Marie-Josèphe begins feeding and taming the sea monster

Marie-Josèphe de la Croix begins feeding and taming the sea monster not through force but through repeated, careful invitations: patting the water, offering live fish, and allowing the creature to approach at its own pace. The early encounters at the Fountain of Apollo establish both the promise and the limits of that approach. A fish can draw the sea monster close, even to Marie-Josèphe’s hand; it cannot make the bars disappear, or prevent fear from sending her back beneath the dawn horses.

An invitation at the water’s edge

When Marie-Josèphe returns to the fountain, the sea monster has not made another attempt to escape; the planks are dry. She reads its stillness as fear and recognizes that a frightened animal will be difficult to train. Instead of approaching with a tool or command, she pats the water as she would pat her bedcovers to call Hercules, making a familiar domestic gesture into an invitation across the pool. The sea monster watches from beneath the dawn chariot. Marie-Josèphe swishes a fish through the water, and the creature raises her head, opens her mouth, and lets the water run over her tongue. The response is tentative: she has noticed the offering, but has not yet taken it.

That hesitation gives the first meeting its measure. Marie-Josèphe’s encouraging words and the fish establish a pattern, but the animal remains hidden beneath the sculpted chariot. The young woman is trying to coax a response, not claiming command of the creature. Her attentiveness to its fear shapes the method from the outset: contact must be offered patiently, and any approach remains the sea monster’s choice.

Fresh water and live prey

The fountain’s conditions change when workmen break open barrels and pour seawater into the pool. The ocean’s scent drifts through the air, and ripples and bubbles disturb the surface. The sea monster thrusts upward with her powerful tail, then dives with barely a ripple. When she resurfaces, a live silver fish struggles between her teeth. She flicks it into the air, catches it, and swallows. Marie-Josèphe recognizes the practical lesson: the creature wants live fish.

The new supply of seawater and the prey it brings into view matter together. The sea monster races toward the wagons and fresh water, but the cage blocks her. Grabbing the bars, she shakes them and reaches through to snatch at a driver’s ankle. The driver recoils and calls her a devil. This outburst sets a sharp boundary around Marie-Josèphe’s emerging success: the sea monster’s interest in food does not mean that captivity has ceased to frighten or enrage her. She can respond to an offering and still resist the cage with force.

From offered fish to a hand-held meal

Later, Marie-Josèphe is left alone with the creature while the sides of a tent are lowered around the fountain. Live fish twitch in a jar, and she understands that they will soon die if she does not feed them. She rolls her embroidered velvet sleeve above the elbow, reaches into the jar, and grips one of the wriggling fish. Kneeling, she swishes it through the water and calls the sea monster closer. The creature lunges, then turns away; Marie-Josèphe continues inviting her to eat.

At last, the sea monster darts within reach. Her claws brush Marie-Josèphe’s fingers as she snatches the fish and pushes it into her mouth. Marie-Josèphe gasps with delight and immediately takes another fish. That brief contact is consequential because it occurs at the point of exchange: the human hand presents food, and the sea monster chooses to take it. It is not yet an untroubled bond. Frightened by her own boldness, the creature retreats to nest beneath the hooves of the dawn horses.

The same exchange gradually becomes less abrupt. The sea monster grows bolder, first taking food with a quick lunge and then daring to accept it delicately from Marie-Josèphe’s hand. Marie-Josèphe feels the creature’s swimming webs against her skin, like silk, and continues moving her hand closer in the hope of accustoming her to touch. For a time the sea monster floats within reach rather than fleeing as she eats. The advance is measured in small changes of distance and manner, not in a sudden mastery: taking food is still the reason for approaching, while trust is only beginning to form around that act.

A fragile routine, and a voice

The calm proves vulnerable to interruption. A rider gallops past, startling both Marie-Josèphe and the sea monster. The creature snarls and spits, dives backward, and speeds to the shelter beneath Apollo. Marie-Josèphe is frustrated, but the retreat also confirms how easily the new routine can be broken. Her progress depends on conditions that let the sea monster approach without being startled; it has not made the captive creature fearless.

In a later feeding encounter, Marie-Josèphe nets the last fish and offers it from her bare hand. The sea monster swims close enough for the fish to thrash between Marie-Josèphe’s fingers, then takes it. As she eats, she produces a sound Marie-Josèphe hears as an attempt at speech: “Fishhhhh.” Delighted, Marie-Josèphe compares the sound to a parrot’s speech. The creature crunches the fish and submerges, so the moment does not establish what she understands or intends. It does, however, change the shape of the encounters: feeding has brought the two close enough for Marie-Josèphe to hear a vocal response and wonder whether the sea monster can be trained.

Significance and limits

These early efforts make care, rather than domination, the basis of Marie-Josèphe’s contact with the sea monster. She observes what the creature eats, adapts to her need for live prey, and risks the creature’s claws reaching her fingers. The result is not a completed taming but a developing practice: invitation, approach, food, retreat, and renewed invitation. Each step depends on the sea monster’s response, while the bars and sudden disturbances remain reminders that proximity is not freedom and feeding is not proof of submission. The tentative wordlike cry at the end extends that practice beyond bodily contact, opening the possibility of communication without resolving what the creature means.