Gaze of Maldoror

Gaze of Maldoror is a look back at a series of obstacles and uncertainties, a blurred outline of vague silhouettes and uncertain steps. It is a mixture of the cold sweat of waking in the night after a long dream, and a lightning glance at the ceiling with a sigh of relief at the sudden overcoming of a hardship. It is a tentative, distracted and longing step forward. "When you slip on a frog you feel the ugliness, but when your hand scarcely touches a human body, the skin on your fingers bursts like the scales on a piece of mica that has been struck with a hammer; and as the heart of a shark that has been dead for an hour still beats on the deck with tenacious vitality, so your insides are indignant to the root long after that touch. Such is the horror a man inspires in his own neighbour! I may be wrong in saying this, but I may also be right. I know, I understand a more terrible disease than eyes swollen by long meditation on the strange nature of man: but I am still looking for it... and cannot find it. I do not think I am less understanding than any one, and yet who would dare to say that my search has succeeded? What a lie would come out of his mouth!"