I was seeking a soul resembling mine, and I could not find it. I searched throughout the seven seas; my perseverance proved of no use. Yet I could not remain alone. I needed someone who'd approve of my nature; there had to be somebody out there with the same ideas as me. It was morning; the sun rose over the horizon, in all its splendour, and here rises before my eyes a young man as well, whose presence made flowers sprout in his wake. He approached me, and holding out his hand: "I have come to you who seek me. God bless this happy day." But I replied: "Begone! I never summoned you. I don't need your companionship..." It was evening; night was already drawing the darkness of her veil over nature. A beautiful woman, whose form I could barely make out, was also drawing the influence of her enchantment over me. She looked upon me with compassion, however she dared not speak to me. So I said: "Come closer, so I may see your face clearly, for at this distance the starlight is too faint for me to make out its features." Then, modestly, with her eyes lowered, she glided across the lawn's grass, coming to my side. As soon as I saw her: "I see that goodness and justice have found a home in your heart: we could never live together. You are now admiring my beauty, which has overwhelmed many a woman, but sooner or later, you'll regret ever having given your love to me, for you do not know my soul. Not that I would ever be unfaithful to you: to she who bares her heart to me with such abandon and trust, I bare mine back with equal trust and abandon, but get it into your head lest you ever forget it: Wolves and lambs look not on one another with bedroom eyes." So what was I waiting for, I who rejected in such disgust what was most beautiful in humanity! What I was waiting for, I really couldn't tell you. I haven't yet gotten into the habit of keeping a daily record of the phenomena that occur within my psyche, according to the practice recommended by philosophy. I sat on a cliff, by the sea. A ship had just set full sail to escape these waters: a minute speck had just appeared at the horizon, making gradual headway, driven on by gusts, and growing more powerful by the minute. The storm was about to swoop down on us, and already the sky was growing dark, overcast in a black almost as hideous as the human heart. The vessel, which was a great warship, had just cast all her anchors, in fear of being swept against the rocky coast. The wind roared with rage from all four points of the compass, tearing the sails to shreds. Crashes of thunder burst out amid flashes of lightning and could not drown out the sound of wailing to be heard from this house with no foundations, this teetering sepulcher. The rolling of these aqueous masses had not yet managed to shatter the anchor's chains, however their buffeting had opened up a way into the ship's ribs: a gaping breach, for the pumps could no longer bail out the masses of salt water beating down on the bridge like mountains of foam. The ship in distress fires her canons to sound the alarm; but she sinks, slowly... majestically. He who has never watched a ship sinking in the midst of a storm, with intermittent flashes of lightning between the deepest periods of darkness, while those on board are overwhelmed with that despair you know so well, knows nothing of life's ups and downs. Finally, a universal shriek of utter distress bursts from within the bowels of the ship, whilst the sea intensifies her fearsome onslaughts. It is that cry one hears when the limits of human capacity give in: we wrap ourselves up in the cloak of despair and leave our fate in the hands of God. We flock together like cornered sheep. The ship in distress fires her canons to sound the alarm; but she sinks, slowly... majestically. They've had the pumps running all day now. Futile efforts. Night has come, pitch-black and merciless, bringing the delightful show to its climax. Each soul onboard realizes that, once in the water, he won't be able to breathe, for, as far back as he can remember, he knows of no fish in his family tree; nevertheless he struggles to hold his breath for as long as possible, if only to prolong his life for another two or three seconds: that is the vengeful irony he aims at death... The ship in distress fires her canons to sound the alarm; but she sinks, slowly... majestically. He doesn't know that the ship, as it goes under, sets the ocean swells twisting and turning in a powerful circular motion, stirring up the benthonic mires into the turbid waters, and that a force from below, in counterattack to the tempest wreaking havoc above, drives the element to violent, jolting motions. Thus, despite the stores of courage he mustered in advance, the drowned-to-be, on second thought, ought to be delighted if he can prolong his life, swirling in the vortices of the abyss, even by the space of half a normal breath, for good measure. He will fail in his supreme desire to cheat death. The ship in distress fires her canons to sound the alarm; but she sinks, slowly... majestically. No wait, there's been a mistake. She's no longer firing, she's no longer sinking. The cockleshell is now completely engulfed! Good heavens! How could I continue to live, after experiencing such exquisite pleasures! I had just been granted the chance to witness the death agonies of many a fellow man. Minute by minute, I followed the episodes of their anguish. Now, the feature presentation was the bellowing of some old lady, brought to hysterics by fear. Now, the squeals of a suckling infant were drowning out the nautical orders. The ship was too distant for me to clearly perceive the groans brought on by blasts of wind, but through sheer willpower I zoomed in on it, and the optical illusion was complete. Every quarter of an hour, when a particularly stronger gust of wind, sounding its gloomy tones amid the cries of the terrified storm petrels, would break open the ship in another lengthwise crack, increasing the laments of those about to be offered as sacrifices to death, I would dig a sharp metal point deeper into my cheek and secretly think: "They are suffering still more!" At least this gave me grounds for comparison. From the shore, I shouted at them, hurling violent curses and threats. I felt that they could hear me! I could feel that my hatred and raving, soaring over the distances, were breaking the physical laws of sound and falling loud and clear onto their ears, deafened by the wrathful ocean's roars! I felt they ought to be thinking of me, unleashing their vengeance in impotent rage! Every now and then I would cast a glance up at the cities, sounds asleep on dry land, and seeing that nobody suspected a ship to be sinking a few miles from the shore, with birds of prey for a crown and empty-bellied creatures of the deep for a pedestal, I took courage, and regained hope: I could now be sure of their demise! There was no escape! Through an excess of precaution, I had gone fetch my double-barrelled shotgun, so that, should some survivor be tempted to swim up to the rocks to escape impending death, a bullet in the shoulder would shatter his arm, thus thwarting his plan. Just when the tempest was at its fiercest, I saw, at the surface, desperately struggling to keep afloat, a frenetic head, with hair standing on end. He was swallowing gallons of water and was tossed back into the briny deep, bobbing like a piece of cork. But in no time he surfaced again, mane dripping wet, and, eyes focused on the shore, he seemed to defy death. What admirable composure! On his brave and noble face, he bore a deep and gory wound, gashed open by the jagged point of some hidden reef. He must have been sixteen at the oldest, for you could just barely see, by the lightning flashes that lit up the night, the peach fuzz on his lip. And now he was no more than two hundred yards from the cliff, and I was getting a clear view of him. What courage! What indomitable spirit! How his steady head seemed to flout at fate, as he vigorously cleaved through the waves, prying open the grooves before him with effort!... I had made up my mind beforehand. I owed it to myself to keep my promise: the final hour had tolled for all; there could be no exceptions. That was my resolution, and nothing could change it... A sharp blast echoed, and the head sank right under, never to be seen again. From this murder I did not take as much pleasure as you might imagine, and precisely because I had already done more than my share of killing in life, I was doing it now only from sheer habit, so hard to break, and providing only mild enjoyment. Conscience becomes dulled, calloused. What pleasure could I feel at the death of this human being, when more than a hundred were about to present me with the spectacle of their final struggles against the waves, once the ship had been submerged? With this death, not even the thrill of danger aroused me, for human justice, cradled by the night's ghastly storm, was slumbering in the cottages a few steps from me. Now that the years hang heavy on my shoulders, I can speak this supreme and solemn truth with sincerity: I was never as cruel as it was later said among men, however sometimes their persistent spitefulness went on devastating for years on end. There was then no limits to my fury; I was possessed by fits of cruelty: my wild eyes would strike terror in anyone who dared come close enough to see them, provided they be of my race. If it was a horse or a dog, I would let it go by: did you head what I just said? Unfortunately, on the night of the storm, I was seized by one of my fits of wrath, my reason having abandoned me (for normally I would be just as cruel, only more discreet), and everything falling into my hands on that night had to perish. I am not saying this justifies my misdeeds. My fellow men are not the only ones to blame. I am merely making a statement of fact, as I await the last judgment, which makes me feel my throat constrict in anticipation... What do I care about the last judgment? My reason never abandons me, as I had claimed just to mislead you. And when I commit a murder, I know full well what I am doing: what else would I be wanting to do? Standing on the cliff, as the tempest flailed at my hair and trench coat, I ecstatically watched the full might of the thunderstorm relentlessly hammering at the ship under a starless sky. In a triumphant pose, I followed all the twists and turns of this drama, from the instant the vessel threw her anchors, until the moment she was swallowed up within that final shroud, that cloak which dragged everybody wrapped in it down into the bowels of the sea. But the cue for me to make my entrance in these scenes of nature in tumult was approaching. When the place where the ship had been struggling clearly showed that she had gone spend the rest of her days on the oceanic floor, then, some of those who had been carried off by the waves reappeared on the surface. They seized and grappled each other around the waist, in twos, in threes; this was the way not to save their lives, for their movements became hampered, and they went down like dumbbells... What is this horde of sea monsters ploughing through the waves at top speed? There are six of them, with sturdy fins that cut a passage through the heaving seas. Exercising the privileges of their higher rank on the food chain, the sharks soon make a great eggless omelette of all these wiggling human arms and legs on this far from dry continent. Blood mingles with the waters, and the waters mingle with blood. Their fierce eyes light up the bloodbath... But what is that other tumult of the waves, yonder, on the horizon? It looks like a waterspout coming this way! What strokes! Now I see what it is. An enormous female shark has come to partake of duck liver pâté and to eat cold stew meat. She is furious, for she arrives ravenous. A battle ensues between her and the sharks, to fight over the few palpitating limbs still dumbly floating here and there on the surface of the crimson cream. Left and right she snaps her jaws, delivering many a fatal wound. But three surviving sharks surround her, and she is forced to twist and turn in all directions to outmanoeuvre them. With an increasing emotion unbeknownst until now, the one-man audience follows this new kind of naval battle from his seat at the shore. His gaze is fastened on this courageous female shark, with jaws so mighty. He grits his teeth, raises his rifle, and, skilful as ever, he lodges his second bullet in the gill slit of one of the sharks, just as it rears its head above a wave. Two sharks remain, both showing even greater ferocity. From the top of the rock, the man with the briny saliva flings himself into the sea and swims towards the pleasantly coloured carpet, gripping his trusty steel knife. From now on the sharks each have one enemy to deal with. He closes in on his weary adversary, and, taking his time, buries his sharp blade in its belly. Meanwhile, the nimble-finned citadel easily disposes of the last opponent... Now the swimmer and the female shark saved by him confront each other. For minutes they stare fixedly into each other's eyes. They swim circling, keeping each other in sight, and each thinking: "I was wrong all along. Here is one more evil than I." Then in unison they glided underwater towards each other, in mutual admiration, the female shark slitting open the waves with her fins, Maldoror's arms thrashing the water; and they held their breaths, in deepest reverence, each one anxious to gaze for the first time upon his living image. Effortlessly, at only three yards apart, they suddenly fell upon one another like two magnets, in an embrace of dignity and gratitude, clasping each other tenderly as brother and sister. Carnal desire soon followed this display of affection. Like two leeches, a pair of nervous thighs gripped tightly against the monster's viscous flesh, and arms and fins wrapped around the objects of their desire, surrounding their bodies with love, while their breasts and bellies soon fused into one bluish-green mass reeking of sea-wrack, in the midst of the tempest still raging by the light of lightning; with the foamy waves for a wedding bed, borne on an undersea current as if in a cradle, rolling and rolling down into the bottomless ocean depths, they came together in a long, chaste, and hideous mating!... At last I had found somebody who was like me!... From now on I was no longer alone in life!... Her ideas were the same as mine!... I was face to face with my first love!