Les Guerilleres

Les Guerilleres by Monique Wittig

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Authors: Monique Wittig
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say that a new world is beginning.
    To Hippolyta was sent the lion of the triple night. They say that it took three nights to engender a monster with a human face capable of overcoming the queen of the Amazons. The stern fight she had using bow and arrows, his desperate resistance when she dragged it far into the mountains so as not to jeopardize the life of her kin, they say they know nothing of these, that the story has not been written. They say that until that day the women had always been defeated.
    The game consists of posing a series of questions, for example, Who says, I wish it, I order it, my will must take the place of reason? Or, Who must never act according to their will? Or else, Who is only an animal the colour of flowers? There are plenty of others such as, Who must observe the three obediences and whose destiny is written in their anatomy? The answer to all the questions is the same. Then they begin to laugh ferociously slapping each other on the shoulders. Some of the women, lips parted, spit blood.
    To sleep they enter the white cells. These are hollowed out in the rock-face by hundreds of thousands. Their concentric openings are tangential. The women travel there rapidly, at full speed in fact. Naked, their hair covering their shoulders, they choose their places as they climb. It is possible to lie down in the cell, which resembles an egg, a sarcophagus, an O in view of the shape of its aperture. Several can stay there together gesticulating, singing, sleeping. It is a place of privileged sanctuary though not sealed off. The isolation of one cell from another is such that, even if one bangs with all one's might against the ovoid wall, the sound of the blows is not perceived in the adjacent cell. When one is lying down in the cell it is impossible to discern the occupants of the other cells. Before the general retirement for the night confused murmurs of voices are heard, then, distinctly, the phrase, This order must be changed, forcefully repeated by thousands of voices.

    ANACTORIA PSAPPHA LETO
    OUBAOUÉ CHEA NINEGAL
    IPHIS LYDIA GENEVIEVE
    EUGENIA THEODORA WATI
    NOUT BETTE HETEPHERES
    GUDRUN VERONICA EMMA

    The habitations are gem-studded multicoloured spherical. Some are transparent. Some float in the air and drift gently. Others are attached to dull steel pylons that look like stalks from a distance. The habitations are affixed at differing heights, their interposition varies. There is no symmetry in their arrangement. They are attached to the pylons at right angles by transverse shafts. The length of these shafts also varies. It is not possible at this distance to determine what allows the inhabitants to gain access to their houses. The pylons are very tall. Their metallic structures with their clean and precise outlines are seen against the horizon. The spheres are suspended from them by the hundred thousand. Between the spheres are seen moving clouds, the sun or the moon, the stars. When the wind gets up the spheres all begin to move at once, soundlessly. From every point on the plain the women march towards the town. They wear identical costumes. These consist of black trousers, flared below, narrow at the hips, and white tunics that confine the bust. They are bare-footed or else they wear light sandals. Several among them march singing long interminably modulated phrases in a high-pitched voice, for example, Cry, is there gold elsewhere more celestial/the wasps of bullets are not for me.
    There are there Elsa Brauer Julie Brunèle Odile Roques Evelyne Sabir. They stand before the great gathering of women. Elsa Brauer strikes the cymbals one against the other when she stops speaking, while Julie Brunèle Odile Roques Evelyne Sabir accompany her with long rolls on their drums. Elsa Brauer says something like, There was a time when you were not a slave, remember that. You walked alone, full of laughter, you bathed bare-bellied. You say you have lost all recollection of it, remember. The wild roses

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