Book II, Stanzas 10-16 Summary

Stanza 10: Maldoror praises mathematics, a science which he thinks is superior to humanity. He denounces anyone who remains willfully ignorant of mathematics, for he says in such ignorance there is an implicit disdain of mathematics. Maldoror particularly loves how orderly mathematics in, especially in contrast to the chaotic affairs of men. Mathematics is also always the same, from one eon to the next, while men and their societies are undergoing constant change. He credits mathematics with making him a wiser man, a gift he has used to commit all sorts of misdeeds, even murder. He prays to mathematics—which has become, for him, a kind of goddess—that he might always turn to her when he wearies of observing the injustice of man and God.

Stanza 11: Maldoror addresses a lamp hanging in a cathedral and...