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. Continue reading
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