound. This indirect warning induces him to pick up the vellum paper again; but it shrank away, as if offended by the addressee's hesitancy. Caught in this snare, Mervyn's curiosity increases, and he opens the piece of processed paper. Until that moment the only handwriting he had seen was his own. 'Young man, I am interested in you; I wish to make you happy. I will take you as my companion and we will go on long peregrinations in the isles of Oceania. Mervyn, you know I love you, and I do not need to prove it. I am sure you will grant me your friendship. When you know me better, you will not regret the trust you have placed in me. I will protect you from the dangers which your inexperience exposes you. I will be a brother to you, and you shall not lack good advice. For a more detailed explanation of my plans, be at the Carrousel bridge the day after tomorrow at five o'clock in the morning. If I have not arrived, wait for me; but I hope to be there at the right time. Make sure you do so too. An Englishman will not lightly pass by and opportunity to see clearly into his own affairs. You man, I remain, until we meet, your humble servant. Do not show this letter to anyone.'