Ocean, Life, and Cruelty

Three excerpts from "Les Chants de Maldoror" by Lautreamont (1846-1870)


"OCEAN"

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 humankind. 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 impenetrable 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 selfcentered 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!


"LIFE"

How sweet is that child sitting on a bench in the Tuileries Gardens! His 
bold eyes pursue some distant invisible object in space. He could not be 
more than eight years old, yet he does not amuse himself as he should. 
At least he should be laughing and walking with some playmate instead of 
being alone. But this is not his demeanor.

How sweet is that child sitting on a bench in the Tuileries Gardens! A 
man, moved by a secret design, sits down beside him on the same bench 
with a questionable air. Who is he? I need not tell you, for you will 
recognize him by his tortuous conversation. Let us listen and not 
disturb them.

"What are you thinking about, my child?"

"I was thinking of heaven."

"It is not necessary to think about heaven. There is already enough to 
think about here on earth. Are you tired of life, you who were so 
recently born? "

"No, but everybody prefers heaven to earth."

"Well, not I. For since God made heaven as well as earth you may be sure 
that you will find up there the same evils as down n here. After your 
death you will not be rewarded according to your deserts, for if they do 
you injustice here on this earth (as you will find out by experience 
later) there is no reason why they should not do you further injustice 
up there. It would be much better for you to give up thinking of God and 
to create your own justice, since it is refused you. If one of your 
playmates harmed you would you not be happy to kill him? "

"But that is forbidden."

"It is not as forbidden as you think. All that is necessary is to avoid 
being caught. The justice offered by law is worthless. It is the legal 
knowledge of the injured party that counts. If you hated one of your 
playmates wouldn't you be unhappy at the reflection that you would have 
the thought of him constantly before your mind?"

"That is true."

"That playmate of yours would make you unhappy all your life. For seeing 
that your hatred of him was passive he would continue to harm and flout 
you with impunity. There is only one way to put a stop to the situation: 
to get rid of the enemy. This is the point I wanted to establish in 
order to make you understand upon what foundations present society is 
based. Each man should create his own justice, and if he does not he is 
nothing more than an imbecile. He who gains the victory over his fellow 
man is the most cunning and the strongest. Would you not love to 
dominate your fellow men some day? "

"Yes, yes."

"Then be the strongest and the most cunning. You are still too young to 
be the strongest. But from today on you can employ cunning, the greatest 
weapon of men of genius. When the shepherd David struck the giant 
Goliath in the forehead with a stone from a catapult, is it not 
wonderful to observe that it was solely by cunning that David overcame 
his adversary, and if on the contrary they had wrestled together the 
giant would have crushed him like a fly? For you it is the same thing. 
In open warfare you could never dominate men, over whom you are desirous 
of imposing your will; but with cunning you can battle alone against 
everyone. You desire wealth, fine palaces, and glory? Or did you deceive 
me when you assured me you had such noble pretentions?"

"No, no, I didn't deceive you. But I would rather obtain what I desire 
by other means."

"In that case you will get nothing at all. Good and virtuous methods 
lead nowhere. You must employ more powerful levers and more subtle webs. 
Before you have become famous by your virtue and have reached your goal, 
a hundred others will have had time to scamper over your back and arrive 
at the height of their careers before you, so that there will be no room 
for your narrow ideas. You must know how to embrace the horizon of the 
present time more largely. Have you never heard, for example, of the 
great glory gained by victories? Yet victories do not make themselves. 
Blood must be spilled, much blood, to accomplish them and lay them at 
the feet of the conquerors. Without the bodies and the broken limbs that 
you may see in the field where the carnage raged so sensibly, there 
would be no war, and without war there would be no victories. You see 
that when one wants to become famous one must plunge one's self 
gracefully into rivers of blood fed by cannonfodder. The end justifies 
the means. The first thing in becoming famous is to have money. Since 
you have none you must commit murder to get it. But, as you are not 
strong enough to wield a dagger, be a thief while waiting until your 
limbs shall have developed. And in order that they shall develop more 
rapidly I advise you to exercise twice daily, one hour in the morning, 
one hour in the evening. In this manner you may attempt crime with some 
chance of success as soon as you are fifteen, instead of waiting until 
you are twenty. The love of glory excuses all, and perhaps later on when 
you are master of your fellow men you will do them almost as much good 
then as you did them harm in the beginning!"

Maldoror perceived that the blood was boiling in the head of his young 
companion. His nostrils flared wide and a trace of white foam appeared 
about his lips. He felt the boy's pulse: it beat rapidly. His tender 
body was in the grip of fever. Maldoror feared the consequences of his 
words. He hastened away, wretched creature, annoyed that he had not been 
able to converse at greater length with that child. When in maturity it 
is so difficult to master the passions, balanced between good and evil, 
how is it with an inexperienced mind? And what relative amount of extra 
strength must we possess? The child, after three days in bed, will be 
restored to health. Heaven grant that maternal care will bring peace to 
that sensitive flower, fragile envelope of a beautiful soul!


"CRUELTY"

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!

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