Rousseau. It has thereby arrived at almighty technoscience. We live in the age of the industrialisation of animal breeding, and of what is called zootechnics, the science of the exploitation of animal-machines. We can see the infinite distance that separates our present-day sensibility from that of Rousseau when we read the following lines taken from Book II of
Emile
:
Pitiful man! You begin by killing the animal, and then you eat it, as if to make it die twice over. That is not enough: the dead flesh still revolts you, your entrails cannot bear it; it has to be transformed by fire, boiled, roasted, seasoned with concoctions which disguise it: you need butchers, cooks, meat roasters, people to take fromyou the horror of the murder and dress dead bodies for you, so that the sense of taste, deceived by these disguises, does not reject what is foreign to it, and savours with pleasure carcasses whose aspect the eye itself would have found it difficult to bear.
Part II
ABSOLUTE FIDELITY: TO WAIT TILL IT KILLS YOU
13
HELP!
THE AUDIENCE WAS plunged into the ink-black darkness of the hall, separated by a big empty pit from the stage, which was lit by a bright light shining down from the black ceiling whose height I could only guess at. I was on stage, in ceremonial dress. Two violinists and a cellist were at my side. The concert was going to begin at any moment. As surprising and absurd as it seemed, I was part of a string quartet, which was going to perform one of the six masterpieces by Mozart dedicated to Haydn. I didnât recognise the musicians. My anxiety increased. Why was I there? How had I been able to accept an idea as crazy, as deluded, as that of
playing
the viola myself? In front of an audience! Here, in a place that had all the appearance of a real concert hall! What was I to do? Should I stand up and shout out that thereâd been a mistake? âExcuse me, Iâm not a musician. I canât do anything ⦠I donât know why I was brought here, why I was given thisinstrument that doesnât belong to me, and this black costume, which Iâve never worn.â I felt hot flushes spreading over my face and the whole of my body, front and back, was bathed in a cold sweat â¦
A violent episode of apnoea shook me and dragged me from sleep. How long had I stopped breathing for? I was breathless, I needed air as if Iâd almost drowned ⦠I turned to lie on my left side in order to breathe deeply.
I fell back asleep â¦
It was then that I thought I heard, from beyond this night punctuated by tormenting dreams, a kind of wolfâs howling, which seemed to come straight out of a fantastic story unfolding from beginning to end in a far-off Gothic kingdom that had fallen into decay.
I burrowed under the eiderdown as if to flee from the fear, to protect myself from the exhausting, nightmarish night. Yet the wolfâs howls continued to make themselves heard, muffled though, their sharp, piercing notes smothered.
I emerged abruptly from my half-sleep state. I got out of bed. I was now quite sure where the piercing cries were coming from. I quickly put on my
wata-ire
(a quilted garment worn inside) and rushed to the living room: it was Mélodie who was howling in the semi-darkness, like a she-wolf howling at the full moon. Her whole body was like a trumpet which the musician points and raises high into the sky.
Sheâd come out of the cardboard house. I turned on the light furthest from the peacefully sleeping little puppies. She jumped up on me and, excited and quivering all over, energetically licked my hands, which were holding her two front paws. But she quickly and nimbly disengaged from ourembrace to go over to one of her babies who was lost amid the chairs and magazines piled on the floor, in the shade of a big pot in which stands a ficus that is about twenty years old.
âSo, it was me you were calling out to? You were howling like that to get me to help. It was an
Emile
:
Pitiful man! You begin by killing the animal, and then you eat it, as if to make it die twice over. That is not enough: the dead flesh still revolts you, your entrails cannot bear it; it has to be transformed by fire, boiled, roasted, seasoned with concoctions which disguise it: you need butchers, cooks, meat roasters, people to take fromyou the horror of the murder and dress dead bodies for you, so that the sense of taste, deceived by these disguises, does not reject what is foreign to it, and savours with pleasure carcasses whose aspect the eye itself would have found it difficult to bear.
Part II
ABSOLUTE FIDELITY: TO WAIT TILL IT KILLS YOU
13
HELP!
THE AUDIENCE WAS plunged into the ink-black darkness of the hall, separated by a big empty pit from the stage, which was lit by a bright light shining down from the black ceiling whose height I could only guess at. I was on stage, in ceremonial dress. Two violinists and a cellist were at my side. The concert was going to begin at any moment. As surprising and absurd as it seemed, I was part of a string quartet, which was going to perform one of the six masterpieces by Mozart dedicated to Haydn. I didnât recognise the musicians. My anxiety increased. Why was I there? How had I been able to accept an idea as crazy, as deluded, as that of
playing
the viola myself? In front of an audience! Here, in a place that had all the appearance of a real concert hall! What was I to do? Should I stand up and shout out that thereâd been a mistake? âExcuse me, Iâm not a musician. I canât do anything ⦠I donât know why I was brought here, why I was given thisinstrument that doesnât belong to me, and this black costume, which Iâve never worn.â I felt hot flushes spreading over my face and the whole of my body, front and back, was bathed in a cold sweat â¦
A violent episode of apnoea shook me and dragged me from sleep. How long had I stopped breathing for? I was breathless, I needed air as if Iâd almost drowned ⦠I turned to lie on my left side in order to breathe deeply.
I fell back asleep â¦
It was then that I thought I heard, from beyond this night punctuated by tormenting dreams, a kind of wolfâs howling, which seemed to come straight out of a fantastic story unfolding from beginning to end in a far-off Gothic kingdom that had fallen into decay.
I burrowed under the eiderdown as if to flee from the fear, to protect myself from the exhausting, nightmarish night. Yet the wolfâs howls continued to make themselves heard, muffled though, their sharp, piercing notes smothered.
I emerged abruptly from my half-sleep state. I got out of bed. I was now quite sure where the piercing cries were coming from. I quickly put on my
wata-ire
(a quilted garment worn inside) and rushed to the living room: it was Mélodie who was howling in the semi-darkness, like a she-wolf howling at the full moon. Her whole body was like a trumpet which the musician points and raises high into the sky.
Sheâd come out of the cardboard house. I turned on the light furthest from the peacefully sleeping little puppies. She jumped up on me and, excited and quivering all over, energetically licked my hands, which were holding her two front paws. But she quickly and nimbly disengaged from ourembrace to go over to one of her babies who was lost amid the chairs and magazines piled on the floor, in the shade of a big pot in which stands a ficus that is about twenty years old.
âSo, it was me you were calling out to? You were howling like that to get me to help. It was an
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