The Dedalus Book of Decadence, Volume 1: Moral Ruins
Page 10
The girl was one of many who had been condemned as temptresses, and driven out of Sodom at the behest of the priests. In a mad fit of righteous wrath, the assembly of the men of God had decreed that the town must be relieved of the evil passions which haunted it from twilight until dawn. The girls of Sodom, they had decided, had been so badly guided by their lax mothers that they had become voluptuous vessels of iniquity which sapped the strength of the men of the town – strength which would be needed for the harvest, and must be conserved by rigid chastity.
In the grip of this madness, the men of Sodom had repudiated their wives and cast out their sisters; these women had been thrown into the streets, beaten and bruised, their clothes torn from their bodies, and chased by dogs into the wilderness without the walls. Driven into the desert, the women had been forced to cross the burning sands to seek refuge in Gomorrah. Many had died in the furnace of the noonday heat; a few had kept themselves alive by plundering the vineyards. But none of these accursed creatures had been brought to repentance, for their flesh was still inflamed by insensate desires, which took nourishment from the fiery heat of the sun and lusted also after those secret fires which were hidden beneath the surface of the plain.
Now, here was one of these bitches, driven by her appetite for the flesh of men to inflict her attentions upon a child no older than herself.
“Who are you?” Horeb demanded of her.
“I am Sarai!”
Sinéus buried his face in the crook of his elbow, hiding his eyes.
“What do you want?” said Phaleg.
“I am thirsty!”
Oh yes! It was evident to them all that she had a thirst in her!
The sons looked at one another, uncertain what to do, but their grim-faced father raised his staff to issue a command, and each one bowed down obediently to take hold of a stone.
The woman, her golden skin glistening in the sunlight, extended her arms like two beams of light.
She cried out, in a voice so strident that they recoiled:
“A curse upon you all!”
“Oh yes,” said Horeb then, “I recognise you. One night you came to steal the very best of my metal cups.”
“I know you too,” said Phaleg. “You have tempted me to sin on the Sabbath.”
“As for me,” cried Sinéus, with tears glimmering beneath his eyelids, “I do not know you at all, nor have I the slightest wish to know you!”
The old man brought down his staff.
“She must be stoned!” they roared in unison.
The woman had no opportunity to escape. Thirty stones were hurled at her all at once.
Her breasts were lacerated and splashed with red; her forehead was wreathed with bands of vermilion. She fell back, writhing desperately, her long hair was loosed, but it clung to her like binding ropes; she tried to make herself very small, and tried to crawl away after she fell, squirming like a snake; but she slipped and tumbled into the great vat where the grape-juice was fermenting. She groped feebly at the crushed clusters, but soon became inert, augmenting the blood of the grapes with the exquisite wine of her own veins. The brief convulsion of her death pulled her down into the depths of the trough, among the burst and trodden grapes which spurted out their black pips – but reflected in her rolling eyes, there was an expression of supreme malediction.
**********
That evening, having completed their task in the saintly fashion required of them, the grape-gatherers distributed the wheat-cakes which they had brought with them, and filled their cups. They had not taken the trouble to remove the cadaver from the trough, and they were already drunk – more intoxicated by the killing than by the vintage which they had prepared. They continued to utter blasphemies against the luckless girl while they drank more of the horrible liquor they had made, saturated with poisonous love.
That same night – while unknown beasts howled in the distance all around them, and the atmosphere they breathed was heavy with the odour of sulphur, and the giant tower in the city took on a skeletal pallor beneath the dismal light of the moon – those men of Sodom committed for the first time their sin against nature, in the arms of their young brother Sinéus, whose soft shoulders somehow seemed to be flavoured with honey.
**********
5.
AFTER THE DELUGE
by Arthur Rimbaud.
As soon as the Flood of the imagination had subsided, a hare paused among the trefoils and the swaying bellflowers, and offered up his prayer to the rainbow through the strands of a spiderweb.
Oh, the precious stones that were in hiding! – the flowers which had begun to look about them!
In the filthy high street the tradesmen set out their stalls, and boats were dragged down to the sea, where the waves rolled in as they always seemed to do in ancient prints.
Blood was flowing – in Bluebeard’s house, in the abattoirs, in the circuses where God had set his seal to whiten the windows. Blood and milk flowed together.
Beavers built dams. “Mazagrans” fumed in the taverns.
In the great glasshouses streaming with condensation, the children in mourning-dress beheld marvels.
A door slammed, and on the village green a child waved his arms; and all the cocks and weathervanes on all the church-steeples understood him as the shower burst over them.
Madame X set up a piano in the Alps. Church services and first communions were celebrated at the hundred thousand altars of the cathedral.
Caravans departed. And the Hotel Splendide was built out of the chaos of ice and polar darkness.
Forever more, the Moon heard jackals whining in the deserts of thyme – and wooden-shoed peasants grunting in the orchards. Then in the midst of the violet forest all in bloom, Eucharis said to me that spring had come.
Surge forth, pond! foam upon the bridge and through the woods – black sheets and organs – lightning-streaks and thunder – climb and roll; waters and sorrows, arise and unleash the flood once more!
For since the waters have departed – oh, the precious stones concealing themselves, and the wide-open flowers! – what tedium there has been! And the Queen, the Sorceress who lights her fire in an earthen ware pot, will never condescend to tell us what she knows, and what we need to know.
**********
6.
DANAETTE
by Remy de Gourmont
While Danaette dressed herself after dinner, making her special and secret preparations, the snow began to fall.
Through the tiny holes in the lace curtains she watched it falling: the beautiful snow, falling, ever falling. It seemed so solemn and so sad, seemingly ignorant of the occult and ironic power which it had to fascinate the human eye. It seemed to be unaware of its own divine provenance, forgetful of those cold, bleak regions on high where its light crystals were born, disdainful of that human foolishness which analyses everything and comprehends nothing.
“There is a great battle going on in the sky,” her old Breton maid said to her. “The angels are plucking out the plumes of their wings – and that is why it snows. As Madame knows very well.”
The statement was peremptory. Madame did not dare to utter any contradiction. Every year, often several times during each winter, the old woman would impart that same confidence, always terminated by: “As Madame knows very well.” It was irrefutable, and somehow rather menacing. The old servant had similar charming explanations for all kinds of events, always brief and neat, always stated as if they were manifestly obvious.
Madame, in consequence, ventured no reply at all; but as soon as her hair was done she dismissed the old woman.
She wanted to be alone – with the snow.
Her preparations were not yet half-complete, but she could no longer concentrate upon her toilette. She sat down on the divan near the fire, and watched with patient fascination the incessant and luminous flight of the downy feathers plucked from the wings of the angels.
What a bore it had become, dressing herself up like this! Adultery w
as always agreeable at first, in the early days when everything was still to be discovered – when one offered oneself up to the impatient and imperious kisses of one’s lover; when one was driven on by curiosity; when one could think of nothing but the delights of a new and more complete initiation. Then, it was like a beautiful baptism in the delights of sin. But when the intensity of that brief phase began to weaken, it could never be renewed, no matter how one sought to deceive oneself; there always followed a detestable decline into ennui.
How tedious it all was! There were so many things to think of, so many excuses, so many suggestions to be made and precautions to be taken; it was all so discouraging, and – at the end of the day – so humiliating.
“It is always the same,” she mused, without taking her eyes from the falling snow. “In spite of the cold, I had better take shoes instead of boots. He made the suggestion himself! The first time, he buttoned me up again so carefully, almost devoutly, balancing my leg upon his knee; the second time, he pulled a buttonhook out of his pocket and put it in my hand; the third time, he had not even thought of bringing one; and I was in sore distress.
“It is the same with the corset and the dress. He is impatient: he snatches at the hooks and gets the laces tangled up. I owe it to him, I suppose, to make up a special outfit which comes undone at a single stroke – in a twinkling of the eye I must stand naked, or very nearly. Yes, actually naked, for he wants me to wear chemises like cassocks, which open like curtains as soon as one has unsprung the tiny catches which hold them – this is the costume which supposedly suits my personality!
“But I must press on, regardless! I must put on my brassière and do up my corset, so that the old Breton will not say to me, in front of my husband, in such a scandalized fashion, when I come back by and by:
‘Madame has gone out without her corset! As Madame knows very well!’
“Ah! how beautiful the snow is…!”
They are still falling, always falling, those soft and silky white feathers from the angels’ wings.
She who had been a rebellious adulteress mere moments before became chaste and innocent again as that subtle and monotonous snow, perpetually falling past her window, exerted its hypnotic effect upon her sensibilities. The peremptory foolishness of the old maid was recalled to her mind, prompting a strange pang of sympathy for all the angels who had lost their feathers.
That would be a singular sight, would it not? An angel with plucked wings, like one of those geese one sometimes glimpsed in the farmyards of Normandy, which had yielded up its vestments in order to make soft pillows and eiderdowns for the convenience of adulterers!
It was a ridiculous, childish image – and anyhow, the plucked angels would still be angels, and angels were unconquerably beautiful creatures.
The snow fell on and on; it was so dense now that the air itself seemed to have condensed into a polar ocean of white stars, or a flight of immaculate seagulls. Now and then, a breath of wind would send the startled flakes hurrying across the window-pane, futilely trying to cling and settle before sliding down to pile up on the sill.
Forgetting the adulterous rendezvous which she had planned, Danaette became inordinately interested in these unexpected turbulences which dressed the window with clustered flakes. She found a peculiar pleasure in her observation of the way these cloudy constellations would form and crumble away again, slowly and majestically, with the absolute calm of obedience to their destiny. Her eyes began to close, tiredly, but she forced them to remain open, determined that she would not give in to her lassitude, resolved to stay as she was, watching the falling snow, for as long as it might condescend to fall.
She was defeated in this intention, though; her eyes closed again, drowsily, and she slowly drifted off until she was half asleep. But in the sight of her closed eyes, the snow continued to fall.…
Now, the window no longer interrupted the flight of the guileless flakes. It was snowing inside the room: on the furniture, on the carpet, everywhere; it snowed on the divan where she was lying, prostrate with fatigue. One of the fresh flakes fell upon her hand; another on her cheek; another on her uncovered throat; and these touches – especially the last – excited in her a sensation of receiving unprecedented and exquisite caresses.
Still the flakes fell: her pale green robe was illuminated by them now, as if it were a meadow spangled with fresh daisies; before long her hands and her neck were completely covered, and her hair and her breasts too. This unreal snow was not melted by the warmth of her body, nor by the heat of the hearth; it dwelt upon her body, dressing her form in sparkling attire.
Deliciously icy, the kisses of the snow cut through her vestments – going, in spite of her defensive armour, in search of her skin and all the folds and creases of her curled-up body. It was marvellously gentle, and it had a uniquely voluptuous quality which she had most certainly never known before!
In truth, the Spirit of the Snow ravished and possessed her – and Danaette allowed it to do so, curious to savour this new kind of adultery, delivering herself up to ineffable and almost frightful pleasure. She allowed herself to become the amorous prey of a Divine Caprice: a human lover unexpectedly elevated towards the unimaginable realm of the angels of perversity.
Ever and anon the snow fell, penetrating so profoundly into the depths of her enraptured being that she had no room in her for any other sensation than that of dying of cold, and being buried beneath the adorable kisses of the snow, and being embalmed by the snow – and, at the last, of being taken up and away by the snow, carried aloft by a wayward breath of turbulent wind, into some distant region of eternal snows, over infinite ranges of fabulous mountains…where all the dear little adulteresses, eternally beloved, were endlessly enraptured by the impatient and imperious caresses of the angels of perversity.
**********
7.
LITANY TO SATAN
by Charles Baudelaire
(translated by James Elroy Flecker)
O grandest of the Angels, and most wise,
O fallen God, fate-driven from the skies,
Satan, at last take pity on our pain.
O first of exiles who endurest wrong,
Yet growest, in thy hatred, still more strong,
Satan, at last take pity on our pain!
O subterranean King, omniscient,
Healer of man’s immortal discontent,
Satan, at last take pity on our pain.
To lepers and to outcasts thou dost show
That Passion is the Paradise below.
Satan, at last take pity on our pain.
Thou by thy mistress Death hast given to man
Hope, the imperishable courtesan.
Satan, at last take pity on our pain.
Thou givest to the Guilty their calm mien
Which damns the crowd around the guillotine
Satan, at last take pity on our pain.
Thou knowest the corners of the jealous Earth
Where God has hidden jewels of great worth.
Satan, at last take pity on our pain.
Thou dost discover by mysterious signs
Where sleep the buried people of the mines.
Satan, at last take pity on our pain.
Thou stretchest forth a saving hand to keep
Such men as roam upon the roofs in sleep.
Satan, at last take pity on our pain.
Thy power can make the halting Drunkard’s feet
Avoid the peril of the surging street.
Satan, at last take pity on our pain.
Thou, to console our helplessness, didst plot
The cunning use of powder and of shot.
Satan, at last take pity on our pain.
Thy awful name is written as with pitch
On the unrelenting foreheads of the rich.
Satan, at last take pity on our pain.
In strange and hidden places thou dost move
Where women cry for torture in their love.
Sata
n, at last take pity on our pain.
Father of those whom God’s tempestuous ire
Has flung from Paradise with sword and fire,
Satan, at last take pity on our pain.
Prayer
Satan, to thee be praise upon the Height
Where thou wast king of old, and in the night
Of Hell, where thou dost dream on silently.
Grant that one day beneath the Knowledge-tree
When it shoots forth to grace thy royal brow,
My soul may sit, that cries upon thee now.
**********
8.
THE BLACK NIGHTGOWN
by Catulle Mendès
Fabrice was waiting for Genviève. He was entirely at home, clad in a morning-coat, with Turkish slippers upon his stockingless feet, stretched out on the chaise longue beside the fireplace where the coals glowed redly. While he awaited the return of his dear and beautiful beloved he smoked a leisurely cigarette.
She should not be away for long – she had only gone out to do a little shopping. She did not like to be away too long from the love-nest which they had shared for six months, with its characteristic odour of rosewater and tobacco, mingled together because the room must serve as bedroom and smoking-room alike. Soon she would reappear, a little out of breath from having climbed the staircase, her cheeks quite rosy, and she would fall upon the chaise beside him, with that pretty little “ouf!” which no one else could say in quite that way; and they would slowly bring their lips together for another hectic and breathless round of kisses taken and kisses given.
There was a knock at the door.
Already?
No, she would not bother to knock.
“Come in,” called Fabrice.
A young girl came in. She was slim, with unruly hair – evidently a servant. She was carrying a huge basket.
“Oh!” she said. “Pardon monsieur, I have made a mistake. I have come from the laundry with Madame’s clothes, but this is not her dressing-room – I have made a mistake! The chambermaid told me that it was the second door in the corridor. If Monsieur would kindly show me…”