Authors: Monique Wittig
Sophie Ménade's tale has to do with an orchard planted with trees of every colour. A naked woman walks therein. Her beautiful body is black and shining. Her hair consists of slender mobile snakes which produce music at her every movement. This is the hortative head of hair. It is so called because it communicates by the mouths of its hundred thousand snakes with the woman wearing the headdress. Orpheus, the favourite snake of the woman who walks in the garden, keeps advising her to eat the fruit of the tree in the centre of the garden. The woman tastes the fruit of each tree asking Orpheus the snake how to recognize that which is good. The answer given is that it sparkles, that merely to look at it rejoices the heart. Or else the answer given is that, as soon as she has eaten the fruit, she will become taller, she will grow, her feet will not leave the ground though her forehead will touch the stars. And he Orpheus and the hundred thousand snakes of her headdress will extend from one side of her face to the other, they will afford her a brilliant crown, her eyes will become as pale as moons, she will acquire knowledge. Then the women besiege Sophie Ménade with questions. Sophie Ménade says that the woman of the orchard will have a clear understanding of the solar myth that all the texts have deliberately obscured. Then they besiege her with questions. Sophie Ménade says, Sun that terrifies and delights/multicoloured iridescent insect you devour yourself in night's memory/blazing genital/the circle is your symbol/you exist from all eternity/you will exist for all eternity. At these words the women begin to dance, stamping the ground with their feet. They begin a round dance, clapping their hands, giving voice to a song from which no coherent phrase emerges.
The women say that even without the feminaries they can recall the time when, as was typical of them, they made war. They say that all they need do is to invent terms that describe themselves without conventional references to herbals or bestiaries. They say that this can be done without pretension. They say that what they must stress above all is their strength and their courage.
The great register is laid open on the table. Every now and again one of them approaches and writes something therein. It is difficult to inspect it because it is rarely available. Even then it is useless to open it at the first page and search for any sequence. One may take it at random and find something one is interested in. This may be very little. Diverse as the writings are they all have a common feature. Not a moment passes without one of the women approaching to write something therein. Or else a reading aloud of some passage takes place. It may also happen that the reading occurs without any audience, save for a fly that bothers the reader by settling on her temple.
Sometimes Philomèle Sarte sings squatting on her heels, swaying her bust forwards and backwards rocking from right to left. Should she cease singing she falls forward, face to the ground, or sideways, her cheek striking the ground, her legs folding like a gun-dog's. Then she sings on without a break. When her eyes close from fatigue two of the women carry her to a bed or else on to the grass in the sun and she falls asleep there.
Hélène Myre passes among the group with transparent trays. Voices, murmurs are heard. From the orangery there come the discordant sounds of a cartolo. Many of the women blow a trumpet and wander running through the avenues. Meanwhile Hélène Myre in passing offers glasses of differently coloured syrups. If she is asked what the blue or red liquid is she replies that the liquid is the same whatever its colour, syrupy and sugary, fingers dipped in it are sticky and coloured. In this connection someone says jokingly, tell me your colour and I will tell you who you are. From the branches of the trees fall shooting stars which change from blue to red to orange and abruptly go out. Round lanterns are hung from the wire on which the fans of the fruit-trees are horizontally trained. At a certain point those suspended from the arches of the rose avenue catch fire, the light they shed fades, slowly disappears.
ROSAMUND ADELE EDME
DEBORAH OSMENA GALLIA
EDVOKIA ABIGAIL LAMIA
ESTEVA TIMARETA SAUGE
LEUCOTHEA ARLETTE MERE
PASIPHAE CARRIE AUDREY
Their eyes, stuck to a shred of skin, are hidden in their long locks. When they toss their heads to shake some wisp off their cheeks or else when they bend forward, their eyes are visible rolling gleaming bluish haloed by the white of the agate-round cornea. They put their hands there only to tidy themselves, when they comb their hair strand by strand. Then each eye, touched, closes its lids, like a firefly going out. When they bound in the meadows holding each other by the hand, it seems as if there were hundreds of great pearls in their hair sparkling in the sun. If they begin to weep they are enclosed from head to foot in their falling tears. Through the light small rainbows halo them and make them glitter.
It is an animal without head or tail that resembles a top. It spins on itself without uttering a sound. Sometimes it is covered with scales, at others it is covered with feathers. No one knows how it moves. It is not seen to advance or retreat or move sideways as crabs do. All of a sudden it is there. It may emit a faint smell of aconite of incense or else smell unpleasantly of garlic or carnation. In the houses it stands in the centre of the rooms, ceaselessly spinning on itself. If it is forced to go away it suddenly appears again. Its eyes and mouth are at the level of the ground. They are invisible. It is possible that it makes use of them during its gyrations. It has no known cry. It is called the julep because it seems to have a predilection for rosewater. The little girls try to tame the juleps. They put them on a leash to drag them behind them. But even pulling with all their might they cannot succeed in making the juleps budge. They remain fixed to the point where they were seen to appear. They seem fixed to the ground by a species of magnetism.
The women say that they perceive their bodies in their entirety. They say that they do not favour any of its parts on the grounds that it was formerly a forbidden object. They say that they do not want to become prisoners of their own ideology. They say that they did not garner and develop the symbols that were necessary to them at an earlier period to demonstrate their strength. For example they do not compare the vulvas to the sun moon stars. They do not say that the vulvas are like black suns in the shining night.
In a high wind the leaves fall from the trees. They go on to gather them in bread baskets. Some, scarcely touched, rot. They are scattered in the fields in the woods. In the baskets there are leaves of chestnut hornbeam maple clove guaiac copal oak mandarine willow copper-beech elm plane terebinth latania myrtle. Tébaïre Jade scatters them in the room crying, Friends do not let your imagination deceive you. You compare yourselves privately to the fruits of the chestnut cloves mandarines green oranges but you are fruits only in appearance. Like the leaves you fly away at the slightest breeze, beautiful strong light subtle and prompt of understanding as you are. Beware of dispersal. Remain united like the characters in a book. Do not abandon the collectivity. The women are seated on the piles of leaves holding hands watching the clouds that pass outside.
They play a game. It is performed on an enormous parade-ground. The ground is divided into zones corresponding to the colours of the spectrum. There are a hundred and fifty violet hoops a hundred and fifty indigo hoops a hundred and fifty blue hoops a hundred and fifty green hoops a hundred and fifty yellow hoops a hundred and fifty orange hoops a hundred and fifty red hoops. The teams consist of seventy-five persons each, arranged on either side of the midline of the parade-ground. Each team has equal strips of violet indigo blue green yellow orange red territory. A machine situated at the centre of the parade-ground ejects the hoops one after the other at a fast pace. They rise vertically above the heads of the players. They rotate on themselves. At the same time they describe a vast circle which continually increases, due to the momentum imparted to them by the machine. The path of their movements would be an immense spiral. The women playing must catch the hoops without leaving the coloured zones allotted to them. Very soon there is an indescribable tumult of bodies jostling each other in the attempt to take hold of the same hoop or to withdraw from the confusion.
METTE KHADIOTA MICHAELA
PHANO HUGUETTE LELIA
SIDONIA OMAYA MERNEITH
INIBRINA WUANG-QIANG
ASPASIA HANNAH LETITIA
NORA BENOITE RADEGONDE
The bearers of fables are very welcome. A party is given in their honour. Tables are set up in the conservatories, in the orangeries. The drinks are mixed with narcotics, there are belladonna henbane nightshade datura in the wines in the spirits. There are also aphrodisiacs hashish opium. The drinkers are placid to begin with. Through the open doors they are visible stretched out on the divans, half asleep, or lying in the grass on the lawns. Later on they are seized with delirium. Some play an instrument and sing in part of the gardens, tears run down their cheeks, eventually sobs interrupt their singing. Others dance tangling their hair and stamping the ground with their feet with all their might. Around the tables, under the influence of the drugs, they engage in discourses which pile up paradoxes absurdities logomachies fallacies sophistries. At a certain point someone challenges the speakers, calling a halt, demanding reasoning devoid of error. Then the women all fall silent and go to sleep.
They do not say that vulvas with their elliptical shape are to be compared to suns, planets, innumerable galaxies. They do not say that gyratory movements are like vulvas. They do not say that the vulva is the primal form which as such describes the world in all its extent, in all its movement. They do not in their discourses create conventional figures derived from these symbols.
They weep, lying down or seated apart. The frost solidifies their tears which shine and sparkle on their cheeks. They weep, their sobs rack their bodies, they can be seen rolling in the snow. There are places where the wind blows white powdery clouds into their faces. Their cries moans lamentations do not rise from the depths. They might just as well be dumb. They do not bring their stiffened hands to their cheeks or their mouths to arrest the flow of blood from their gums. The icy
cirque
where they stand reflects all the sun's rays. The waves of light seem to detach themselves from the ground, to rise like flames, to quiver, to turn from red to orange-yellow or from pink to violet. It is like a volcanic crater that burns ready to overwhelm them.
Drunk, the women say they are drunk. Great fields of scarlet poppies have been trampled underfoot. Their heads, their torn petals hang loosely or lie in confusion on the ground. Not a drop of dew is visible on the flowers. The women dance. They hold each other round the neck and let themselves fall to the ground, lips black, eyes starting. They say they are drunk. Their arms and legs are bare. Their loosened hair hides their cheeks, then, flung back, reveals shining eyes, lips parted in song.
One must not run. One must walk patiently counting the number of one's steps. If one makes no mistake, if one turns to the left at just the right moment, one will not touch the tree sticky with honey with one's outstretched arms. At this stage of the march one must interrupt the calculations and begin again at zero. If one makes no mistake in the calculations, if one jumps with feet together at just the right moment, one will not fall into the snake-pit. At this stage of the march one must interrupt the calculations and begin again at zero. If one makes no mistake in the calculations, if one bends down at just the right moment, one will not be caught in the jaws of the trap. At this stage of the march one must interrupt the calculations and begin again at zero. If one makes no mistake in the calculations and if one cries Sara Magre at just the right moment, one will fall into the arms of the incomparable, the gigantic, the wise Sara.
ISADORA VI-SEUM JEZEBEL
ODILE ZUBAÏDA DINARZADE
GISELLE MARY CANDRA SITA
CELIMENA ASTRID MARLENE
CLEO LYSISTRATA ZENEIDA
EMON CLORINDA MESSALINA
Six of the women are none too many to hold her. Her mouth is open. Inarticulate words and cries are heard. She stamps the ground with her feet. She twists her arms to free them from the grip, she shakes her head in every direction. At a given moment she lets herself fall to the ground, she strikes the ground with her arms, she rolls about shrieking. Her mouth seizes the earth and spits it out. Her gums bleed. Words like death blood blood burn death war war war are heard. Then she tears her garments and bangs her head on the ground until she falls silent, done for. Four of the women carry her, singing, Behind my eyelids/the dream has not reached my soul/whether I sleep or wake/there is no rest.
To greet the messengers they go beneath the great oak. In the greatest heat it casts a cool shade. They are seated in a circle. They speak or doze. Sometimes no messenger arrives. Then they rise and shaking out their clothes they disperse and are lost to sight in the branching avenues.
Sometimes the women may chance to talk together about the latest fable that has been told them. For example Diane Ebèle tells Aimée Dionis the fable of Koue Feï which is about a young girl who pursues the sun. She is constantly on the point of catching it. To escape her, the sun plunges into the sea. Koue Feï then starts to swim after it. Thus she traverses the entire ocean. She comes up to it just when it is leaving the water, about to escape her again. Hastily Koue Feï jumps into the sun and instals herself within it. She makes it sway from side to side in its course, several stars fall because of this. But Koue Feï has managed to sit inside the sun. Now she controls its path. She can make it follow its orbit faster or slower as she wishes. That is why, in order to have good weather when they leave for the fishing, the two little girls address themselves to Koue Feï, mistress of the sun, so that she may pause for a while above the sea.
The weather-vanes are arranged next to each other on the hill. The metal blades that rotate round the shafts are painted green blue red white yellow black. Each blade is surrounded by long fine fringes which are borne up by the wind. None of the weather-vanes point in the same direction. Some turn at full speed. The white ones in their movements retain the light of the sun. Like mirrors they reflect its flashes.