8
The Almighty had sent one of his archangels down to earth to save the youth from certain death. He will be forced to come down himself! But we have not yet reached that point in our story and I find myself obliged to shut up, because I cannot say everything at once: every stage-trick will appear in its due place, as soon as the thread of this work of fiction considers the moment right. To avoid recognition, the archangel had taken the shape of a great crab, as big as a vicuna. He was standing on the jagged point of a reef out in the middle of the sea, and was awaiting the moment when the tide would recede, so that he could make his descent to the shore. The man with lips of jasper, hidden where the beach curved out of sight, was watching the animal, holding a stick in his hands. Who would have wished to read the thoughts of those two beings? The first was well aware that he had a difficult mission to accomplish: 'And how shall I succeed,' he exclaimed, with the swelling waves beating against his temporary refuge, 'where the courage and strength of my master have more than once failed him? I am only a being of finite substance, whereas no one knows where he is from, or what is his final purpose. The celestial armies tremble at his name; and in the regions from which I have just come, there are those who say that Satan himself, Satan, the incarnation of evil, is not more dreadful than he.' The other made the following reflections; they found an echo even in the azure cupola which they defiled: 'He appears to be completely inexperience; I shall swiftly settle his account. No doubt he comes from on high, sent by him who is so fearful of coming himself. We shall see, in the even, if he is as imperious as he seems; he is not an inhabitant of the terrestrial apricot; he betrays his seraphic origin by his wandering irresolute eyes.' The great crab, who for some time had been surveying a limited stretch of the coast, perceived our hero (who then drew himself up to his full Herculean height), and apostrophized him in the following terms: 'Do not attempt to struggle, give yourself up. I have been set by one who is superior to us both, to fetter you and make it impossible for the limbs which are the accomplices of your thoughts to move. Henceforward you will be forbidden to hold knives and daggers between your fingers, believe me; as much in your interest as in others. Dead or alive, I shall take you; my orders are to bring you back alive. Do not force me to have recourse to the power which has been vested in me. I shall behave with great tact; do not, on your part, attempt to resist. Thus I shall recognize, with alacrity and delight, that you have taken a first step towards repentance.' When our hero heard this harangue, bearing the stamp of such a profoundly comic wit, he had difficulty in keeping a serious expression on his rough and sunburnt features. But at last no one will be surprised if I add that he ended by bursting out laughing. It was too much fun for him! He did not mean any harm by it! He certainly did not wish to bring upon himself the great crab's reproaches! What efforts he made to contain his mirth! How often he pressed his lips against one another so as not to appear to offend his stunned interlocutor! Unfortunately, his character partook of human nature, and he laughed as sheep do! At last he stopped! And just in time! He had almost choked to death! The wind bore this answer to the archangel on the reef. 'When your master stops sending me snails and crayfish to settle his affairs, and deigns to parley with me personally, a means will, I am sure, be found for us to reach agreement, since I am inferior to him who sent you, as you have so rightly said. Until then, any idea of a reconciliation appears to me premature and likely to produce an illusory result. I am far from underestimating the good sense of every syllable you speak; and as we are uselessly wearing out our voices by shouting to one another at three kilometres' distance, it seems to me you would be wise to descend from your impregnable fortress and swim to dry land where we shall be able to discuss in greater comfort the conditions of a surrender which, however justifiable it may be, is still a disagreeable prospect for me.' The archangel, who had not been expecting such good will, withdrawing his indented head from the crevasse, answered: 'Oh Maldoror, has the day at last come when your abominable instincts will see the extinction of the torch of unjustifiable pride which is leading you to your damnation. I shall be the first to recount this laudable change of heart to the phalanges of cherubim, delighted to welcome back one of their own. You yourself know and have not forgotten, that there was once a time when you had the first place among us. Your name was on everyone's lips; at present you are the subject of our solitary conversations. Come then...come and make lasting peace with your former master; he will welcome you back like a prodigal son, and will not notice the enormous amount of guilt you bear, like a mountain fo moose antlers piled up by Indians in your heart.' He speaks, and his body emerges completely from the depths of the dark opening. He appears, radiant, on the surface of the reef; thus a priest appears when he is certain of retrieving a lost sheep. He is about to leap into the water, to swim towards the man who has just been forgiven. But the man with lips of sapphire had calculated his perfidious move. His stick has been violently hurled through the air; after skipping over many waves, it strikes the head of the benificent angel. The crab, mortally wounded, falls into the water. The tide washes the floating wreck up on to the shore. He was waiting for the tide so that it would be easier for him to swim to shore. Well, the tide came. It lulled him with its songs and set him down gently on the shore: is not the crab happy? What more does he want? And Maldoror, stooping down over the sand on the beach, takes two friends in his arms, inseparably united by the vagaries of the waves' movements; the corpse of the giant crab, and the murderous stick! 'I have not yet lost my skill,' he cries, 'all I need is practice; my arm has lost none of its strength, and my eyes are as sharp as ever.' He looks at the inanimate animal. He fears he will be brought to account for the blood he has shed. Where will he hide the archangel? And at the same time he wonders whether death was instantaneous. He put an anvil and a corpse on his back; he makes his way towards a vast lake, all the banks of which are covered and, so to speak, immured by an inextricable tangle of large rushes. He wanted at first to take a hammer, but it is too light an instrument, whereas with a heavier object, if the corpse gives any sign of life, he will put it on the ground and smash it to powder with blows of the anvil. No, it certainly is not strength his arm lacks; that is the least of his problems. Arriving in sight of the lake, he sees it peopled with swans. He says that it is a safe retreat for him; by means of a metamorphosis, without setting down his burden, he mingles with the rest of the company of birds. Observe the hand of Providence where one was tempted to say it was absent, and draw profit from the miracle of which I am about to speak. Black as a raven's wing, three times he swam among the group of palmipeds in their dazzling whiteness; three times that distinctive colour which made him look like a lump of coal failed to disappear. It is because God in his justice would not allow him to deceive even this flight of swans. So that he remained openly in the middle of the lake; but they all kept clear of him, and no bird approached his shameful plumage to keep him company. And so he confined his dives to a remote bay at one end of the lake, alone among birds as he had been among men. This was his prelude to the incredible event which took place in the Place Vendome!
9
The corsair with golden hair has received Mervyn's answer. Reading the strange page, he follows the intellectual anxiety of its writer, left as he was to the weak powers of his own suggestion. He would have done better to consult his parents before answering the stranger's protestations of friendship. no good will come of his being involved, as the principal actor, in this equivocal intrigue. But after all, he asked for it. At the agreed time Mervyn left the door of his house and went straight ahead, following the Boulevard Sebastopol to the Fontain Saint-Michel. He takes the Quai des Grands-Augustins and crosses the Quai Conti; as he passes along the Quai Malaquais, he sees an individual walking parallel with him, going in the same direction along the Quai du Louvre, carrying a sack under his arm. The man appears to be scrutinizing him. The morning mists have disperse. The two passers-by both come on to the Pont du Carrousel at the same tim
e, one from each side! Though they had never met before they recognized one another! Truly it was touching to see the souls of these two beings, so different in age, coming together in the nobility of their feelings. Such at least would have been the opinion of anyone who had stopped at this spectacle which many, even if mathematically minded, would have found moving. Mervyn, his face covered in tears was reflecting that he would find, so to speak at the entrance to his life, a precious support in future adversity. You may be sure that Maldoror said nothing. This is what he did: he took the sack from under his arm, unfolded it, unclasped it, and forced the youth's entire body down into the rough cloth envelop. With his handkerchief he knotted the top end. As Mervyn was uttering loud and piercing cries, he picked up the sack like a laundry-bag and smashed it several times against the parapet of the bridge. Then the patient, perceiving that his bones were snapping, became silent. A unique scene, which no novelist will ever again rediscover! A butcher was passing, sitting on top of the meat in his cart. An individual runs up to him, enjoins him to stop, and says to him: 'There is a dog in this sack; it has mange: put it down as soon as possible.' The butcher is glad to oblige. The man who hailed him sees, as he walks away, a young girl holding out her hand. To what heights of audacity and impiety can he go? He gives her alms. Tell me if you wish me to take you to the door of a remote slaughterhouse, some hours later. The butcher has returned, and said to his friends as he threw his load to the ground: 'Let us hurry up and kill this mangy dog.' There are four of them, and each one picks up the hammer which he normally uses. And yet they do not set about their work straightaway, because the sack is moving violently. 'What is coming over me?' one of them shouts, slowly lowering his arm. 'This dog is uttering cries of pain,' said another, 'you would think it knew the fate which awaits it.' 'They always do that,' a third answered, 'even when they are not sick as in this case, it is enough for their master to be away from home for a few days and they start howling in a manner which is truly painful to endure.' 'Stop!...stop!...' the fourth shouted, before all their arms had risen in unison, ready, this time, to strike decisively at the sack. 'Stop I tell you; there is a point here which has escaped us. What makes you so sure that this cloth sack contains a dog? I want to find out what is inside.' Then, despite the jibes of his companions, he untied the bundle and took out one after another the limbs of Mervyn! He had almost suffocated in his cramped position. He fainted when he saw the light of day again. A few moments later, he gave unmistakable signs of life. His rescuer said: 'Let this teach you, in the future, to be cautious, even in your own work. You almost found out for yourselves that it does not pay to fail to observe this law!' The butchers fled. Mervyn, heavy-hearted and full of dire forebodings, returns home and shuts himself up in his room. Do I need to dwell on this strophe? Ah! Who will not deplore the events which have occurred? Let us wait until the end to pass an even harsher judgment. The denouement is about to rush in on us; and, in tales of this sort, where a passion, whatever its nature, is given, and fears no obstacle as it makes its way, there is no occasion for diluting in a godet the shellac of eighty banal pages. What can be said in a half-a-dozen pages must be said, and then, silence.
10
In order to construct mechanically the brain of a somniferous story, it is not enough to dissect the reader's understanding with all kinds of folly and brutalize it completely with renewed doses, so as to paralyse his faculties for the rest of his life, by the infallible law of fatigue; one must, apart from this, by means of a good mesmerizing fluid, ingeniously reduce him to a somnambulic state in which it is impossible for him to move, forcing him to close his eyes against his inclination by the fixity of your own. I mean, and I say this not to make myself clear but only to develop my thoughts which interest and torment you at the same time by their most penetrating of harmonies, that I do not think it necessary, to achieve the goal one has set before one, to invent a poetry completely outside the laws of nature, and the pernicious breath of which seems to overthrow even absolute truths; but, to bring about such a result (consistent, moreover, with the rules of aesthetics, if one reflected well on it), is not as easy as you think. That is why I will make every possible effort to do so! If death put a stop to the fantastic movement of the two long gossamer-thin arms on my shoulders which I use in the lugubrious crushing of my literary gypsum, I at least want the reader, in the mourning, to be able to say: 'You have to do him justice. He has made me very stupid. What might he not have done if he could have lived longer! He is the best professor of hypnosis I know!' These few touching words will be carved on the marble of my tomb, and my shades will be content!--I shall continue! There was a fish's tail moving at the bottom of a hole, beside a down-at-the-heel boot. It was not natural to wonder: 'Where is the fish? I only see the tail moving.' For precisely since one was implicitly admitting one's inability to see the fish, it was because it was not really there. The rain had left a few drops of water in the bottom of this funnel in the sand. As for the down-at-heel boot, there have been those who thought that it was left there deliberately by someone. By divine power the great crab was to be reborn from his disintegrated elements. He took the fish's tail from the well and promised to put it back on to its lost body again if it announced to the Creator his proxy's inability to tame the waves of the raging Maldorean sea. He gave it two albatross wings, and the fish's tail took flight. But it flew up to the renegade's abode, to tell him what was happening and betray the great crab. But the latter guessed the spy's designs and, before the third day had drawn to its close, pierced the fish's tail with a poisoned dart. The spy's gullet uttered a feeble sigh and it gave up the ghost before it hit the ground. Then an ancient beam in the roof of a chateau drew itself up again to its full height, springing back on itself and crying out aloud for vengeance. But the Almighty changed into a rhinoceros, told him that this death was deserved. The beam calmed down and went back to its place in the heart of the manor, took up its horizontal position again and called back to it the frightened spiders, that they might continue, as in the past, to spin their webs in its corners. The man with lips of sulphur learnt of his ally's weakness; that is why he ordered the crowned madman to set fire to the beam and reduce it to ashes. Aghone carried out this harsh order. 'Since, according to you, the moment has come,' he exclaimed, 'I have gone and taken out the ring which I had buried beneath the stone, and I have attached it to the end of the rope. Here is the bundle.' And he held out a thick rope, rolled up and sixty metres long. His master asked him what the fourteen daggers were doing. He replied that they remained loyal and were ready for any event, if need be. The desperado nodded his head as a sign of approval. But he evinced surprise and even anxiety when Aghone added that he had seen a cock split a candelabra in two with its beak, look closely at each of the parts and cry out, as it beat its wings in a frenzied movement: 'It is not as far as you think from the Rue de la Paix to the Place du Pantheon. Soon we shall see the lamentable proof of these words.' The great crab, mounted on a fiery steed, was hurtling at full speed in the direction of the reef which had seen the stick flung by the tattooed arm, the reef which was his refuge the first day he came down to earth. A caravan of pilgrims was making its way to visit this place, thenceforward hallowed by an august death. He hoped to reach it, to beg urgently for help against the plot which was being hatched and of which he had been informed. You will see a few lines further on with the aid of my glacial silence that he did not arrive in time to tell them what a ragman had recounted to him of the day when, hidden behind the scaffolding of a house being built, he had looked towards the Pont Carrousel, still stained with the damp dew of night. The bridge had witnessed with horror the matinal sight of an icosahedron sack being rhythmically kneaded against its limestone parapet, and its notion of the possible had been confusedly enlarged in ever widening concentric circles. Before he arouses their compassion with the memory of that episode, they will do well to destroy the seed of hope within themselves...To shake yourself out of your inertia, put the resources o
f your good will to use, walk beside me and do not lose sight of that madman, his head covered in a chamberpot, pushing along, with a stick in his hand, one whom you would have difficulty in recognizing unless I took the trouble to warn you and to recall to your ear the name pronounced Mervyn. How he has changed! With his hand tied behind his back he is walking straight ahead as if he were going to the scaffold, and yet he is guilty of no crime. They have arrived at the circular enclosure of the Place Vendome. On the entabulature of the column, leaning against the square balustrade more than fifty metres above the ground, a man has flung and uncoiled a rope which falls to the ground a few steps from Aghone. With practice, a thing is quickly done; but I can say that the latter did not take much time to tie Mervyn's feet to the end of the rope. The rhinoceros had learnt of what was going to happen. Bathed in sweat, he appeared, gasping, at the corner of the Rue Castiglione. He did not even have the satisfaction of joining combat. The individual, who was surveying the area from the top of the column, loaded his revolver, carefully took aim, and pulled the trigger. The commodore, who had been begging in the streets since the day when what he believed to be his son's madness had begun, and his mother, called the snow-daughter because of her extreme pallor, thrust forward and flung themselves in front of the rhinoceros to protect it. Vain attempt! The bullet went through his skin as if it were a tendril; one would have thought, with all the appearance of logic, that death must inevitably follow. But we knew that this pachyderm had been endued with the substance of the Lord. He withdrew in sorrow. If it were not decisively proved that he is too merciful to everyone of his creatures, I should pity the man on the column. The latter, with a flick of his wrist, draws in the rope, which has been weighted in the manner described. Now out of the perpendicular, its swinging movements sway Mervyn, who is looking downwards. Suddenly he snatches up in his hands a long garland of immortelles which joins the consecutive angles of the base against which his head smashes. He carries off into the air with him that which was not a fixed point. Having piled a large part of the rope at his feet in the shape of superposed ellipses, so that Mervyn remains hanging half way up the bronze obelisk, the escaped convict, with his right hand, forced the youth into an accelerated motion of uniform rotation, in a plane parallel to the column's axis, and gathered up in his left hand the serpentine coils of the rope, which lay at his feet. The sling whistles through space; Mervyn's body follows it everywhere, always kept away from the centre by centrifugal force, always maintaining an equidistant and moving position in a aerial circumference independent of matter. The civilized savage gradually lets out the rope until he comes to the end, which he holds in his firm metacarpus, which bears a strong, but deceptive, resemblance to a bar of steel. He starts to run round the balustrade, holding on to the ramp by one hand. This operation has the effect of changing the original plane of the rope's revolution, and increasing its already considerable tensile force. Thereafter he turns majestically in a horizontal plane, having passed successively and by imperceptible degrees through several oblique planes. The right angle formed by the column and the vegetable string has equal sides. The renegade's arm and the murderous instrument merge in linear unity, like the atomistic elements of a light penetrating a dark room. The theorems of mechanics allow me to speak thus; alas! we know that one force added to another force will produce a resultant consisting of the two original forces! Who would dare to assert that the linear cordage would not already have snapped, had it not been for the strength of the athlete and the good quality of the hemp? The golden-haired corsair, all at once and quite suddenly, stops running, opens his hand and releases the rope. The recoil of this operation, so opposite to those that had preceded it, makes the balustrade creak in its joints. Mervyn, followed by the rope, is like a comet trailing behind it its flaming tail. The iron ring of the running knot, glittering in the sun's rays, invites one to complete this illusion for oneself. In the course of his parabola, the condemned youth cleaves the atmosphere up to the left bank, goes past it by virtue of the impulsive force which I suppose to be infinite, and his body strikes the Dome of the Pantheon, while the rope coils itself partly around the upper wall of the immense cupola. On its spherical and convex surface, which resembles an orange only in its form, one can, at any hour of the day, see a dried skeleton hanging. When the wind blows it, they say that the students of the Quartier Latin, fearing a similar fate, say a short prayer: these are insignificant rumours which one is by no means obliged to believe, and which are only fit for scaring little children. It holds in its clenched hands a kind of large ribbon of old yellow flowers. One must bear the distance in mind, an nobody, despite the evidence of his good eyesight, can state that they are really the immortelles of which I have spoken and which were snatched from an imposing pedestal near the Nouvel Opera in the course of a one-sided struggle. It is nevertheless true that the crescent-moon shaped garments no longer take the expression of their definitive symmetry from the quaternary number: go and see for yourself, if you do not believe me.