Comte de Lautréamont
translated by Samuel Lees
There is an insect which men nourish at their own expense. They owe it nothing, but, they fear it. If its legitimate needs were not satisfied, this creature, which does not care for wine, but prefers blood, would be capable, by an occult power, of growing to the size of an elephant and crushing men like grain. See how they worship it, how they surround it with a canine veneration, how they raise it above all the other animals in creation. They give it the head for a throne, and it sinks its claws into the base of the hair with sovereign grace. As in ancient cultures, when it has grown old and fat, they kill it, in order to spare it the miseries of old age. They give it a funeral worthy of a great hero. The coffin is carried to its final resting place on the shoulders of the leading citizens. On the damp ground exposed by the gravedigger’s shrewd spade, they scatter phrases of every hue on the immortality of the soul, the vanity of life and the inexplicable will of Providence. The marble closes forever on this laboriously-filled existence, of which nothing but a corpse remains. The crowds disperse, and it is not long before the night covers the walls of the cemetery with its shadows.
But weep not, humans, at this tragic loss, for here come her myriad children, whom she has generously bestowed upon you, that they might make your despair less bitter, sweetened by the delightful presence of these savage abortions, which will one day become magnificent lice, those sage-like monsters, graced with extraordinary beauty. She has lovingly nurtured dozens of eggs under her maternal wing in the pastures of your head, drained by the relentless suction of these fearsome interlopers. The time has come for the eggs to burst open. But fear not, it won’t be long before these young philosophers reach maturity across their fleeting existence. And as they grow, they will make their presence known to you with their claws and piercing mouthparts.
You are probably wondering why they don’t devour the bones in your head, but content themselves with pumping your blood and extracting its quintessence. Wait a moment, I will tell you ― it is because they are not strong enough. Believe me, if their jaws were equal in strength to their infinite ambition, they would devour the brain, the eyes, the spine and all the rest. Like a drop of water. With your microscope observe a louse at work on the head of young beggar in the street: you will not believe your eyes. Alas! these hair bandits are only small. They could not be enlisted into the army as they would not meet the height requirements prescribed by law. They belong to the lilliputian world of creatures that suffer from short thighs. The blind would not hesitate to class them among the atoms and the infinitely small. Woe to the whale who gets in a fight with a louse. It would be devoured in the blink of an eye, despite its size. Not even the tail would be left to speak of this massacre. The elephant lets itself be petted. The louse does not. I would not recommend you attempt this perilous operation. Beware if your hand is hairy, or simply if it be made of flesh and blood. It would mean the end for your fingers. They would snap one by one. The skin would melt away by some strange magic. Lice are incapable of carrying out all the wicked deeds their minds contemplate. If you ever find a louse in your path, hurry on before it begins to lick its lips. A calamity might befall you. It has been known to happen. No matter, I am already delighted by the amount of harm it has done you, O human race! I only wish it would do more.
When will you give up this antiquated devotion to a god who is insensible to your prayers and the generous libations you offer in expiatory holocaust? He could not care less, this horrible manitou1, for all the cups of blood and brain that you pour at his altars, piously decorated with garlands of flowers. He could not care less, for storms and earthquakes continue to rage and have done since the dawn of time. And yet, here is a sight worth seeing: the less he seems to care, the more you admire him. You clearly have doubts about his attributes, which he hides, and your reasoning is based on the following consideration: that only a deity of extreme power can show so much contempt towards those who practice his religion. It is for this reason that there are different gods in every country: here, the crocodile, there, the lady of pleasure; but, when it comes to the louse, at the mention of this sacred name, the people of the earth kneel together in the great square, before the pedestal of the shapeless and bloodthirsty idol, lowering their heads and kissing the chains of their slavery. Those who show signs of revolt, and do not obey their native instinct to grovel, will disappear from the face of the earth sooner or later, like an autumn leaf, annihilated by the vengeance of the inexorable god.
O louse of the shrivelled eyes, as long as the rivers pour their souls into the depths of the sea; as long as the stars move in their spheres; as long as the silent void knows no limit; as long as humanity tears itself to pieces in deadly wars; as long as divine justice strikes this selfish globe with vengeful thunder; as long as man does not recognise his creator, and mocks him, not without reason, but with contempt, your reign over the universe is assured and your dynasty will spread its rings from century to century. I salute you, rising sun, celestial liberator, man’s invisible enemy. Command the filth to join with man in foul embraces and to swear with oaths, not just written in the dust, to remain his faithful lover for eternity. Kiss the dress of this great whore from time to time, in memory of the important services she has done you. If she did not seduce man with her lascivious breasts, it is unlikely that you would exist ― you, the product of that rational coupling. O son of filth! Tell your mother that if she deserts man’s bed to wander down lonely streets, alone and without support, she will find her existence compromised. Let her entrails, that bore you nine months in their fragrant depths, be troubled a moment by the thought of the dangers to which they would expose their tender fruit, so gentle and kind, but already cold and fierce. Filth, queen of empires, let the eyes of my hatred retain the sight of the insensible growth of your starving children. To achieve this goal, you know that you only have cling more tightly to the side of man. You can do it, without any inconvenience to your modesty, since you have both been married a long time.
If I may be allowed to add some words to this hymn of glory, I can tell you that I have had a pit constructed, forty miles across, and a similar depth. Here, in its foul virginity, lies a living mine of lice. It fills the lowest depths of the pit and then snakes outwards, in large dense veins, in every direction. This is how I built this artificial mine: I tore a female louse from the head of humanity. For three consecutive nights I was seen in bed with her, and then I flung her in the pit. Human fertilisation, which would have been hopeless on any other occasion, was accepted this time by fate. A few days later, thousands of monsters, teeming in a dense knot of matter, were born into the light. The hideous knot swelled with time, acquiring the liquid quality of mercury, and split into several branches, which actually feed by devouring themselves (the number born exceeds those that die), if I do not throw them a newborn bastard, for whom the mother wished death, or an arm I cut from some young girl during the night with the aid of chloroform. Every fifteen years, the generations of lice that feed on man decline in a notable manner, and invariably presage the new age of their complete destruction. Man, more intelligent than his foe, is able to defeat his enemy. Therefore, with an infernal spade that increases my strength, I extract blocks of lice as large as mountains from this inextinguishable mine. I break them up using an axe, and transport them, on the darkest nights, into the arteries of every city. On contact with the human temperature, they dissolve as in the first days of their formation in the winding galleries of the underground mine, dig themselves a bed in the gravel, and pour into every home, like evil spirits. The guardian of the house barks. It seems that a legion of invisible creatures has crept through the pores in the walls, bringing terror to its sleeping inhabitants. At least once in your life you must have heard these pained and prolonged barks. With its weak eyes it searches blindly in the darkness. Its dog’s brain cannot understand it. The sound irritates it. It feels that it has been betrayed. Millions of enemies strike every city like clouds of locusts. And so it goes for fifteen years. They will fight with man and inflict heavy wounds. When the time comes, I will send others. When I divide the blocks of living matter, sometimes one fragment will be more dense than another. These atoms strive furiously to separate from their cluster so that they can begin tormenting humanity, but the cohesive forces resist their efforts. With a supreme effort, the stone, unable to disperse its living constituents, flies up into the sky, as if fired from a cannon, and then falls to earth and buries itself deep in the ground. Sometimes, a musing peasant will see a meteorite cleaving space vertically, plummeting towards a cornfield. He does not know where the stone comes from. Now, clearly and succinctly, you have the explanation of the phenomenon.
If the earth were covered in lice, like grains of sand along the shore, the human race would die in terrible agony. What a sight! With the wings of an angel, I lean upon the air, and look down on the carnage!
Notes
1. Manitou ― a god or spirit in Native American culture.
Samuel Lees 