Octave Mirbeau Torture Garden Quotes

Why, flowers are violent, cruel, terrible, splendid...like love.

I desire her and I hate her. I would like to take her in my arms and embrace her till she smothered, till she was crushed and I could drink death from her gushing veins.

Wherever he goes, whatever he does, he will always see that word: murder—immortally inscribed upon the pediment of that vast slaughterhouse—humanity.

Monsters, monsters! But there are no monsters! What you call monsters are superior forms, or forms beyond your understanding. Aren't the gods monsters? Isn't a man of genius a monster, like a tiger or a spider, like all individuals who live beyond social lies, in the dazzling and divine immortality of things? Why, I too then-am a monster!

Woman possesses the cosmic force of an element, an invincible force of destruction, like nature's. She is, in herself alone, all nature! Being the matrix of life, she is by that very fact the matrix of death - since it is from death that life is perpetually reborn, and since to annihilate death would be to kill life at its only fertile source.

Alas, the gates of life never swing open except upon death, never open except upon the palaces and gardens of death. And the universe appears to me like an immense, inexorable torture-garden… What I say today, and what I heard, exists and cries and howls beyond this garden, which is no more than a symbol to me of the entire earth.

In that atrocious second I understood that desire can attain the darkest human terror and give an actual idea of hell and its horror.

What else do you do there except lie—lie to yourself and others, lie about everything you recognize in your heart to be true? You’re obliged to pretend respect for people and institutions you think absurd. You live attached in a cowardly fashion to moral and social conventions you despise, condemn, and know lack all foundation. It is that permanent contradiction between your ideas and desires and all the dead formalities and vain pretences of your civilization which makes you sad, troubled and unbalanced. In that intolerable conflict you lose all joy of life and all feeling of personality, because at every moment they suppress and restrain and check the free play of your powers. That’s the poisoned and mortal wound of the civilized world.

I was thinking of love,' I replied in a tone of reproach, 'and here you are talking to me again—forever—about torture!' 'Doubtless! since it's the same thing—

The Occidental snobbery which is invading us, the gunboats, rapid-fire guns, long-range rifles, explosives... what else? Everything which makes death collective, administrative and bureaucratic - all the filth of your progress, in fact - is destroying, little by little, our beautiful traditions of the past.

Yes, there are some backs on the street which cry for the knife.

To Priests, Soldiers, Judges- to men who rear, lead or govern men I dedicate these pages of murder and blood.

Monsters, monsters! But there are no monsters! What you call monsters are superior forms, or forms beyond your understanding.

For to arrive somewhere means to die!

Look here, before you and around you! There is not a grain of sand that has not been bathed in blood, and what is that grain of sand itself, if not the dust of death? But how rich this blood is, and how fertile is the dust!

Have you ever been at a festival when you were sad or ill? Well, then you’ve felt how much your sadness was irritated and exasperated, as by an insult, by the joyful faces and the beauty of things. It’s an intolerable feeling. Think of what it must mean to a victim who is going to die under torture. Think how much the torture is multiplied in his flesh and his soul by all the splendour which surrounds him; and how much more atrocious is his agony, how much more hopelessly atrocious, darling!

Tp Priests, Soldiers, Judges- to men who rear, lead or govern men I dedicate these pages of murder and blood.

You know how much Annie loved pearls. She owned some incomparable specimens…the most marvelous, I believe, that ever existed. You also remember the almost physical joy, the carnal ecstasy, with which she adorned herself with them. Well, when she was sick that passion became a mania with her…a fury, like love! All day long she loved to touch them, caress them and kiss them; she made cushions of them, necklaces, capes, cloaks. Then this extraordinary thing happened; the pearls died on her skin: first they tarnished, little by little…little by little they grew dim, and no light was reflected in their luster any more and, in a few days, tainted by the disease, they changed into tiny balls of ash. They were dead, dead like people, my darling. Did you know that pearls had souls? I think it’s fascinating and delicious. And since then, I think of it every day.

Perverse? Because they obey the only law of life; because they are satisfied with the only need of life, which is love? But consider, milady, the flower is only a reproductive organ. Is there anything healthier, stronger, or more beautiful than that? These marvelous petals, these silks, these velvets... these soft, supple, and caressing materials are the curtains of the alcove, the draperies of the bridal chamber, the perfumed bed where they unite, where they pass their ephemeral and immortal life, swooning with love. What an admirable example for us!” he spread the petals of the flower, counted the stamens laden with pollen, and he spoke again, his eyes swimming in a comical ecstasy: “See, milady; one, two, five, ten, twenty. See how they quiver! Look! Sometimes twenty males are required for the delight of a single female! he! he! he! Sometimes it’s the opposite.” one by one he tore off the petals of the flower: “And when they are gorged with love, then the curtains of the bed are torn away, the draperies of the chamber wither and fall; and the flowers die, because they know well they have nothing more to do. They die, to be reborn later, and once again, to love!

И аз заминах! Благодарение на насмешката на съдбата, която наистина ме преследваше, аз се възползувах, за да избягам от Клара, като премина през Кантон с английската мисия — мен решително ми вървеше на мисии, — която отиваше да изучи малко познатите местности на Аннам… То беше забрава може би… и може би смърт. В продължение на две години, две дълги и ужасни години аз вървях, вървях… И това не бе нито забрава, нито смърт. Въпреки умората, опасностите и проклетата треска нито за един ден, ни една минута не можах да се изцеря от страшната отрова, която бе вляла в кръвта ми тая жена, за която чувствувах, че това, което ме привързваше към нея, което ме приковаваше, бе ужасяващото разлагане на нейната душа и нейните любовни престъпления; тя бе едно чудовище и аз я обичах именно защото бе чудовище! Аз мислех — дали наистина мислех? — да се издигна чрез нейната любов, но паднах по-ниско, на дъното на отровната бездна, от която, веднъж вдъхнал изпаренията й, никога няма измъкване.

How could I accept the fact that, after having been conquered— soul, body and brain—by this irrevocable, indissoluble and martyrizing love, I would have to immediately give it up? Madness! This love was a part of me, like my own flesh; it had taken the place of my blood and marrow; it possessed me entirely; it was I! To separate me from it meant to separate me from myself; it meant to kill me. Worse still! It meant the extravagant nightmare that my head was in Ceylon, my feet in China, separated by abysses of ocean, and that I would continue to live in these two stumps which could never be reunited!

That the very next day I would no longer possess those swooning eyes, those devouring lips, the nightly renewed miracle of that body with its divine contours and savage embraces; and, after long spasms as powerful as sin and as deep as death, that naive stammering, those little laughs, those little tears, those languid little songs of a child or a bird—was it possible! And I would lose all that was more necessary for breathing than my lungs; more necessary for thinking than my brain; more necessary for nourishing my veins with warm blood than my heart! Impossible! I belonged to Clara like the coal belongs to the fire which devours and consumes it. Both to her and me, a separation had seemed so inconceivable and so insanely fantastic, so totally contrary to the laws of nature and life, that we had never spoken of it.

I desired none but her; I wanted none but her. Nothing any longer existed outside or beyond her. Instead of extinguishing the fire of my love, every day possession fanned its flame. I descended further into the burning gulf of her desire each time, and every day I realised more strongly that my entire life would be exhausted seeking to reach its bottom!