The Ascent of Mount Aetna

Author(s): Georges Bataille and Annette Michelson

Source: October , Spring, 1986, Vol. 36, Georges Bataille: Writings on Laughter,
Sacrifice, Nietzsche, Un-Knowing (Spring, 1986), pp. 103-105
Published by: The MIT Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/778557

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 The Ascent of Mount Aetna

Yesterday I went to Laure's grave and as I stepped out of the do

found the night so dark that I wondered if I should find the way; it was s
that I felt throttled, unable to think of anything else, and thus unable t
the half-ecstatic state which starts each time I take that same path. After
while, halfway up the hill, feeling increasingly lost, I recalled the asc
Aetna, and felt suddenly overwhelmed. Everything was just as black
subtly infused with terror as on that night when Laure and I climbed Ae
slopes. (For us the ascension meant a great deal; in order to go there,
given up a trip to Greece, and had had to be reimbursed for the cost
crossing, already partly paid for.) Arriving at dawn on the crest of the v
bottomless crater we were exhausted, with our eyes almost starting out of
sockets in a solitude too strange, too catastrophic. There was that shat
moment when we leaned over the gaping wound, the crack in that st
which we draw breath.
The picture of ash and flames which Andre * painted after we had told hi
about it was near Laure when she died; it is still in my room. Halfway alo
our path, having entered an infernal region, we could also discern, in t
distance, the volcano's crater at the far end of a long valley of lava. One coul
not possibly imagine a place which demonstrated more clearly the fearful in-
stability of things, and Laure was suddenly gripped by an anguish such th
she fled, madly, running straight ahead; she was driven to distraction by the
terror and desolation in which we now found ourselves. Yesterday, I continue
the ascent of the hill to her grave, overwhelmed by a memory thus charged w
nocturnal terror (but with a subterreanean glory, too, with that nocturnal glo
known not to real men, but only to shadows trembling with cold). Upon ente
ing the cemetery, I was myself so moved that I lost my wits; I felt fear of Lau
and it seemed that were she to appear to me, I should only cry out in terror.
Despite the extreme darkness, it was possible to make out the graves (they ap

* Andre Masson. - trans.

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104 OCTOBER

peared as vague

also glimpsed
not know why
pain in both m
as though I'd s
my own body,
rible tendernes
were suddenly
away. And the
by my own du
terly, no longe
was stricken w
ple, myself, as
tainty (but thi
tached from th
My feeling of
with meaning
unintelligible i
through us all,
collapsed the p
breach through
ity, the flatne
the grave is th
never were tho
horror, tears,
shared with m
immense; it wa
things. And st
tainable joy, st
she walked wit
greater certain
fathomable im
dark; no word
beautiful Laure
and uncertain
expressible. He
within himself
meaning appar
I wish to tran
in September
Georges and I,
you about it, I
thing I do righ

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The Ascent of Mount Aetna 105

so strongly--as if to break my jaw."

longer really understand their inner trut
for I can do so only in reaching for s
rarely possible.

September 15

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