Balladeer’s Blog resumes its examination of the macabre 1868 French language work The Songs of Maldoror. This time around the title character battles an angel from Heaven.
THE ANGEL OF THE LAMP
The vile supernatural being Maldoror is lurking near a Paris cathedral. He is furiously cursing a lamp that hangs high overhead in the sacred place because the “holy” light it shines prevents him from attacking the worshippers inside. He begs the lamp to permit itself to be extinguished by the wind, reminding it that it owes nothing to the worshippers that it protects from his assaults.
Maldoror can tell the lamp is acting specifically on orders from his archrival God because of the way its light glows more and more intensely to drive him out whenever he attempts to enter during a mass but the people in attendance at the mass seem oblivious to the blinding intensity of the light which assails him. Our protagonist has returned to the cathedral in the dead of night to confront the lamp.
Since there are no worshippers present and no mass being celebrated the lamp does not bother blazing brightly enough to drive Maldoror away. After standing in the empty cathedral glaring at the offending lamp suspended from chains far above him our main character grows furious at its apparent rejection of his pleas. With his superhuman strength he rips up one of the flat stones of the cathedral floor and hurls it up at the lamp. The stone was thrown with such force it shatters the chains from which the lamp hung and the lamp now falls to the floor below.
When Maldoror attempts to pick up the lamp with the intention of hurling it into the Seine River a protective angel from Heaven emerges from the lamp. The cathedral doors slam shut of their own accord, keeping out any potential witnesses to the battle that will now be fought between our malevolent main character and the angel of the lamp.
The battle is fierce and destructive, with the angel’s sword piercing Maldoror’s body again and again while his scaly claws repeatedly slash the angel in turn. Eventually the two adversaries are grappling in close-quarters combat. Maldoror’s superior strength enables him to choke the angel and slowly pull its face closer to his mouth, enabling him to use his poisonous breath on the Heavenly creature. After a monumental struggle Maldoror pulls the angel’s face close enough to his mouth that his vile tongue, dripping with eldritch juices, can lap away at his opponent’s cheeks.
Like a vampire doused with Holy Water the angel begins to be destroyed. Its face turns black and gangrenous, followed soon by the rest of its body. In wild desperation the angel breaks free of Maldoror’s grasp and, like an injured butterfly, unsteadily takes to the air. It exchanges one last, lingering look of hostility with our protagonist, then flies back to Heaven, its angelic form returning more and more to normal the further away from Maldoror it gets.
The triumphant monster now turns his attention on the fallen lamp. He lifts it from the floor, throws open the cathedral doors and runs with the lamp to the waters of the Seine. He hurls the lamp into the river and watches it slowly sink. In the aftermath of all this, Maldoror reaffirms his desire to overthrow God so he can rule the universe and have an entire army of angels like the one he just fought at his command.
As for the lamp, it becomes an odd fixture of the supernatural Paris nightlife. Each night it rises from the waters and flies, just above the surface of the Seine, down the river on angel’s wings, inspiring hushed fear and awe in everyone who witnesses the spectacle. The lamp flies slowly down the Seine all the way to the Pont de l’Alma and then back, where it plunges beneath the water again at daybreak. Occassionally a daring or foolhardy ship’s captain attempts to pursue and catch the mysterious light but is frustrated as the lamp forever eludes them.
I WILL RESUME THIS LOOK AT THE SONGS OF MALDOROR SOON. CHECK BACK ONCE OR TWICE A WEEK FOR NEW INSTALLMENTS.
FOR PART ONE CLICK HERE: https://glitternight.com/2015/02/28/maldoror-a-neglected-masterpiece-of-surreal-horror/
FOR OTHER PARTS OF MALDOROR CLICK HERE: https://glitternight.com/category/maldoror/
© Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
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What is this guy Maldoror really turn out to be?
To avoid spoilers here, go to the final two stanzas to learn that.