Scott Sprenger
134
implausible, Sarrasine’s mental image of la Zambinella emerges not
only from his visual observation but also from what he hears, as the
following citations indicate: “Pendant une huitaine de jours, il vécut
toute une vie occupé le matin à pétrir la glaise à l’aide de laquelle il
réussissait à copier la Zambinella, malgré les voiles, les jupes, les
corsets […] qui la lui dérobaient” (p. 245, our emphasis). “[I]l se
familiarisa graduellement avec les émotions trop vives que lui donnait
le chant de sa maîtresse; puis il apprivoisa ses yeux à la voir” (p. 245).
What Sarrasine “sees” in the body of la Zambinella is filtered by his
imagination and by his ears; the emotion generated by la Zambinella’s
voice permits Sarrasine to imagine his body in all its truth.
That Sarrasine unconsciously desired a man’s love should not
shock since any Christological allegory figures divine love, the love
that gives life, as a love communicated by a male – God, Christ. In the
modern and desacralized context in which the narrator tells the story
of his lost illusion, mystical love no longer officially exists and is, in
any case, incomprehensible according to a rationalist or materialist
epistemology. This explains the scandal of signification generated by
the relationship between Sarrasine and la Zambinella. At one level, a
love between two men registers in a modern context as homoerotic
love. At another, any attempt to signify a religious or transcendental
ideal will necessarily cause a slippage of meaning and infinite signification: immanent linguistic conventions cannot, by definition, render
divinity. It registers as an absence or gap in meaning.
Thematically, Sarrasine’s catastrophe registers as a purely
psychological event that took place, apparently at the moment when
the sculptor understands that his ideal love is a hoax and that la Zambinella had only “played” at love. It is also the moment at which Sarrasine understands that persisting in the hope of realizing ideal love
would be “une folie” (p. 257), whereas renouncing it would kill him.
The solution is to break his consciousness in two where one part must
“die” and the other survives to recount the cause of the death.
But why would la Zambinella’s love, or rather its absence,
trigger Sarrasine’s death? Sarrasine had interpreted la Zambinella’s
love as one that could give life, by which he means transcendent, eternal life. This is why Sarrasine exclaims when he discovers that he is
not loved: “Monstre! Toi qui ne peux donner la vie à rien [...]” (256).
From this perspective, we should expect a spiritual death at the moment he is disillusioned by la Zambinella’s lack of a heart. Sarrasine
134
implausible, Sarrasine’s mental image of la Zambinella emerges not
only from his visual observation but also from what he hears, as the
following citations indicate: “Pendant une huitaine de jours, il vécut
toute une vie occupé le matin à pétrir la glaise à l’aide de laquelle il
réussissait à copier la Zambinella, malgré les voiles, les jupes, les
corsets […] qui la lui dérobaient” (p. 245, our emphasis). “[I]l se
familiarisa graduellement avec les émotions trop vives que lui donnait
le chant de sa maîtresse; puis il apprivoisa ses yeux à la voir” (p. 245).
What Sarrasine “sees” in the body of la Zambinella is filtered by his
imagination and by his ears; the emotion generated by la Zambinella’s
voice permits Sarrasine to imagine his body in all its truth.
That Sarrasine unconsciously desired a man’s love should not
shock since any Christological allegory figures divine love, the love
that gives life, as a love communicated by a male – God, Christ. In the
modern and desacralized context in which the narrator tells the story
of his lost illusion, mystical love no longer officially exists and is, in
any case, incomprehensible according to a rationalist or materialist
epistemology. This explains the scandal of signification generated by
the relationship between Sarrasine and la Zambinella. At one level, a
love between two men registers in a modern context as homoerotic
love. At another, any attempt to signify a religious or transcendental
ideal will necessarily cause a slippage of meaning and infinite signification: immanent linguistic conventions cannot, by definition, render
divinity. It registers as an absence or gap in meaning.
Thematically, Sarrasine’s catastrophe registers as a purely
psychological event that took place, apparently at the moment when
the sculptor understands that his ideal love is a hoax and that la Zambinella had only “played” at love. It is also the moment at which Sarrasine understands that persisting in the hope of realizing ideal love
would be “une folie” (p. 257), whereas renouncing it would kill him.
The solution is to break his consciousness in two where one part must
“die” and the other survives to recount the cause of the death.
But why would la Zambinella’s love, or rather its absence,
trigger Sarrasine’s death? Sarrasine had interpreted la Zambinella’s
love as one that could give life, by which he means transcendent, eternal life. This is why Sarrasine exclaims when he discovers that he is
not loved: “Monstre! Toi qui ne peux donner la vie à rien [...]” (256).
From this perspective, we should expect a spiritual death at the moment he is disillusioned by la Zambinella’s lack of a heart. Sarrasine