MALDOROR

(LES CHANTS DE MALDOROR)

1

MAY it please Heaven that the reader, emboldened and become of a sudden momentarily ferocious like what he is reading, may trace in safety his pathway through the desolate morass of these gloomy and poisonous pages. For unless he is able to bring to his reading a rigorous logic and a spiritual tension equal at least to his distrust, the deadly emanations of this book will imbibe his soul as sugar absorbs water.

It would not be well that all men should read the pages that are to follow; a few only may savor their bitter fruit without danger. So, timid soul, before penetrating further into such uncharted lands, set your feet the other way. Listen well to what I tell you: set your feet the other way like the eyes of a son who lowers his gaze respectfully before the august countenance of his mother; or rather, like a wedge of flying, cold-trembling cranes which in the winter time with much meditation, fly powerfully through the silence, full sail, towards a predetermined point in the horizon from which of a sudden springs a strange, strong wind, advance-guard of the tempest. The oldest crane, solitary pilot, shakes her head like a reasoning person on seeing this and raises a clatter with her beak and is uneasy (as I would be in her place), while her old bald neck whose falling feathers have measured three generations of cranes undulates in irritation as she gives warning of the approaching storm. After having gazed calmly about her on all sides with her wise old eyes, this first crane (for it is she who has the privilege of displaying her tail-feathers before her less intelligent companions) utters the warning cry of a sorrowing sentinel and to repel the enemy which threatens them all alike deftly puts about the point of the geometric figure (perhaps it is a triangle, but one cannot see the third side formed in space by these curious birds of passage) either to port or starboard like a skilfull captain; and maneuvering with wings that seem no larger than those of a sparrow, she shapes, since she is not stupid, another course, safer and more philosophical.

Reader, it is perchance hatred that you would have me invoke at the beginning of this work! How do you know that you would not snuff it up, lapped around with limitless sensations of pleasure, as much as you want of it, snuff it up through your wide, thin, prideful nostrils, turning up your stomach like a shark in the fine dark air as if you understood the importance of the action no less than the importance of your legitimate appetite as you inhale the ruddy emanations? I assure you the savor will rejoice those two malformed holes in your hideous snout, O monster, if beforehand you breathe in three thousand times the accursed consciousness of the Eternal! Your nostrils, which will be enormously dilated with ineffable content, with motionless ecstacy, will demand nothing better of space, no sweeter perfume, no finer incense: for they will be sated with a complete happiness like unto the angels which peacefully and magnificently inhabit the pleasant heavens.

In a few lines I shall establish how Maldoror was virtuous during his first years, virtuous and happy. Later he became aware that he was born evil. Strange fatality! He concealed his character as best he could for many years; but in the end, because such concentration was unnatural to him, every day the blood would mount to his head until the strain reached a point where he could no longer bear to live such a life and he gave himself over resolutely to a career of evil . . . sweet atmosphere! Who could have realized that whenever he embraced a young child with rosy cheeks he longed to slice off those cheeks with a razor, and he would have done it many times had he not been restrained by the thought of Justice with her long funereal procession of punishments. He was no liar, he acknowledged the truth and admitted that he was cruel. Humans, did you hear? He dares to repeat it with this trembling pen! Hence it is a force more powerful than the will. A curse! Could a stone resist the law of gravity? Impossible. Impossible that evil should form an alliance with good. I have stated this before.

There are those who write to gain the applause of men by inventing noble sentiments of the heart, which indeed they may even possess. As for me I use my genius to depict the delights of cruelty! No passing joys these, nor are they false, but they were born with Man and will die with him. May not genius ally itself with cruelty in the secret resolutions of Providence? Or, because one is cruel, may one not possess genius? The proof of this you will find in my utterances: all you have to do is listen to me if you will.

Excuse me: it seemed to me that my hair was standing up on my scalp, but it is nothing, for I can easily smooth it down again with my hand.

He who is singing now does not claim that his songs are new. On the contrary, he is proud in the knowledge that all the lofty and wicked thoughts of his hero reside within all men.

All my life I have seen narrow-shouldered man, without exception, perform innumerable stupid actions, brutalize his fellows and poison minds by every conceivable means. The motivation of such behavior he calls, ‘Glory.’ Seeing these things I have desired to laugh with the others, but this strange imitation was impossible for me. I have taken a pocket-knife and severed the flesh at the spot where the lips come together. For a moment I thought to have accomplished my end. I looked into a mirror and inspected the mouth I had deliberately butchered. It was a mistake! The blood falling copiously from the two wounds made it impossible to distinguish whether this was really the laughter of other men. But after several minutes of comparison I could see clearly that my smile in no way resembled human laughter: in other words, I was not laughing.

I have seen men, men of hideous aspect with terrible eyes set deep in their skulls, transcend the hardness of rock, the rigidity of cast steel, the cruelty of sharks, the insolence of youth, the insensate rage of criminals, the treachery of hypocrites, the most outlandish clowns, the force of character of priests, the most introverted beings, and creatures colder than earth or heaven.

The moralist wearies of seeking their hearts and of bringing down upon them the implacable wrath from on high.

I have seen them all together, now with a powerful fist raised towards heaven like that of a child already defying its mother, probably inspired by some sprite from hell, their eyes filled with a remorse at once burning and hateful, in glacial silence, daring not to unleash the mighty and evil meditations that they harbor in their breasts, so pregnant are they with injustice and horror, saddening with compassion the God of mercy.

And I have seen them at every moment of the day from infancy to old age, while scattering about them the most unbelievable insensate curses against everything breathing, against themselves and against Providence, prostitute women and children and dishonor those parts of the body consecrated to modesty.

Then the oceans rise up and drag down the ships into their depths; hurricanes and earthquakes destroy buildings; plagues and divers sicknesses decimate the praying families. But men are not aware of all this. I have seen them also blushing and paling with shame for their conduct on earth: this rarely.

Tempests, sisters of hurricanes; blue firmament, whose beauty I do not admit; hypocritical sea, image of my heart; mysterious-bosomed earth; dwellers upon other planets; vast universe; God, who created it all magnificently, it is you whom I invoke: show me a good man! But let your grace increase tenfold my natural strength, for at the sight of such a monster I might die of astonishment. One dies for less.

One should let one’s fingernails grow for fifteen days. O, how sweet it is to snatch some child brutally from his bed, a child who has nothing as yet upon his upper lip, and, wide-eyed, to make a pretence of passing your hand smoothly over his brow, brushing back his beautiful hair! Then, suddenly, when he is least expecting it, to plunge your long nails deep into his soft breast in such a manner as not to destroy life; for should he die you could not later enjoy his sufferings. Then you drink the blood, passing your tongue over the wounds; and during this time, which should last as long as eternity lasts, the child weeps. There is nothing so delicious as his blood, extracted in the manner I have described, and still warm, unless it be his tears, bitter as salt.

Man, have you ever tasted your own blood when by accident you have cut your finger? How good it is, for it is tasteless! Moreover, do you recollect how on a certain day amid your sorrowful meditations you raised your cupped hand to your sickly tear-wet face, and then how inevitably your mouth sucked up the tears from that goblet that trembled like the teeth of a schoolboy as he glances at him who was born to oppress him? How good they were, for they taste of vinegar! One might call them the tears of the greatest lover among women, but the child’s tears are more pleasant to the palate. The child will not deceive you, knowing nothing yet of evil. The greatest lover among women would betray you sooner or later . . . I divine this by analogy since I am ignorant of what friendship and love are (it is probable that I shall never accept them, at least from the human race).

Well, then: since your own blood and your own tears do not disgust you, be nourished with confidence upon the blood and the tears of the child. Bind his eyes while you are rending his palpitating flesh; and having listened for hours to his sublime outcries which resemble the piercing shrieks torn from the throats of the dying wounded on a battlefield, rush away from him like an avalanche; then return in haste and pretend to be coming to his assistance. You will unbind his hands with their swollen nerves and veins, then restore sight to his wild eyes, and you will again begin to lap up his tears and his blood. How real a thing, then, is repentance! The divine spark that dwells within us and shows itself so rarely appears: too late! How your heart overflows with joy that you are able to console the innocent whom someone has hurt!

“Child, who have suffered such cruel pain: who could have perpetrated such a crime upon you, a crime for which I can find no name! Wretched infant, how you must have suffered! And if your mother knew of it she would be no nearer to death (so greatly dreaded by the guilty) than I am at this moment. Alas! What is good and what is evil? Are they one and the same thing, by which we savagely bear witness to our impotence and our passion to attain the infinite, even by the most insensate means? Or are they two different things? Yes . . . they had better be one and the same, for if they are not what will become of me on the Day of Judgment?

Child, forgive me! It is he who now contemplates your noble and sacred countenance who broke your bones and tore the flesh that hangs from your body. Was it a delirium of my ailing reason? Was it a secret instinct, unrelated to judgment, like that of an eagle rending its prey, that forced me to commit this crime? And yet I too suffered as much as did my victim! Child, forgive me! Once I am rid of this transitory life I want us to be joined together through eternity, to form one inseparable being, my mouth pressed forever upon your mouth. Even in this wise my punishment will not be complete. You shall rend my flesh unceasingly with teeth and nails. I shall deck my body with scented garlands for this expiatory holocaust, and we shall suffer together, you from rending me and I from being torn . . . my mouth pressed forever upon your mouth. O child, O golden-haired, gentle-eyed child, will you do as I counsel you now? In spite of yourself I want you to do it, and you will soothe my conscience.”

Having spoken thus you will at once have done injury to a human being and be loved by that same being: this is the greatest happiness the mind can conceive.

Later you can take the child to a hospital, for the cripple will be unable to earn his livelihood. They will call you a good man and wreaths of laurel and medals of gold will hide your naked feet. O you whose name I will not inscribe upon this page which is dedicated to the sanctity of crime, I know that your pardon will be as all-embracing as the universe. But I: I still exist!

I have made a pact with prostitution in order to sow disorder among families. I remember the night that preceded this dangerous alliance. I saw before me a tomb. I heard a glowworm, large as a house, saying to me:

“I will be your light. Read the inscription. It is not from me whence comes this supreme command.”

A vast bloodred radiance at the appearance of which my jaws chattered and my arms fell powerless to my sides, spread out through the air to the horizon. I leaned against a ruined wall, for I felt myself falling, and I read:

“Here lies a child who died consumptive. You know why. Pray not for him.”

Many men perhaps would not have had my courage. Meanwhile a naked and beautiful woman came and lay down at my feet. Sad-faced, I said to her:

“You may arise.”

I offered her the hand with which a fratricide disembowels his sister. The glowworm said to me: “You: take a stone and kill her.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Beware,” he said to me, “you are the weaker for I am the stronger. This woman is called Prostitution.”

Tears rushed to my eyes, rage to my heart, and I felt an unknown power born within me. I seized a great rock and after a struggle raised it barely to the level of my breast. I balanced it upon my shoulder. I climbed to the summit of a mountain: thence, I crushed the glowworm. Its head was forced into the earth to the height of a man; the stone bounded into the air as high as six churches and fell into a lake the waters of which momentarily sank, whirling, hollowing into an immense inverted cone. Then the confusion subsided, the bloody glare was no more.

“Alas, alas!” shrieked the naked and beautiful woman, “what have you done?”

“I prefer you to him,” I replied, “because I pity the unfortunate. It is not your fault that eternal justice created you.”

“Some day,” she said, “men will render me justice. I will say no more. Let me go and conceal my infinite sorrow at the bottom of the sea. Only you, and the loathsome monsters that haunt those murky depths, do not despise me. You are good. Farewell, you who have loved me!”

And I:

“Farewell, again farewell! I shall love you always. From today I abandon virtue!”

It is for this reason, O peoples of the earth, that when you shall hear the winter wind sighing over the sea and along its shores, or across the great cities which long ago were decked in mourning for me, or through the icy polar regions, you shall say:

“That is not the spirit of God passing. It is only the bitter sigh of Prostitution mingled with the solemn groans of the Montevidean.”

Children, it is I who tell you this. And so, full of pity, fall upon your knees; and let mankind, more numerous than lice, offer up long prayers.

By moonlight in lonely places near the sea when you are plunged in bitter reflections you see that everything assumes a yellowish appearance, vague, fantastic. The tree-shadows, now swift now slow, chase hither and yon as they flatten themselves against the earth. Long ago when I was borne upon the wings of youth this seemed strange to me and made me dream; now I am used to it. The wind murmurs its langorous strain through the leaves and the owl intones his sad complaint while the hair of those who hear stands on end.

Then infuriated dogs snap their chains and escape from distant farms; they rush through the countryside, here, there and everywhere, in the grip of madness. Suddenly they stop, turn their fiery eyes in all directions, savagely uneasy, and, as elephants in the desert before dying cast one last glance towards heaven, desperately lifting their trunks, their ears hanging limp, so the dogs’ ears droop and they raise their heads: their necks swell horribly and one by one they commence to howl, like a child crying from hunger, or a cat wounded in the stomach up on the roof, or a woman about to be delivered of a child, or a plague victim dying in the hospital, or a young girl singing a divine melody.

The dogs howl at the northern stars, at the eastern stars, at the southern stars, at the western stars; at the moon; at the mountains which at a distance resemble giant rocks reclining in the shadows; at the keen air they breathe in deep lungfuls, burning and reddening their nostrils; at the silence of the night; at an owl, whose slanting flight brushes the dogs’ muzzles as it wings swiftly on its way carrying a rat or a frog in its beak, living food, sweet morsel for the fledglings; at the hares that vanish in the wink of an eye; at the robber who is galloping away on his horse after his crime has been done; at the snakes, rustling in the briars, making the dogs’ flesh creep and their teeth grit; at their own howlings, which scare themselves; at the toads which they crush with a single snap of their jaws (why are these toads so far from the marshes?); at the trees whose gently-cradled leaves are so many mysteries that the dogs cannot understand, that they would penetrate with their steady, intelligent eyes; at the spiders suspended between their own legs, who climb the trees to escape; at the crows who have found nothing to eat all day and return to their nests with weary wings; at the rocks on the shore; at the lights on the masts of invisible vessels; at the heavy sound of the sea; at the great fish, which as they swim reveal their black backs before plunging again into the depths; and at Man who makes slaves out of dogs.

After all this they scamper over the countryside again, leaping with their bleeding feet over ditches and pathways, fields, pastures and steep rocks. You would think they were mad with rabies and seeking some vast pond in which to assuage their thirst. Their endless howling horrifies nature. Alas for the wayfarer! These friends of the cemeteries will fling themselves upon him, tear him to pieces, devour him with their blood-dripping jaws; for the dogs have sharp teeth. Wild animals, not daring to invite themselves to share this feast of flesh, hasten trembling away. After many hours the dogs, weary of racing hither and yon, almost expiring, their tongues lolling out of their mouths, throw themselves upon one another, not knowing what they are doing, and tear one another into a thousand pieces with incredible rapidity. They do not behave thus from cruelty. One day my mother, her eyes glassy-looking, said to me:

“When you are in bed and you hear the howling of the dogs in the fields, hide yourself beneath your blankets, don’t make a jest of what they are doing: they have the insatiable thirst for the infinite, like you, like me, like the rest of us human beings with our long, pale faces. I will even permit you to stand at the window and see this spectacle, which is rather magnificent.”

Since that time I have respected the dead woman’s wish. I, even as the dogs, feel a yearning for the infinite . . . I cannot, I cannot satisfy that hunger! I am the son of a man and a woman, from what they tell me. This astounds me . . . I had thought to be more than this! Yet what difference does it make whence I come? For my part, if it had been left to me I would much rather have been the son of a female shark, whose hunger is the friend of the tempest; and of a tiger, whose cruelty is acknowledged: I would be less evil.

You who now are gazing upon me: stand back, for my breath exhales poison. No one yet has seen the green furrows in my forehead, nor the protruding bones of my emaciated face, resembling the bones of some great fish, or the rocks which cover the seashore, or the rugged Alpine mountains which I climbed often when my hair was of a different color. And when I wander with burning eyes and hair whipped by tempestuous winds, during nights of storm, lonely as a stone in the middle of the road, around the habitations of men, I cover my blighted face with a bit of velvet black as the soot that coats the chimney. No eyes may dwell upon the ugliness that the Creator, with a grin of potent hatred, has afflicted upon me.

Every morning, when the sun rises for others spreading joy and wholesome warmth everywhere, I crouch in my beloved cave in a state of despair that intoxicates me like wine: I stare into the shadowy wastes of space and I tear my breast to ribbons with my strong hands. Yet I do not feel overcome with rage! And I do not feel that I am suffering alone! But I do feel that I am breathing! Like a condemned man trying his muscles while reflecting upon their destiny, knowing that he is about to mount the scaffold, I stand upright on my straw pallet, my eyes closed, and I turn my head slowly from right to left, from left to right, for whole hours on end. I do not fall stone dead. From time to time, when my neck cannot continue to turn farther in one direction, when it stops to return in the opposite direction, I look sharply towards the horizon, peering through the few spaces left by the bushes covering the entrance to my cave. I see nothing! Nothing . . . unless it be fields whirling with trees and long files of birds winging through the air. All this disturbs my blood and my brain. . . . Who is it beating upon my head with a bar of iron like a hammer beating upon an anvil?

I propose to proclaim in a loud voice and without emotion the cold and grave chant that you are about to hear. Consider carefully what it contains and guard yourself against the painful impression it cannot fail to leave like a blight upon your troubled imaginings. Do not believe that I am on the point of death for I am not yet a skeleton and old age does not rest upon my brow. Consequently let us reject any idea of comparing me with a swan at the moment when its life is about to take wing; and see before you nothing but a monster whose face, I am happy to say, is hidden from you. Yet this face is less horrible than the soul, and nevertheless I am no criminal. . . . But enough of that.

Not long ago I saw the sea once again and trod upon the bridges of ships; my memories of it are as lively as if it had all happened yesterday. If you are able, however, be as calm as I am as you read what is to follow (for already I regret offering it to you) and do not blush for the human heart.

O octopus of the silky glance! You whose soul is inseparable from mine; you, the most beautiful creature upon the terrestrial globe; you, chieftain of a seraglio of four hundred sucking-cups; you, in whom are nobly enthroned as though in their natural habitat, by a common agreement and with an indestructible bond, the divine graces and the sweet virtue of communication: why are you not with me, your belly of quicksilver pressed to my breast of aluminum, the two of us sitting here together upon a rock by the shore as we contemplate the spectacle I adore!

Ancient ocean, crystal-waved, you resemble somewhat those bluish marks that one sees upon the battered backs of cabin-boys; you are a vast bruise inflicted upon the body of earth: I love this comparison. At the first sight of you a long breath of sadness that might be the murmur of your own bland zephyr passes over the deeply moved soul, leaving ineffaceable scars, and you recall to the memories of those who love you, though they are not always aware of it, the crude origins of man when first he made the acquaintance of the sorrow that has never deserted him. I salute you, ancient ocean!

Ancient ocean, your harmonious sphere, rejoicing the grave countenance of geometry, reminds me too much of man’s little eyes, in paltriness resembling those of the boar and those of the nightbird in the circular perfection of their contour. Yet man has thought himself beautiful throughout the centuries. As for me, I presume that he believes in his beauty only from pride, but that he is not really beautiful and that he suspects this, for why does he contemplate the countenance of his fellow-man with so much scorn? I salute you, ancient ocean!

Ancient ocean, you are the symbol of identity: always equal to yourself. Essentially you never change, and if your waves are somewhere lashed into fury, elsewhere they are stilled in the most complete peace. You are not like men, who linger in the street to watch two bulldogs tearing at each other’s throats but who hurry on when a funeral passes; who in the morning may be reasonable and in the evening evil-tempered; who laugh today and weep tomorrow. I salute you, ancient ocean!

Ancient ocean, it might not be impossible that you conceal within your bosom future utilities for man. You have already given him the whale. You do not willingly yield up the thousand secrets of your intimate organism to the hungry eyes of the natural sciences: you are modest. Man praises himself constantly, and for what trifles! I salute you, ancient ocean!

Ancient ocean, the different species of fish that you nourish have not sworn brotherhood among themselves. Each species lives in its own place. The varying temperaments and conformations of each one explain satisfactorily what appears at first to be an anomaly. So it is with Man, who has not the same motives to excuse him. If a piece of land is inhabited by thirty million humans, these believe that they are forced to stand aloof from the existence of their neighbors who are rooted in an adjacent piece of land. To descend from the general to the particular, each man lives like a savage in his lair, rarely coming forth to visit his fellows similarly crouching in another den. The great universal family of human beings is a Utopia worthy of the meanest logic. Furthermore, from the spectacle of your fruitful breasts the idea of ingratitude is suggested, for we think of those innumerable parents ungrateful enough to the Creator to abandon the fruit of their wretched unions. I salute you, ancient ocean!

Ancient ocean, your material vastness may be compared only with the active natural force that was necessary to beget your total mass. A glance is not sufficient to encompass you. To envision your entirety the sight must revolve its telescope in a continuous movement towards the four points of the horizon, just as a mathematician when he resolves an equation must examine various possible solutions before attacking the problem. Man devours nutritive substances and, in order to appear fat, makes other efforts worthy of a better cause. Let the beloved bullfrog inflate itself to its heart’s desire. Be calm: it will never equal you in size. At least I suppose not. I salute you, ancient ocean.

Ancient ocean, your waters are bitter. They have exactly the same flavor as the gall distilled by critics upon the fine arts, the sciences, upon all. If there should be a man of genius they make him out an idiot. If someone should have a beautiful body he is called a hideous hunchback. Indeed, it must be that man feels his imperfections strongly (three quarters of which, incidentally, are his own fault) to criticize himself thus! I salute you, ancient ocean!

Ancient ocean, men, despite the excellence of their methods and assisted by scientific means of investigation, have not yet succeeded in plumbing the dizzy depths of your abyss. You have profundities that the longest and heaviest soundings have recognized inaccessible. To do so is granted to fish, but not to mankind. I have often asked myself which is the easier to recognize: the depth of the ocean or the depth of the human heart! Often as I stand watching the ships, my hand to my brow while the moon swings askew between the masts, I have surprised myself, blind to everything but the goal I was pursuing, trying to solve this difficult problem! Yes, which is the deeper, the more inpenetrable of the two: the ocean or the human heart? If thirty years experience of life can to a certain degree swing the balance in favor of one or the other of these solutions, I should be allowed to assert that, despite the depth of the ocean it cannot touch, in a comparison on these grounds, the depth of the human heart. I have known men who were virtuous. They died at sixty and the world never failed to exclaim: “They did good on this earth. That is to say, they practised charity, that is all. They were not wicked. Anyone could do as much.” Who may understand why two lovers who idolized one another the night before will quarrel over a single misunderstood word and flee on the wings of hatred to opposite points of the compass, full of love and remorse yet refusing to see one another, each cloaked in lonely pride? This is a miracle that occurs daily and is none the less miraculous for that. Who may comprehend why we delight not only in the general misfortunes of mankind but also those of our dearest friends, while at the same time we suffer for them? Here is an irrefutable example to terminate the series: man says hypocritically, yes; and thinks, no. Thus it is that the wild boars of humanity have so much confidence in one another and are not self-centered. Psychology has a long way to go. I salute you, ancient ocean!

Ancient ocean, you are so powerful that men have learned this at their own expense. In vain they have employed all the resources of their genius . . . they cannot enslave you. They have found their master. I say that they have found something stronger than they. This something has a name. This name is: the ocean! Such is the fear that you inspire in them that they respect you. In spite of that you toss their heaviest machines around with grace, elegance, and ease. You make them leap acrobatically into the heavens, and you make them plunge into the very depths of your domains: a professional tumbler would be jealous of you. Happy are they whom you do not envelop utterly in your boiling coils, swallowing them into your watery guts without benefit of railroads to find out how the fishes are doing, and more important still how they themselves are doing. Man says: “I am more intelligent than the ocean.” This is possible, even more or less true. But the ocean inspires more dread in him than he in the ocean. No proof of this is necessary. That patriarchal observer, contemporary of the first epoch of our suspended globe, smiles pityingly when he contemplates the naval battles of nations. Here are a hundred leviathans issued from the hands of humanity. The sharp commands of the officers, the shrieks of the wounded, the blasts of cannon, all this is a hullabaloo purposely created to kill a few seconds of time. It appears that the drama is over, that the ocean has engulfed everything into its belly. Its mouth is enormous. The ocean must be vast towards the bottom, in the direction of the unknown! Finally to crown the stupid farce, which is not even interesting, some travel-weary stork appears in the air and without interrupting its flight cries out: “This displeases me! There were some black dots down there. I closed my eyes and they disappeared!” I salute you, ancient ocean!

Ancient ocean, O greatest of celibates, as you wander amid the solemn solitudes of your quiet kingdoms you are justly proud of your native magnificence and of the justifiable eulogies I am eager to offer you. Voluptuously cradled by the gentle flow of your majestic deliberation, which is among the greatest of the attributes bestowed upon you by the sovereign power, gloomily, mysteriously you unfold over your sublime surface your incomparable waves with the quiet sense of your eternal strength. They follow one another in parallel lines, each separated from the next by a brief distance. Scarcely has one subsided than another swells to replace it, to the accompaniment of the melancholy sound of breaking foam, warning us that all is foam. (So do human beings, those living waves, die monotonously one after another; but they leave no foamy music). Birds of passage rest upon the waves confidently and abandon themselves to their motion, full of graceful pride, until the bones of their wings have recovered their customary strength and they continue their aerial pilgrimage. I would that human majesty were but the reflection of your own. I ask much, and this sincere wish is a glory for you. Your moral greatness, image of the infinite, is vast as the meditations of a philosopher, as the love of a woman, as the heavenly beauty of a bird, as the thoughts of a poet. You are more beautiful than the night.

Tell me, ocean, will you be my brother? Roll wildly . . . more wildly yet . . . if you would have me compare you to the vengeance of God.

Spread out your livid claws and tear yourself out a pathway in your own bosom . . . that is good.

Roll your appalling breakers, hideous ocean, understood by me alone, and before whose feet I fall prostrate.

Man’s majesty is borrowed; it shall not overcome me. You, yes.

Oh, when you advance, your crest high and terrible, surrounded by your tortuous coils as by a royal court, magnetic and wild, rolling your waves one upon the other full of the consciousness of what you are; and when you give utterance from the depths of your bosom as if you were suffering the pangs of some intense remorse which I have been unable to discover, to that perpetual heavy roar so greatly feared by men even when, trembling on the shore, they contemplate you in safety: then I can perceive that I do not possess that signal right to name myself your equal.

Hence in the presence of your superiority I would bestow upon you all my love (and none may know how much love is contained in my aspirations towards beauty) if you would not make me reflect sadly upon my fellow men, who form the most ironical contrast to you, the most clownish antithesis that has ever been seen in creation.

I cannot love you, I detest you. Why do I return to you, for the thousandth time, to your friendly arms which part to caress my burning brow, their very contact extinguishing my fever! I know not your secret destiny. All that concerns you interests me. Tell me whether you are the dwelling-place of the Prince of Darkness. Tell me this, ocean . . . tell me (me alone, for fear of distressing those who have yet known nothing but illusion) whether the breath of Satan creates the tempests that fling your salty waters up to the clouds. You must tell me this because I should love to know that hell is so close to man.

I desire that this should be the last verse of my invocation. So, just once more, I would salute you and bid you farewell! Ancient ocean, crystal waved. . . . My eyes fill with copious tears and I have not the strength to proceed, for I feel that the moment is come to return among men with their brutal aspect. But, courage! Let us make a great effort, and accomplish dutifully our destiny on this earth. I salute you, ancient ocean!

You will not see me at my last hour (I am writing this on my death-bed) surrounded with priests. I wish to die cradled upon the waves of the stormy sea or standing upon a mountain . . . my eyes directed not upwards. I know that my annihilation will be complete. Moreover, I shall expect no mercy.

Who is opening the door of my death-chamber? I said that no one should enter. Whoever you are, leave me. But if you expect to distinguish any sign of sorrow or fear on my hyena’s face (I use this comparison although the hyena is more beautiful than I and more pleasant to look upon), be undeceived. Let him draw near. It is a winter night, the elements battle on all sides, and the child contemplates some crime against one of his playmates, if he is as I was during my childhood.

The wind, whose wailing has saddened the race of man since the beginning of man and of the wind, carries me off over the world on the bones of his wings, some moments before my last agony, eager for my death. I shall again gloat secretly over the innumerable examples of human wickedness (a brother loves to watch unseen the actions of his brothers). The eagle, the crow, the immortal pelican, the wild duck, the wandering crane, awakened shuddering with cold, will see me pass in the glare of lightning, a horrible and happy apparition. They will not understand what it means. On the ground, the snake, the great eye of the toad, the tiger, the elephant; in the sea, the whale, the shark, the hammer-fish, the shapeless ray, the tusked sealion, all will ask themselves what is this contradiction of the laws of nature? Man, trembling, will whimper and bow his head to the ground.

“Yes, I surpass you all in my inherent cruelty, cruelty the suppression of which does not depend upon myself. Is it for this reason that you prostrate yourselves before me thus? Or rather is it because you see me flying like a frightful comet—novel phenomenon—through blood-streaked space?”

(A rain of blood is falling from my mighty body like the ebon cloud that heralds the hurricane).

“Fear naught, my children, I shall not curse you. The evil you have done me is too great, and too great is the harm I have done you, that it should have been involuntary. You have gone your way and I have gone mine, both similar and both perverse. Necessarily we must have met in that similitude of character. The resultant shock has been fatal to both of us.”

Then the people slowly raise their heads and, regaining their courage, stretch out their necks like snails to see who it is addressing them thus. Suddenly their burning, rotting faces, displaying the most awful of passions, writhe in such grimaces that wolves would fear them. All together they rise like an immense spring. What curses! What shrieking voices! They have recognized me. And now the beasts of the earth unite with men and add their weird bellowings. No more mutual hatred. The two hatreds are turned against the common enemy, myself. They come together with universal consent. Supporting winds, raise me higher, for I fear treachery. Yes, let us disappear little by little from their eyes, utterly satisfied, witness once again of the consequences of passion. My thanks, O Rhinolophus with your snout surmounted by a horse-shoe-shaped crest, for having awakened me with the motion of your wings.

I perceive now that actually it has all been a passing sickness and with disgust I feel myself returning to life. Some say that you came to me to suck out the drop of blood left in my body. Why is this hypothesis not the reality?

A family is sitting around a lamp standing on a table.

“My son, give me the scissors over there on the chair.”

“They are not there, mother.”

“Then go and look for them in the other room. Do you remember the time, dear master, when we prayed to have a son in whom we should be born again and who would be the prop of our old age?”

“I remember, and God heard us. We have had nothing to complain of in our lot on this earth. Each day we bless Providence for her benefactions. Our Edward possesses all the graces of his mother.”

“And the masculine qualities of his father.”

“Here are the scissors, mother. I found them at last.”

He returns to his work. But someone has appeared at the door and for a few moments the stranger watches the picture lying before his eyes.

“What does this scene signify? There exist many persons less happy than these are. What argument do they give themselves to explain their love of life? Take yourself off, Maldoror, from this peaceful hearth! Your place is not here.”

He has gone!

“I don’t know why it should be, but I feel human faculties at war in my heart. My soul is distressed, I know not why. The air is heavy.”

“Wife, I feel the same myself. I fear that some ill-fortune will overtake us. Have faith in God; in Him lies the supreme hope.”

“Mother, I can hardly breathe. My head pains me.”

“You too, son! I will moisten your brow and your temples with vinegar.”

“No, mother dear.”

See how he leans back in his chair, exhausted.

“Something is going on inside me that I cannot explain. Now the slightest thing upsets me.”

“How pale you are! This evening will not end before some baneful event plunges the three of us into the lake of despair!”

I hear in the distance prolonged shrieks of the most poignant agony.

“My son!”

“Oh, mother, I am frightened!”

“Tell me quickly if you are in pain.”

“Mother, I am not in pain, I am not telling the truth.”

The father cannot get over his astonishment.

“Those are the cries we hear sometimes in the silence of starless nights. Although we can hear these cries, whoever utters them is not near here for it is possible to hear them three leagues away carried by the wind from one city to another. I have often heard of this phenomenon but I have never before had the opportunity of judging its truth for myself. Wife, you were speaking of misfortune. If a more real misfortune existed within the long spiral of time it is the misfortune of whoever is now disturbing the sleep of his fellowmen.”

I hear in the distance prolonged shrieks of the most poignant agony.

“Heaven grant that his birth be not a calamity for his country, which has thrust him from its bosom. He wanders from land to land, hated by all. Some say that he has been a victim of some special kind of madness since childhood. Others believe that he is of an extreme and instinctive cruelty, of which he himself is ashamed, and that his parents died of grief because of it. There are those who maintain that in his youth he was branded with an epithet and that he has been inconsolable for the rest of his existence because his wounded dignity perceives there a flagrant proof of the wickedness of mankind, which manifests itself during their earliest years and grows continually. This epithet was The Vampire!

I hear in the distance prolonged shrieks of the most poignant agony.

“They add that night and day without rest nor respite horrible nightmares cause him to bleed through the ears and mouth; and that ghosts sit at the head of his bed and, driven despite themselves by an unknown force, fling in his face, now softly, now in tones like the roar of battle, and with implacable persistence, that loathsome and persistent epithet, which will perish only when the universe perishes. Some say that love brought him to this state; or that his cries are the expression of remorse for some crime, shrouded in the night of his mysterious past. But most think that he is tortured by incommensurable pride, as Satan was, and that he would like to be God’s equal.”

I hear in the distance prolonged shrieks of the most poignant agony.

“My son, these are very exceptional confidences. I am sorry that you should have heard them at your age, and I hope you will never imitate that man.”

“Speak, Edward. Say that you will never imitate that man.”

“O beloved mother, to whom I owe the light of day, I promise, if the holy promise of a child has any value, never to imitate that man.”

“Good, my son. You must obey your mother in everything.”

The shrieks are heard no more.

“Wife, have you finished your work?”

“There are just a few more stitches to put in this shirt, though we have stayed up very late.”

“I have not yet finished the chapter I began. Let us take advantage of the last moments of the lamp, for there is hardly any more oil, and each of us finish his work.”

The child cries out:

“If God spares us!”

“Radiant angel, come to me. You shall wander among meadows from morning to night. You shall do no work. My splendid palace is built with silver walls, golden columns, and diamond doorways. You shall sleep when you will, to the strains of celestial music, and you need not say your prayers. When in the morning the sun reveals his resplendent rays and the joyous lark carries off her song with her far into the distance, you may still remain in bed until you are weary of rest. You shall walk upon the most precious carpets; you shall be constantly surrounded with an atmosphere composed of the perfumed essences of the sweetest-smelling flowers.”

“It is time to repose the body and the mind. Arise, mother of my family, on your strong legs. It is just that your stiffening fingers should release the needle of overwork. Extremes are not good.”

“Oh, how smooth will be your existence! I shall give you a magic ring. When you twist the jewel you will become invisible like the princes in the fairy tales.”

“Put your daily tools away in the protective closet, while I clear away my things.”

“When you twist it back to its original position you will reappear as nature fashioned you, O young magician. This is because I love you and hope to make you happy.”

“Go away, whoever you are. Do not seize me by the shoulders.”

“My son, do not fall asleep, cradled by the dreams of childhood. The evening prayer has not yet begun and your clothes are not yet carefully folded upon a chair. On our knees! Eternal Creator of the Universe, Thou showest Thine inexhaustible goodness even in the smallest things.”

“Then you do not love the limpid streams where thousands of tiny fish are gliding, red, blue and silver fish? You shall catch them with so beautiful a net that it will attract them of itself until it is full. From the surface you shall see brilliant pebbles more highly polished than marble.”

“Mother, see those claws. I distrust him. But my conscience is clear for I have nothing with which to reproach myself.”

“Thou seest us prostrate at Thy feet, overcome with the sense of Thy greatness. If some prideful thought should insinuate itself into our imaginations, we reject it at once with the spittle of disdain and make unto Thee the irremissible sacrifice.”

“You will bathe there with young girls who will embrace you in their arms. Then they will deck you with roses and carnations. They will have transparent butterfly wings and long waving hair floating around the sweetness of their brows.”

“Even though your palace be more beautiful than crystal I shall not stir from this house to follow you. I believe you are nothing but an impostor, for you speak to me so softly, fearing to be overheard. To abandon one’s parents is an ill deed. I shall never be an ungrateful son. As for your young girls, they are not so beautiful as my mother’s eyes.”

“Our whole life is consecrated to the praise of Thy glory. Such as we have been until this moment, so shall we be when we receive from Thee the command to depart from this world.”

“They will obey your least whim and think only of your pleasure. If you desire the ever-restless birds, they will bring them to you. If you desire a coach of snow to carry you to the sun in the twinkling of an eye, they will bring it to you. What will they not bring you! They will even bring you the stag-beetle, as tall as a tower and hidden by someone on the moon, to whose tail are suspended by silken threads birds of every species. Look to yourself . . . heed my advice!”

“Do as you wish. I shall not interrupt my prayers to call for help. Even though your body evaporates when I try to thrust it aside, know that I have no fear of you.”

“Before Thee nothing is great unless it be the flame of a pure heart.”

“Think over what I have told you or you will regret it.”

“Heavenly Father, destroy the sorrows that may descend upon our family.”

“Then you will not go away, evil spirit?”

“Preserve my beloved wife who has been the consolation of my despondency.”

“Since you refuse me, I shall make you scream and grind your teeth like a man who is hanged.”

“And this beloved son of mine, whose chaste lips have scarcely opened to the kisses of life’s morning.”

“Mother, he is choking me! Father, save me! I can no longer breathe! Your blessing!”

A mighty cry of irony rises up into the air. See how the eagles fall from the highest clouds stupefied, literally blasted by the column of air.

“His heart beats no more. And my wife has died at the same moment as the fruit of her womb—fruit that I can no longer recognize so greatly is he disfigured. My wife! My son! I remember a distant time when I was husband and father.”

He told himself, before the scene that offered itself to his eyes, that he would not support this injustice. If the power accorded him by the infernal demons, or rather the power he draws out of himself, be effective, then before the night has passed that child should be no more.

He who knows not how to weep (for he has always repressed his suffering within himself) happened to find himself in Norway. In the Faroe Islands he took part in a search for the nests of seabirds among precipitous crevasses, and he was amazed that the rope, three hundred metres in length, which supports the explorer over the abyss, was chosen for such great strength. He saw in this a striking example of human goodness, and he could not believe his eyes. Had it been he who had prepared the rope he would have nicked it in various places so that it would break and precipitate the hunter into the sea!

One evening he visited a cemetery, and the youths who find their pleasure in violating the corpses of beautiful women recently dead could, if they would, have overheard the following conversation that took place together with the scene of action that will unfold at the same time.

“Grave-digger, would you not like to converse with me? A sperm-whale raises itself gradually out of the sea’s depths and shows its head above the water in order to see the vessel that passes by this solitary place. Curiosity was born with the universe.”

“Friend, it is impossible for me to exchange ideas with you. The soft moonbeams have been shining down upon these marble tombs for a long time now. It is the silent hour when more than one human being dreams he sees the apparition of women loaded with chains, trailing their shrouds, covered with spots of blood as an ebony sky is with stars. The sleeper cries out like one condemned to die, until he awakens and discovers that reality is three times worse than dream. I ought to finish digging this grave with my tireless spade that it may be in readiness for tomorrow. To accomplish an important task one should not do two things at once.”

“He thinks that digging a grave is an important task! Do you believe that digging a grave is an important task?”

“When the wild pelican resolves to offer his breast to his children to devour, having for witness only him who was able to create so great a love that men were put to shame, although the sacrifice be great the action is understandable. When a youth sees a woman whom he adored in the arms of his friend, he smokes a cigar. He stays in his house and forms an insoluble friendship with sorrow. This action is understandable. When a pupil in a boarding-school is dominated for years which seem centuries, from morning till night and from night till morning, by an outcast of civilization whose eyes are constantly upon him, he feels tumultuous floods of an inveterate hatred rush to his brain like a heavy fog until his head seems about to burst. From the moment when he was thrown into prison until the moment yet to come when he will be liberated his face is yellowed by an intense fever which furrows his brow and hollows his eyes. At night he thinks, because he will not sleep. By day his thoughts leap over the walls of this home of stupidity to meet that moment when he shall escape or they shall expel him like a leper from this everlasting cloister. This action is understandable. Digging a grave frequently transcends the forces of nature. How would you, stranger, that the pick tear up this soil, which first feeds us and then provides us with a commodious bed sheltered from the winter winds that blow with such fury in these icy lands, when he who grasps the pick in his trembling hands after having fingered all day long the cheeks of the non-living who enter into his kingdom, sees in the evening written in letters of flame on each wooden cross the statement of the terrifying problem that humanity has not yet solved: the mortality or immortality of the soul. I have always preserved my love for the Creator of the universe; but if after death we no longer exist, then why most nights do I see each grave open up and its tenant raise softly the leaden cover to breathe the fresh air?”

“Cease your labors. Emotion exhausts your strength. To me you seem as weak as a reed. It would be foolhardy to continue. I am strong. I am going to take your place. You, stand aside. You shall instruct me if I do wrong.”

“What muscular arms, and what a pleasure it is to watch him dig the soil with such ease!”

“You must not permit a useless doubt to torment your thoughts. All these tombs, which are scattered about the cemetery like flowers in a meadow (a comparison lacking in truth) are worthy to be measured with the serene compasses of the philosopher. During the daytime dangerous hallucinations may appear; but they come chiefly at night. Consequently do not be astonished by any fantastic visions your eyes appear to see. During the daytime, when your mind is at rest, question your conscience. It will tell you with assurance that the God who created man with a portion of His own intelligence is possessed of limitless benevolence and will receive his masterpiece back into his bosom after earthly death. Grave-digger, why do you weep? Why these tears, these womanish tears? Remember well: we are aboard this dismasted vessel to suffer. It is a credit to Man that God should have judged him capable of conquering his deepest sufferings. Speak, and since according to your most cherished desires we should not suffer, tell me then of what virtue would consist (that ideal that each one of us strives to achieve) if your tongue is constructed like that of other men.”

“Where am I? Have I not changed my character? I feel a strong breath of consolation passing over my unruffled brow, as the springtime zephyr reanimates the hope of the aged. Who is this man who in sublime speech has said things that the first passer-by would not have uttered? What musical beauty in the incomparable melody of his voice! I would rather hear him speak than hear others sing. Yet the more I observe him the less frank his face appears to be. The general expression of his features contrasts singularly with these words which the love of God alone could have inspired. His lightly-furrowed brow is branded with an indelible stigma. Is this stigma, which has aged him before his time, honorable or infamous? Should his wrinkles be regarded with veneration? I know not and I dread knowing. Even though he says what he does not think I believe he had his reasons for doing as he did, inspired by the ragged remnants of a charity that has been destroyed in him. He is absorbed in meditations that are strange to me, and he throws himself into arduous labor that he is not in the habit of undertaking. Sweat moistens his skin, he does not notice it. He is unhappier than the feelings inspired by the sight of a child in its cradle. O, how gloomy he is! Whence come you? Stranger, let me touch you and let my hands, which clasp seldom those of the living, pass over the nobility of your body. No matter what happens I shall know how to restrain myself. This hair is the most beautiful that I have ever touched in my life. Who would be audacious enough to deny I understand the quality of hair?”

“What do you want of me, while I am digging a grave? The lion loves not to be interrupted at his repast. If you are ignorant of this I shall teach you. Come now, hurry! Finish whatever it is you want.”

“This that shudders beneath my touch and makes me shudder myself is undoubtedly flesh and blood. It is true . . . I am not dreaming! Who are you, crouching there and digging a grave, while I like an idle dog that eats the bread of others do nothing? This is the hour of rest, or the hour to sacrifice sleep to science. In any case, no one is abroad at this hour, and every man is at home behind doors tightly closed against thieves. They lock themselves up in their rooms as best they can, while the embers in the old fireplace still warm the chamber with the last flicker of their heat. You do not behave like others. Your habits suggest a native of some distant country.”

“Although I am not weary it is useless to dig the grave any deeper. Now undress me and place me in it.”

“The conversation between us two for the last few moments has been so strange that I do not know how to answer you. I think he is joking.”

“Yes, yes, that’s right. I was joking. Pay no attention to what I said.”

He collapsed and the grave-digger hastened forward to support him!

“What is wrong with you?”

“Yes, yes, it is true, I lied to you. I was weary when I laid down the pick. It was the first time I had ever done such work. Pay no attention to what I said.”

“My opinion grows more and more consistent. This man suffers the most appalling sorrows. May Heaven prevent me from questioning him. I would rather remain uncertain, such is the pity he inspires in me. Moreover he would not reply, that is sure. We suffer twofold when we open up our hearts in such an abnormal frame of mind.”

“Let me depart from this cemetery. I shall continue on my journey.”

“Your legs would not carry you. You would lose your way as you trudged along. My duty is to offer you a rude bed—I have no other. Have confidence in me, for hospitality will not demand the violation of your secrets.”

“O venerable louse with your body denuded of elytrae, once you reproached me bitterly for not sufficiently adoring your sublime intelligence, which is not an open book. Perhaps you were right, for I do not even feel gratitude towards this man. Beacon of Maldoror, where do you guide his footsteps?”

“To my house. Whether you be a criminal who has not taken the precaution of washing his right hand after committing his crime and easily recognizable by inspecting that hand; or whether you be a brother who has lost his sister; or some dethroned monarch, fleeing from his kingdom, my truly magnificent palace is worthy to receive you. It was not constructed of diamonds and precious stones because it is only a poor badly-built hut; but that famous hut has an historical past that is renewed by the present and persists without end. If it could speak it would astound you—you, who appear to be astounded by nothing. How often, even as that hut, I have seen funeral biers defile before me, hearses containing bones soon to be more worm eaten than the beams of my door against which I was leaning. My innumerable subjects multiply daily. I do not have to take a periodical census. Here it is as with the living: each one pays a tax proportionate to the luxury of the spot chosen; and if some miser refuses to hand over his quota I have orders to act as a bailiff does: there are plenty of jackals and vultures eager for a good meal. I have seen laid out beneath cerements those who had been handsome; those who after death had lost no beauty; men, women, beggars and kings’ sons; the illusions of youth, the skeletons of the aged; genius and madness; laziness and its opposite; those who were false, those who were true; the mask of the proud, the modesty of the humble; vice crowned with flowers and innocence betrayed.”

“No, surely I shall not refuse your lodging, which is worthy of me, until dawn which is not far off. I thank you for your kindness. Grave-digger, it is wonderful to contemplate the ruins of cities; but it is more wonderful yet to contemplate the ruins of men!”

The leech’s brother wandered slowly through the forest. Often he would stop and open his mouth as if to speak. But each time his throat would contract and the abortive utterance would be choked back. Finally he cried out:

“Man, whenever you find a dog collapsed in death, thrust inextricably against a flood-gate, do not as others do take up into your hand the worms that crawl out of its swollen belly, regard them in astonishment, open a clasp-knife and cut up large numbers of them, telling yourself that you too some day will be no more than this dog. What mystery are you probing? Neither I nor the four webbed feet of the sea-bear of the northern ocean have been able to solve the mystery of life. Have a care: night is falling and you have been there since morning. What will your family, what will your little sister, say when they see you return home so late? Wash your hands and take the pathway that leads to where you will sleep. . . .

“Who is that being yonder at the horizon, that creature who dares to approach me fearlessly, leaping laboriously along its crooked way? And what majesty, yet what serene gentleness! Its eyes, though mild, are profound. Their enormous pupils move with the breeze and seem to be alive. I know not this creature. As I meet its monstrous eyes my whole body shudders for the first time since I sucked at the withered paps of what is known as a mother. There is a kind of glowing halo around this being. When he gave utterance all nature was stilled, trembling. Since it pleases you to come to me as if drawn by a magnet, I shall not hinder you. How beautiful he is! It pains me to say this. You should be strong for you have a superhuman countenance, sad as the universe, beautiful as suicide. I loathe you to the fullest extent of my power and would rather see a serpent coiled about my neck from the dawn of time than I would see your eyes.

“What! It is you, toad! Fat toad! Unhappy toad! Forgive me . . . forgive me! What are you doing here on this earth where the accursed dwell? But what have you done with your fetid, viscous pustules that you should have so fair a look? When you came down from above, sent by a higher command on a mission to comfort the various existing races of men, you swept down upon the earth with the speed of a kite, your wings unwearied by that long, majestic flight . . . I saw you! Poor toad! How you made me think on the infinite, no less than on my own weakness!

“ ‘One more being,’ I told myself, ‘who is superior to those on earth; and that through divine will. But why not I too? Of what use is injustice in the supreme decrees? Is the Creator mad? He is, nevertheless, the strongest and his wrath is terrible! Since you appeared to me, prince of the ponds and marshes, covered with a glory that could derive only from God, you have in a measure comforted me. But my reeling reason totters before such greatness! Who are you? Stay, O stay longer on this earth! Fold your white wings and cast not your anxious eyes upward! If you depart, let us go together!’

“The toad sat himself down on his rump (so similar to that of man!) and, while the wood-lice, the slugs and the snails fled in terror at the sight of their mortal enemy, gave utterance in these terms:

“ ‘Maldoror, listen to me. Notice my face, calm as a mirror; and I believe my intelligence to be equal to yours. Once you named me the prop of your life. Since then I have not belied the confidence you placed in me. It is true that I am only a simple dweller among the reeds; but thanks to my contact with yourself, taking from you only what was fine in you, my mind has developed and I may speak to you. I came to drag you back from the abyss. Those who call themselves your friends gaze upon you with consternation whenever they encounter your pale and stooping figure at the theatre, in public places, at church, or crushing between your two muscular thighs that horse who gallops only at night as he bears his ghostly master enveloped in a long black cloak. Abandon these thoughts which empty your heart like a desert; they are more burning than fire. Your mind is so sick that you are not aware of it and you imagine you are normal whenever you give utterance to words full of insanity, although redolent of infernal grandeur! Unhappy one! What have you said since the day of your birth? O sad relic of an immortal intelligence, created with so much love by God! You have begotten naught but maledictions more frightful than the aspect of a famine-stricken panther! As for me, I would rather have my eyelids glued together, my trunk armless and legless; I would sooner have murdered a man than be as you! Because I loathe you. Why do you have this character that amazes me? By what right do you come upon this earth to make a mockery of those who inhabit it, rotten derelict that you are, badgered by scepticism? If you are unhappy here, why don’t you return to the sphere from which you came? One from the great city should not live as an outlander in the village. We know that there exist in space worlds more roomy than ours, where there are beings of an intelligence greater than we are able to conceive. Very well, then . . . go to them! Leave this transitory earth! Display at last your godlike substance, hitherto concealed. And without further delay direct your upward flight towards your own world, for which we have no use whatsoever, prideful thing that you are! I have not yet succeeded in identifying you as a man or a superman! Farewell then! Hope not again to discover the toad on your journey. You have been the cause of my death. As for me, I am leaving for eternity that I may implore your forgiveness!’”

If it be ever logical to consider the appearance of phenomena, then this first canto comes to an end here. Do not be hard on one who has but tried out his lyre. It gives forth so strange a sound! Still, if you will be impartial you will already have felt a strong impression in the midst of all the imperfections. As for me, I shall go back to work to bring forth a second canto without loss of too much time. The end of the nineteenth century will see its poet (though at first he should not begin with a master-piece but should follow the laws of nature).

He was born on the South American shores at the mouth of the Plate River, where two peoples, once enemies, now struggle to outdo one another in material and moral progress. Buenos Aires, queen of the south, and Montevideo, the flirt, offer one another the hand of friendship across the silvered waters of the great estuary. But everlasting strife has imposed his destructive empire upon the land and joyfully harvests his numberless victims.

Farewell, aged one, and if you have read me, think of me. You, youngster, do not despair, for in the vampire you have a friend despite your opinion to the contrary. Counting also the mite that produces the mange, you will have two friends.