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Maybe Eve bit the Apple, but Adam was the Snake

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Lebey is extremely playful in his interpretation of the story of Melusine. As Raymondin is approaching his wife during the culmination of his betrayal, Lebey describes “He slid slowly forward… And in the moonlight that made his coat of mail glisten, he had the appearance of a strange serpent with iron scales.” How ironic, this image of Raymondin, serpent-like, slithering towards his own despair. Here, our author coils around the infamous, biblical origin story of human sin. Maybe Eve bit the apple, but Adam was the snake. Lebey continues to meander this inverted narrative in the next chapter. First with the reversal of the typical mermaid narrative: “Deceived, as women are and always will be, by your handsome body, your honest face, your sweet appearance, I did not suppose you capable of treason…” Contrary to mermaid lore that focuses on the human’s narration, Melusine’s point of view upends the lure of the beauty of the hybrid. To Melusine it is Raymondin who lured her in with his stoic stature, his handsome innocence. Digging deeper, giving a voice to Melusine not only upends the typical mermaid lore, but transposes the legend of Adam and Eve. “If you had not broken your word” Melusine tells Raymondin “I could have remained in this world and been saved from torment and misery in the other.” The notion of women blaming men for eternal damnation is a role reversal of sin. Lebey’s reimagination of the story of Melusine is an upheaval of man’s dominion. The depiction of unruly nature, the serpentine likeness of Raymondin, the sensual luring of Melusine, the interpretation of betrayal. All contribute to dislodge the concept of man’s supremacy. Lebey plays with the contortion of societal narrative. After all, this is a time for social reform. The Parisian lost generation of the post-war 1920s, struggling to find their footing on a war-torn continent. Lebey takes a story used to assert the lordship of men and instead tears down their dominion.

The Fury of Female Knowledge

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Man’s dominion. A desire that has not been fully capitalized in this story of Melusine written by Andre Labey. Men did not yet rule the earth as they think they do now, no, “They lived close to nature in those days.” Close to a forest characterized as “menacing and dangerous, full of the unknown, concealing the surprising and the supernatural.” Common men cowered to the beasts who raided their town, “huddled for comfort against their wives… as they heard the scampering of clawed feet on paving stones.” This diabolical depiction of nature leads to a dichotomy of good vs evil. The God-fearing men pitted against vicious, depraved beings of the forest. This is the rhetoric of imperialists. The ideology of justification for tying the earth with fences. Nature is not the only thing that has yet to be seized by men’s dominion. It is women too that are still presented with a layer of autonomy or capability. They are depicted as hunters, as contenders of falconry, and knowledgeable, as we see in Melusine. What is notable about Melusine’s knowledge is that it is not yet feared. Raymondin is not deterred by Melusine’s divine knowledge, but mesmerized by it. For “it was always she, indeed, who led.” Melusine divulged information that had yet to be known, alongside promises of wealth and honour. Raymondin ceased mourning after one look at her. Is this a case of desire presiding over faith? But Melusine is as Christian as Raymondin. What it all keeps coming back to is women beholding knowledge. Divine knowledge. Desire coupled with divine knowledge that continuously leads to undesirable circumstances. There is the root of our sinful sirens. Man’s dominion over knowledge. Because knowledge in the hands of women is knowledge in the hands of beauty. And what man could compete against beauty and brains:

“What minstrel can describe the irresistible power of feminine beauty when it gets under a man’s skin? None can, and that is no doubt how things will remain till the end of the world.”

“Yet all through the land, evil reigned only if heroes failed to confront its dangers. It seemed that the one existed to give rise to the other, for humans do not show their mettle if left to themselves.”

These quotes are the source of female anguish. Evil reigns if heroes fail to confront its dangers. The irresistible power of feminine beauty combined with divine knowledge is more detrimental to the conquests of men than the diabolical packs of wolves scavenging the paving stones.