Marie-Josèphe de la Croix and the sea monster

Marie-Josèphe de la Croix and the sea monster form a bond through patient care, music, and physical contact, without overcoming the limits of their communication. Their growing intimacy is neither simple taming nor effortless understanding: Marie-Josèphe offers food and comfort, while the sea monster approaches, touches, and sings, but each can misread the other. The relationship’s final image makes that gap consequential: the sea monster warns Marie-Josèphe as she walks toward danger, and the warning goes unanswered.

An Unequal First Approach

At the Fountain of Apollo, Marie-Josèphe enters the tent at night and unlocks the sea monster’s cage, bringing small fish in a jug of seawater. The live creature is screened from the nearby dissection table by heavy white silk patterned with gold sunbursts and fleurs-de-lys. The arrangement places the possibility of care beside the violence of dissection: Marie-Josèphe comes to feed the captive, while the setting makes clear that she remains confined amid human plans for her body. She speaks softly and hums, trying to make her presence familiar rather than startling.

When a shining wake carries the sea monster toward the platform, Marie-Josèphe holds out a fish but deliberately avoids forcing the creature to remain close. That restraint matters. She recognizes that keeping the fish away as a means of control could frighten the animal, and allows the sea monster to approach on her own terms. Beneath the glowing water, the creature rises face-up and places her webbed claws beneath Marie-Josèphe’s fingers. Marie-Josèphe releases the fish into her grasp; the sea monster then rolls and strokes her arm against Marie-Josèphe’s palm. Marie-Josèphe lays a hand on her back, treating the contact as a tentative act of gentling rather than mastery.

Touch, Trust, and Fear

The exchange does not make their intentions transparent. After Marie-Josèphe offers another fish and says goodbye, the sea monster grasps her wrist and sings, drawing her toward the water. Her grip is gentle but firm; when Marie-Josèphe struggles and asks to be released, the sea monster holds her with her claws and pulls her hand beneath the surface. Marie-Josèphe tears herself free, frightened and careless of the sharp claws, then retreats and locks the cage. The creature continues singing, its song vibrating through the water, stone, and wooden platform until Marie-Josèphe feels it more than hears it.

The episode establishes a crucial tension in their closeness: touch can be an invitation, but it can also feel like a threat to the person who does not understand it. Marie-Josèphe’s willingness to approach does not erase her fear, and the sea monster’s singing does not guarantee that its purpose is understood. Their relationship develops through these imperfect exchanges rather than through a shared spoken explanation. The physical force of the song reaches Marie-Josèphe even when its meaning remains uncertain.

Care in Public

Later, Marie-Josèphe tries to practice trust more deliberately. As visitors crowd around the cage, she reassures the sea monster that the noise will not hurt her and offers another fish. She puts her own hand into the water, and the sea monster swims closer, radiating intense warmth. The creature suddenly rises from the pool, startling the onlookers into gasps, cries, and applause. Their response turns an intimate act of approach into a public spectacle. A musketeer faces the crowd, prepared to manage a possible disturbance, while the visitors press forward to get a better view.

When the sea monster sinks back into the water, Marie-Josèphe strokes her hair. The creature tolerates the touch, and Marie-Josèphe accepts a netted fish from the musketeer. The sea monster cannot work the fish free of the net, so Marie-Josèphe untwists the fabric, removes it, and hands the fish over. The creature eats it quickly and looks for more. This practical assistance is part of the relationship’s development: Marie-Josèphe does not merely present food but adapts to the difficulty the captive faces in taking it. At the same time, the crowd’s fascination shows how readily the sea monster’s approach can be received as entertainment rather than recognized as an encounter with a being who has her own needs.

Music Without a Shared Explanation

At another moment of distress, the sea monster lets a fish swim away uneaten and takes Marie-Josèphe’s hand between her webbed fingers. Marie-Josèphe remains still, trembling because she fears the creature may bite. Instead, the sea monster lowers her face to Marie-Josèphe’s hand and touches her skin with warm lips. The contact turns the hand that had been drawn under water in fear into the focus of a quiet, delicate gesture. Yet Marie-Josèphe’s uncertainty persists: the care is legible as touch, but its purpose is not fully clear to her.

Marie-Josèphe answers musically, continuing the wordless song she had played for Louis XIV. The sea monster drifts closer and hums a second melody, described as exotic and compelling, one that breaks the rules of music familiar to Marie-Josèphe. Tears come to Marie-Josèphe’s eyes, though she cannot explain them. The scene makes music a form of contact that does not depend on translating words: the women can answer one another in sound and feel its emotional force, while its meaning remains beyond Marie-Josèphe’s certainty. At bedtime, the sea monster surfaces by the platform, receives a final caress, and holds Marie-Josèphe’s hand to her lips, delicately touching her fingers with her tongue. Tenderness has become reciprocal, but not fully intelligible.

A Bond That Cannot Prevent Danger

The relationship ends this sequence not with a completed understanding, but with a warning. The sea monster crawls up the steps to the edge of the small pool, crying with despair and warning as Marie-Josèphe walks away bleeding. Ahead, land predators fill the darkness and dawn with roars and snarls; the sea monster fears that, if they can smell as keenly as ocean sharks, Marie-Josèphe is doomed. She echoes the land woman’s simple song, but receives only silence. Her warning then passes through the gardens and fades.

That final separation gives the earlier musical and tactile exchanges a sharper meaning. The sea monster has repeatedly reached for Marie-Josèphe through song, movement, and touch; their growing trust allows closeness, but has not yet created communication reliable enough to protect either of them. Marie-Josèphe’s care is real, as is the sea monster’s evident distress and effort to warn her. The bond is therefore both an achievement and a limit: it crosses the boundary between captor and captive in moments of mutual contact, yet the sea monster’s most urgent message remains unheard.