Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)The Devil of Perversity
translation of Charles Baudelaire
First published in the July 1845 issue of Graham's Lady's And Gentleman's Magazine , this text was then republished, in a slightly revised version, in various collections of poems in the following years. Poe began to be known in France shortly before his death. The young Baudelaire discovered it in 1847, and immediately began translating his work. The first Extraordinary Histories are published in Paris ten years later.
In the examination of faculties and inclinations - of the primordial motives of the human soul - the phrenologists forgot to take part in a tendency which, although apparently existing as a primitive, radical, irreducible feeling, was also omitted by all the moralists who preceded them. In the perfect infatuation of our reason, we have all omitted it. We have allowed its existence to escape our sight, only for lack of belief, of faith - whether it be faith in Revelation or faith in Cabal. The idea never came to us, simply because of its supererogatory quality. We did not feel the need to note this impulse - this tendency. We could not imagine the necessity. We couldn't grasp the notion of this mobile primum, and, even if it were forced into us, we could never understand what role it played in the economy of human things, temporal or eternal. It is impossible to deny that phrenology and a good part of the metaphysical sciences were a priori mixed. The man of metaphysics or logic, rather than the man of intelligence and observation, claims to conceive of God's designs - to dictate plans to him. Having thus deepened Jehovah's intentions to his full satisfaction, according to these said intentions, he built his innumerable and capricious systems. In matters of phrenology, for example, we first established, quite naturally, moreover, that it was in the designs of the Divinity that man ate. Then we assigned to the man an organ of nourishment, and this organ is the whip with which God compels man to eat, willy-nilly. Secondly, having decided that it was the will of God that man should continue his species, we immediately discovered an organ of amativity. And so those of combativeness, ideality, causality, constructiveness - in short, any organ representing an inclination, a moral feeling or a faculty of pure intelligence. And in this accommodation of the principles of human action, Spurzheimists, rightly or wrongly, in part or in whole, have only followed, in principle, the traces of their predecessors; deducing and establishing everything according to the preconceived destiny of man and taking as a basis the intentions of his Creator. and this organ is the whip with which God compels man to eat, willy-nilly. Secondly, having decided that it was the will of God that man should continue his species, we immediately discovered an organ of amativity. And so those of combativeness, ideality, causality, constructiveness - in short, any organ representing an inclination, a moral feeling or a faculty of pure intelligence. And in this accommodation of the principles of human action, Spurzheimists, rightly or wrongly, in part or in whole, have only followed, in principle, the traces of their predecessors; deducing and establishing everything according to the preconceived destiny of man and taking as a basis the intentions of his Creator. and this organ is the whip with which God compels man to eat, willy-nilly. Secondly, having decided that it was the will of God that man should continue his species, we immediately discovered an organ of amativity. And so those of combativeness, ideality, causality, constructiveness - in short, any organ representing an inclination, a moral feeling or a faculty of pure intelligence. And in this accommodation of the principles of human action, Spurzheimists, rightly or wrongly, in part or in whole, have only followed, in principle, the traces of their predecessors; deducing and establishing everything according to the preconceived destiny of man and taking as a basis the intentions of his Creator. man to eat, willy-nilly. Secondly, having decided that it was the will of God that man should continue his species, we immediately discovered an organ of amativity. And so those of combativeness, ideality, causality, constructiveness - in short, any organ representing an inclination, a moral feeling or a faculty of pure intelligence. And in this accommodation of the principles of human action, Spurzheimists, rightly or wrongly, in part or in whole, have only followed, in principle, the traces of their predecessors; deducing and establishing everything according to the preconceived destiny of man and taking as a basis the intentions of his Creator. man to eat, willy-nilly. Secondly, having decided that it was the will of God that man should continue his species, we immediately discovered an organ of amativity. And so those of combativeness, ideality, causality, constructiveness - in short, any organ representing an inclination, a moral feeling or a faculty of pure intelligence. And in this accommodation of the principles of human action, Spurzheimists, rightly or wrongly, in part or in whole, have only followed, in principle, the traces of their predecessors; deducing and establishing everything according to the preconceived destiny of man and taking as a basis the intentions of his Creator. man continued his species, we immediately discovered an organ of amativity. And so those of combativeness, ideality, causality, constructiveness - in short, any organ representing an inclination, a moral feeling or a faculty of pure intelligence. And in this accommodation of the principles of human action, Spurzheimists, rightly or wrongly, in part or in whole, have only followed, in principle, the traces of their predecessors; deducing and establishing everything according to the preconceived destiny of man and taking as a basis the intentions of his Creator. man continued his species, we immediately discovered an organ of amativity. And so those of combativeness, ideality, causality, constructiveness - in short, any organ representing an inclination, a moral feeling or a faculty of pure intelligence. And in this accommodation of the principles of human action, Spurzheimists, rightly or wrongly, in part or in whole, have only followed, in principle, the traces of their predecessors; deducing and establishing everything according to the preconceived destiny of man and taking as a basis the intentions of his Creator. a moral feeling or a faculty of pure intelligence. And in this accommodation of the principles of human action, Spurzheimists, rightly or wrongly, in part or in whole, have only followed, in principle, the traces of their predecessors; deducing and establishing everything according to the preconceived destiny of man and taking as a basis the intentions of his Creator. a moral feeling or a faculty of pure intelligence. And in this accommodation of the principles of human action, Spurzheimists, rightly or wrongly, in part or in whole, have only followed, in principle, the traces of their predecessors; deducing and establishing everything according to the preconceived destiny of man and taking as a basis the intentions of his Creator.
It would have been wiser, it would have been safer to base our classification (since we absolutely have to classify) on the acts that man usually performs and those that he performs occasionally, always occasionally, rather than on the assumption that it is Divinity itself which makes them accomplish it. If we cannot understand God in his visible works, how then can we understand him in his inconceivable thoughts, which call these works to Life? If we cannot conceive it in its objective creatures, how will we conceive it in its unconditional modes and in its phases of creation?
A posteriori induction would have led phrenology to admit as a primitive and innate principle of human action a paradoxical je ne sais quoi, which we will call perversity, for lack of a more characteristic term. In the sense that I attach to it, it is, in reality, a motive without motive, an unmotivated motive. Under his influence, we act without an intelligible goal; or, if this appears to be a contradiction in terms, we can modify the proposition to the point of saying that, under its influence, we act by reason that we should not. In theory, there could not be a more unreasonable reason; but, in fact, there is no stronger one. For some minds, under certain conditions, it becomes absolutely irresistible. My life is no more certain for me than this proposition: the certainty of sin or error included in any act is often the only invincible force that drives us, and only drives us to its accomplishment. And this overwhelming tendency to do evil for the love of evil will admit no analysis, no resolution in subsequent elements. It is a radical, primitive, - elementary movement. It will be said, I expect, that if we persist in certain acts because we feel that we should not persist in them, our conduct is only a modification of that which ordinarily derives from phrenological combativeness. But a simple glance will suffice to discover the falsity of this idea. Phrenological combativeness has for its existence the necessity of personal defense. It is our safeguard against injustice. Its principle concerns our well-being; and thus, at the same time as it develops, we feel the desire for well-being being exalted in us. It would follow from this that the desire for well-being should be simultaneously excited with any principle which would only be a modification of combativeness; but, in the case of that I do not know what I define perversity, not only the desire for well-being is not awakened, but also appears a singularly contradictory feeling.
Every man, appealing to his own heart, will find, after all, the best answer to the fallacy in question. Anyone who will honestly consult and carefully question his soul will not dare to deny the absolute radicalism of the addiction in question. It is no less characterized than incomprehensible. There is no man, for example, who at some point has not been devoured by an ardent desire to torture his listener by circumlocutions. Whoever speaks knows well that he does not like it; he has the best intention of pleasing; it is usually brief, precise and clear; the most laconic and brightest language is agitated and struggling over its language; it is only with difficulty that he himself forces himself to refuse him the passage, he dreads and conjures the bad mood of the one to whom he is addressing. However, this thought struck him, that by certain incises and parentheses it could generate this anger. This simple thought is enough. The movement becomes a desire, the desire grows in desire, desire changes into an irresistible need, and the need is satisfied - to the deep regret and mortification of the speaker, and in disregard of all consequences.
We have before us a task that we must accomplish quickly. We know that delaying is our ruin. The greatest crisis of our lives calls for immediate action and energy with the imperative voice of a trumpet. We are burning, we are consumed with impatience to get to work; the taste of a glorious result ignites our whole soul. This task must, it must be attacked today, - and yet we postpone it to tomorrow; - and why? There is no explanation, except that we feel it is perverse; - let us use the word without understanding the principle. Tomorrow arrives, and at the same time a more impatient anxiety to do our duty; but with this increased anxiety also comes a burning desire, anonyne, to delay further, - positively terrible desire, because its nature is impenetrable. The more time flees, the more strength the desire gains. There is only one hour left for action, this hour is ours. We tremble with the violence of the conflict which is agitated within us, - the battle between the positive and the indefinite, between substance and shadow. But, if the struggle has come to this point, it is the shadow that prevails - we struggle in vain. The clock strikes, and it is the death knell for our happiness. It is at the same time for the shadow that has terrorized us for so long, the alarm clock song, the diane of the victorious rooster of ghosts. It flies away - it disappears - we are free. The old energy is coming back. We will work now. Alas! it's too late. The more time flees, the more strength the desire gains. There is only one hour left for action, this hour is ours. We tremble with the violence of the conflict which is agitated within us, - the battle between the positive and the indefinite, between substance and shadow. But, if the struggle has come to this point, it is the shadow that prevails - we struggle in vain. The clock strikes, and it is the death knell for our happiness. It is at the same time for the shadow that has terrorized us for so long, the alarm clock song, the diane of the victorious rooster of ghosts. It flies away - it disappears - we are free. The old energy is coming back. We will work now. Alas! it's too late. The more time flees, the more strength the desire gains. There is only one hour left for action, this hour is ours. We tremble with the violence of the conflict which is agitated within us, - the battle between the positive and the indefinite, between substance and shadow. But, if the struggle has come to this point, it is the shadow that prevails - we struggle in vain. The clock strikes, and it is the death knell for our happiness. It is at the same time for the shadow that has terrorized us for so long, the alarm clock song, the diane of the victorious rooster of ghosts. It flies away - it disappears - we are free. The old energy is coming back. We will work now. Alas! it's too late. this hour is ours. We tremble with the violence of the conflict which is agitated within us, - the battle between the positive and the indefinite, between substance and shadow. But, if the struggle has come to this point, it is the shadow that prevails - we struggle in vain. The clock strikes, and it is the death knell for our happiness. It is at the same time for the shadow that has terrorized us for so long, the alarm clock song, the diane of the victorious rooster of ghosts. It flies away - it disappears - we are free. The old energy is coming back. We will work now. Alas! it's too late. this hour is ours. We tremble with the violence of the conflict which is agitated within us, - the battle between the positive and the indefinite, between substance and shadow. But, if the struggle has come to this point, it is the shadow that prevails - we struggle in vain. The clock strikes, and it is the death knell for our happiness. It is at the same time for the shadow that has terrorized us for so long, the alarm clock song, the diane of the victorious rooster of ghosts. It flies away - it disappears - we are free. The old energy is coming back. We will work now. Alas! it's too late. prevails, - we struggle in vain. The clock strikes, and it is the death knell for our happiness. It is at the same time for the shadow that has terrorized us for so long, the alarm clock song, the diane of the victorious rooster of ghosts. It flies away - it disappears - we are free. The old energy is coming back. We will work now. Alas! it's too late. prevails, - we struggle in vain. The clock strikes, and it is the death knell for our happiness. It is at the same time for the shadow that has terrorized us for so long, the alarm clock song, the diane of the victorious rooster of ghosts. It flies away - it disappears - we are free. The old energy is coming back. We will work now. Alas! it's too late.
We are on the edge of a precipice, We look into the abyss, - we feel uneasy and dizzy. Our first movement is to back away from danger. Inexplicably we stay. Little by little our uneasiness, our vertigo, our horror merge into a cloudy and indefinable feeling. Gradually, imperceptibly, this cloud takes a form, like the vapor of the bottle from which rose the genius of the Arabian Nights. But from our cloud, on the edge of the precipice, rises, more and more palpable, a form a thousand times more terrible than any genius, than any demon of fables; and yet it is only a thought, but a dreadful thought, a thought which freezes the very marrow of our bones, and penetrates them with the ferocious delights of its horror. It's just this idea: What would be our sensations during the course of a fall made from such a height? And this fall, - this lightning annihilation, - for the simple reason that they imply the most dreadful, the most odious of all the most dreadful and all the most odious images of death and suffering that have ever presented themselves to our imagination , - for this simple reason, we desire them more ardently. And because our judgment violently drives us away from the edge, because of that very fact, we approach it more impetuously. It is not in the nature of passion more diabolically impatient than that of a man who, shivering on the edge of a precipice, dreams of jumping into it. To allow yourself, to try to think for a moment only, is inevitably to be lost; for reflection commands us to abstain from it, and it is for this very reason, I say, that we cannot. If there is not a friendly arm there to stop us, or if we are incapable of a sudden effort to throw ourselves away from the abyss, we rush forward, we are annihilated.
Let us examine these actions and others analogous, we will find that they result only from the spirit of perversity. We just perpetrate them because we feel we shouldn't. Below or beyond, there is no intelligible principle; and we could, in truth, consider this perversity as a direct instigation of the Archidemon, if it were not recognized that sometimes it serves the accomplishment of good.
If I have told you so much, it was to somehow answer your question, - to explain to you why I am here, - to have to show you some semblance of some cause which motivates these irons I wear and this convicted cell that I live in. If I hadn't been so verbose, or you wouldn't have understood me at all, or, like the crowd, you would have thought me crazy. Now you will easily perceive that I am one of the countless victims of the Devil of Evil.
It is impossible that an action has ever been devised with more perfect deliberation. For weeks, for months, I meditated on the means of assassination. I rejected a thousand plans, because the accomplishment of each involved a chance of revelation. In the long run, one day reading a few French memoirs, I found the story of an almost fatal illness which happened to Madame Pilau, due to an accidentally poisoned candle. The idea suddenly struck my imagination. I knew my victim used to read in bed. I also knew that her room was small and poorly ventilated. But I don't need to tire you of idle details. I will not tell you the easy tricks with the help of which I substituted, in the candlestick of his bedroom, a candle of my composition to the one I found there. In the morning the dead man was found in his bed, and the coroner's verdict was: Death by the visitation of God.
I inherited his fortune, and all went well for several years. The idea of a revelation did not once enter my brain. As for the remains of the fatal candle, I had destroyed them myself. I had not left the shadow of a thread that could be used to convince me or even make me suspect the crime. One cannot imagine what a magnificent feeling of satisfaction arose in my breast when I reflected on my absolute safety. For a long period of time, I got used to reveling in this feeling. It gave me more real pleasure than all the purely material benefits resulting from my crime. But in the long run came an era from which the feeling of pleasure was transformed, by an almost imperceptible gradation, into a thought that harassed me. She harassed me because she haunted me. I could hardly get rid of it for a moment. It is quite an ordinary thing to have tired ears, or rather the memory obsessed with a kind of tintouin, by the refrain of a vulgar song or by some insignificant shreds of opera. And the torture will not be less, if the song is good in itself or if the opera air is estimable. This is how at the end I found myself constantly dreaming of my safety, and repeating this sentence in a low voice: I am saved! a vulgar song or by some insignificant shreds of opera. And the torture will not be less, if the song is good in itself or if the opera air is estimable. This is how at the end I found myself constantly dreaming of my safety, and repeating this sentence in a low voice: I am saved! a vulgar song or by some insignificant shreds of opera. And the torture will not be less, if the song is good in itself or if the opera air is estimable. This is how at the end I found myself constantly dreaming of my safety, and repeating this sentence in a low voice: I am saved!
One day, while strolling in the streets, I caught myself whispering, almost aloud, these accustomed syllables. In a fit of petulance, I expressed them in this new form: I am saved, - I am saved; - yes, - provided that I am not stupid enough to confess my case myself!
No sooner had I said these words than I felt an ice cold filter down to my heart. I had acquired some experience of these outbursts of perversity (of which I have not without difficulty explained the singular nature), and I remembered very well that in no case had I been able to resist these victorious attacks. And now this fortuitous suggestion, coming from myself, - that I could well be stupid enough to confess the murder of which I was guilty, - confronted me like the very shadow of the one I murdered, - and was calling me to death.
First, I made an effort to shake up this nightmare from my soul. I walked vigorously, - faster, - always faster; - in the long run I ran. I had an intoxicating desire to cry out with all my might. Each successive flow of my thought overwhelmed me with new terror; because, alas! I understood, all too well, that to think, in my situation, was to lose myself. I accelerated my race again. I leaped like crazy through the crowded streets. In the long run, the populace took the alarm and ran after me. I then felt the consumption of my destiny. If I had been able to tear my tongue out, I would have done so; - but a rough voice resounded in my ears, - an even rougher hand grabbed me by the shoulder. I turned around, I opened my mouth to suck. For a while, I experienced all the anguish of suffocation; I became blind, deaf, drunk: and then some invisible demon, I thought, struck me on the back with his large hand. The secret so long imprisoned sprang from my soul.
It is said that I spoke, that I uttered myself very distinctly, but with a marked energy and an ardent haste, as if I feared to be interrupted before I had completed the short, but large, important sentences which delivered to the executioner and to hell.
Having recounted all that was necessary for the full conviction of justice, I fell to the floor, passed out.
But why should I say more? Today I'm wearing these chains, and I'm here! Tomorrow I will be free! -but where?
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