Schizogenesis by Georges Bataille Translated Translated by Rowan Rowan G. G. Tepper Tepper Translation Translation of La Scissiparié , in Oeuvres Completes III, 225-232 Originally published in Les Cahiers de la Pléiade , Spring 1949
I
Possessed by rage and enraged. My head? A nail, a new-born nail newly born. I cry. No one hears me. The opacity, eternity eterni ty,, empty silence silenc e – mine, of course. Screaming out, I suppress myself: this conviction is worthy of praise. I'll eat, d..., write, laugh, fear death, and grow pale at the thought of nails being turned back.
II
I'd like to take hold of an unyielding idea of myself, to raise my furrowed brow brow into the air, denying the odor of of death. I'd like to forget forget the imperceptible slippage slippage of myself into corruption. I'm nauseated by the sky whose blinding sweetness sweetness has the obscenity of a “girl” going to bed. I imagine an attractive prostitute, elegant, naked and dispirited, with her piglet-like gaity. A festive sun sun flooded the room. room. I shaved shaved myself myself clean before a mirror bordered with an ornate gilded frame. Standing Standing up, I turned back toward toward the orb of the sun, but the mirror reproduced its image before my face. Who am I? I ought to have had the strength in me to trace clearly the letters of my name and today's date upon the sun-lit window: there, I should have stopped thinking and laughed at it all the more. Am I but an effect effect of the mirror's duplicity duplicity,, the illuminated immensity immensity,, and of this too easy relation with myself? I ought to have a sublime idea of myself: for that, I have the necessary necessary strength. I equate love (bodies touching indecently) indecently) with the limitlessness of being – with nausea, the sun, and death. Obscenity reveals reveals a moment flowing into a delirium of the senses. senses. It is what within my character that is least often called out (but, at last): the side gustave (or pig).
III
Letter from the author to M me E... Received a telegram from the Monsignor: “Success. Hurry. Difficult situation.” I gazed at myself myself at length in the mirror mirror and I'm afraid I'll burst out laughing. The duplicity [dédoublement] of the Monsignor irritates me almost to the point of losing my head. What it lets me catch a glimpse glimpse of it is the ground of things, which which is decidedly a lie.
Letter from M me E... to the author ...finally, my throat has closed up. Your Your words have placed me in the most nerve-wracking state I've ever known. At moments I burst out laughing. And I imagine that, fr om now on, this insane laughter will never cease. It does, and at that very moment I have the painful yet voluptuous feeling of being caught in a trap, like a rat...
IV
Met Mme E... in Paris. We left the next day for Rome, where we awaited the Monsignor. Monsignor, or rather... Opera. Loud music. Much liquor. In the morning, falling, sharp knife in hand, I cut open my finger. M me E... laughed loudly to see me fall, but the abundant blood and her laughter heightened the feeling of awkwardness. awkwardness. I brought the discomfort to an end with a smile: I was pleasant, loose and adorable: she, sly, pale and willfully indecent. If intelligence is feminine... feminine... ... I would want that mine would, in a resolute movement, resemble an impious woman. A conjugation of corporeal words words exists which which ends in a comical song song.. I'll sing to the shame of the banquet table : Ravadja la moukère Ravadja bono
and, in spite of of me, outside outside of me, the violence violence of the song rebounds: rebounds: Soak your your ass in a bowl of stew, stew, You will see if it is hot or cool.
If she did not go all the way to ravjada, this impious woman would not have so resolutely illuminated the force of decay, decay, neither would it have been so resolutely beautiful: beautiful: the rot and ray of the sun. But it is my me way of loving M E..., of laughing and, finally, finally, of reasoning. reasoning. Alexandrette visited at two o'clock. o'clock. I trembled trembled (the liquor from from the night before?). before?). It seemed seemed hateful like the little fly-cages, f ly-cages, which as a child, I filled with disgustingly living insects. It was gone and we remained, me M E... and myself, myself, in the desert of f..., in a grandiloquent movement, movement, exposed to the hostility of the stars. Less than two hours later we departed on the train to Rome. Music from last evening sprang into my head. To cry, to vomit – happy! Disheveled streams. Courtesy of Mme E... Bare-shouldered, well educated, but such indecency!
V
Today Today,, when I make make love the feeling feeling that my pleasure pleasure must inevitably inevitably come to an end – that I will die without having having been satisfied – doesn't rob rob me of it. It came to me like like a dream, during during that happy excess excess burning pleasure itself annuls: I imagine a time when I would no longer possess the means to renew it. I lacked the feeling of the festival's exuberant exuberant luxury, luxury, the puerile malice and laughter that is equal to God! It is true, this power itself is in decline: it is of the same nature as sorrow sorrow. Abandon myself myself to my moods? moods? Rather, I give give myself up to the impossible, and I come like a dying monster. monster. Rome, a taxi-cab, Mme E...Violent lightning lightning of an electrical storm. Rain and moonlight in white streets of tragicomedy: pines, delights and indolence. I accept life on one condition. To To be carried by the the theatre chorus through through sublimity sublimity,, eternity, eternity, lies, singing singing at the top of of my lungs. lungs. Bought a wolf wolf for Mme E... Thirsty for insolence, I was the one who threw the Monsignor's parties. I'm intoxicated in strange ways. Singing with the masses, except for the old and grey. Ten Ten thousand eyes in the night are are the starry sky. sky. The more anxious anxious the man, the the happier the man. man. Invoking death, he cries: – Satiate your comical comical knives, knives, sharpen sharpen them on the the teeth in which they are held – The woman partly partly disrobed (profoundly (profoundly indecent, indecent, as I've said): said): her nakedness nakedness to the degree degree of death, death to the degree of her nakedness. nakedness.
VI
Village idiot! The sole measure of of my design exists exists before the the casings and the the counterfeit (the (the part that I'd completely completely adopted to reunite, in the night – without without saying saying more – what occupies occupies us). That it is necessary necessary to go far... far... To To be a star and disgrace the heights of the skies. Hearing Hearing nothing, neither cries nor discourse discourse in the solitude of the sky. sky. I called the Monsignor on the phone. And we, we we arrive within an hour hour.. dédoublement Alpha, Beta (thus (thus we distinguish distinguish among the actors, actors, the descendents descendents of a duplication [ dédoublement ]), Mme E... and me. Like me, Mme E..., naked in the taxi, drunk without without alcohol, and laughing as though though deaf: – But who spoke spoke to you? you? Alpha? Beta? The confusion gave her features features a slow, slow, voluptuous voluptuous convulsion. convulsion. The prelate descended descended the stone staircase staircase toward toward us, us, hands extended. extended. me M E..., impatient, said to him with a girlish laugh: – Bonjour Beta! Beta! When Mme E... said to “Bonjour Beta” to him, what struck me (I feel as happy here at the foot of the sunlit staircase as the panels where, like spicy little dishes, trussed and robed goddesses pay sly homage to pleasure) was the vulgarity of my friend. Bowing, she kissed the priest's ring, and this humble movement like the instant before her coarse laughter called out her animalistic nature. I recalled what one does not usually see in Mme E... other than the “girl.” In this unreal luxury I became all the happier, for such a true poverty responded to my passions. Without transition transition the moment moment became serious. serious. Suddenly I knew that at the top of the staircase, in an obscene disorder, disorder, I'd see the other side [of the world] world]. I understand that, in spite of their agreeable appearance, they remained disposed disposed to more debauched vows in this palace of tragedy, tragedy, which seemed seemed empty because its its threshold is no longer bloody bloody,, because the dogs of Jezebel Jezebel had already crossed it taking flight. What struck within this palace palace - as though in a sudden theatrical theatrical blow - was the hatred of men that they shared. The top of the monumental monumental staircase that the Monsignor and M me E... laughing, climbed, did not attract me only as though it were the threshold to a dreadful kingdom. I could not prevent myself myself from me seeing in contrast - to M E...'s triumphal moment, her high waist and her audacious airs, a lady ennobled by the stone framework framework - the image of a stone woman. Not that I then saw anything more than a royal entrance. I didn't see my friend on the terrace, in blood, in mud, in the unworldly noise of the crowd. (The roof does not suggest a crushed cr ushed body but brings about about vertigo.) Rarely, my friend's desire took me in a more bestial manner. I'm satisfied by a certain warmth that, in a sense, is frozen and frigid. I felt like a crowd at a stoning, perspiring hatred. Which cannot wait for an instant . Mme E... rapidly crossed the threshold. Alpha opened the door after two knocks.
