Marie-Josèphe’s first nighttime contact with the sea monster begins as a careful act of feeding and becomes an unsettling encounter with a being whose responses she cannot yet interpret. In the dim setting of the Fountain, tentative closeness develops through food, touch, and song, but the creature’s sudden grip ends the visit in fear rather than mutual understanding.

Entering the enclosure

Marie-Josèphe enters the tent at night and unlocks the sea monster’s cage. Screens of white silk patterned with gold sunbursts and fleurs de lys separate the dissection table from the living creature. A jug holds small fish, and a faint glow lies over the Fountain. The scene places the living captive beside the signs of scientific examination without making the dissection itself part of this encounter: Marie-Josèphe comes to offer supper, and she has taken care not to startle the creature with her lantern.

Her first effort at contact is verbal and restrained. She whispers that she has come to feed the sea monster, then waits when ripples appear in the pool. She does not assume that the movement means welcome. Instead, she sits by the water and hums another melody, allowing the creature to approach on its own. The meeting is built out of pauses and small responses rather than a shared language whose meaning either can confidently control.

An offered fish and tentative trust

A wake crosses the pool as the sea monster swims toward the platform. She keeps most of her body underwater, with her eyes and hair visible above the surface. Marie-Josèphe holds out a fish but chooses not to force the animal to remain near her. That decision matters to the scene’s developing trust: food is an invitation, not a means of restraint, and the sea monster is allowed to decide how close to come.

The creature passes close beneath Marie-Josèphe’s hand. Later, she rises beneath it, floating face-up and placing her webbed claws under Marie-Josèphe’s fingers. Marie-Josèphe releases the fish into her grasp. The exchange is reciprocal in its immediate gestures—an offered meal, a creature approaching, and a hand accepted near its claws—although it does not establish that the two understand each other’s intentions. When the sea monster quiets beneath Marie-Josèphe’s touch, the apparent calm gives the human visitor reason to continue, but not certainty about what the animal is feeling.

Contact turns to alarm

The sea monster’s next action changes the character of the meeting. As Marie-Josèphe pets her in farewell, the creature takes her wrist and sings while drawing her closer to the water. Marie-Josèphe tries to make her let go and pulls against the grip. The song is no longer simply part of a tentative exchange: in this moment it accompanies a physical attempt to bring Marie-Josèphe toward the pool. Her fear is immediate, and she pulls free without knowing what the sea monster intended.

The sea monster releases her. Marie-Josèphe backs away, gets to her feet, shuts and locks the cage, takes her lantern, and leaves the tent. The creature continues singing after her. Its song travels through the water and stone and can be felt on the wooden platform, so the encounter’s final communication reaches Marie-Josèphe as vibration rather than as decipherable words. She departs frightened, although the creature has let her go; the scene does not resolve whether its insistent action was a warning, an invitation, or something else.

Significance of the first contact

The encounter establishes both the possibility and the limits of contact between Marie-Josèphe and the sea monster. The creature approaches for food, accepts the fish, and settles beneath her touch; it also acts independently, taking hold of Marie-Josèphe and continuing to sing after she escapes. These actions keep the sea monster from being merely a passive object of care. Her behavior has force in the scene, even when its meaning remains inaccessible to the human observer.

The encounter’s turn from reassurance to fear also complicates the image of taming. Marie-Josèphe treats the captive as a creature she can approach gently, but gentleness does not give her reliable command of the situation. Nor does the sea monster’s release of her erase the alarm of being pulled toward the water. Their first nighttime meeting therefore creates a fragile opening rather than a settled bond: food and touch bring them near, while song carries an appeal or intention that Marie-Josèphe cannot yet understand.