une saison en enfer


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Jadis, si je me souviens bien, ma vie était un festin où s'ouvraient tous les coeurs, où tous les vins coulaient.
Un soir, j'ai assis la Beauté sur mes genoux. - Et je l'ai trouvée amère. - Et je l'ai injuriée.
Je me suis armé contre la justice.
Je me suis enfui. O sorcières, ô misère, ô haine, c'est à vous que mon trésor a été confié !
Je parvins à faire s'évanouir dans mon esprit toute l'espérance humaine. Sur toute joie pour l'étrangler j'ai fait le bond sourd de la bête féroce.
J'ai appelé les bourreaux pour, en périssant, mordre la crosse de leurs fusils. J'ai appelé les fléaux, pour m'étouffer avec le sable, avec le sang. Le malheur a été mon dieu. Je me suis allongé dans la boue. Je me suis séché à l'air du crime. Et j'ai joué de bons tours à la folie.
Et le printemps m'a apporté l'affreux rire de l'idiot.
Or, tout dernièrement, m'étant trouvé sur le point de faire le dernier couac ! j'ai songé à rechercher la clef du festin ancien, où je reprendrais peut-être appétit.
La charité est cette clef. - Cette inspiration prouve que j'ai rêvé !
"Tu resteras hyène, etc..." se récrie le démon qui me couronna de si aimables pavots. "Gagne la mort avec tous tes appétits, et ton égoïsme et tous les péchés capitaux."
Ah ! j'en ai trop pris : - Mais, cher Satan, je vous en conjure, une prunelle moins irritée ! et en attendant les quelques petites lâchetés en retard, vous qui aimez dans l'écrivain l'absence des facultés descriptives ou instructives, je vous détache des quelques hideux feuillets de mon carnet de damné.


Once, if my memory serves me well, my life was a banquet where every heart revealed itself, where every wine flowed.
One evening I took Beauty in my arms - and I thought her bitter - and I insulted her.

I steeled myself against justice.
I fled. O witches, O misery, O hate, my treasure was left in your care!
I have withered within me all human hope. With the silent leap of a sullen beast, I have downed and strangled every joy.
I have called for executioners; I want to perish chewing on their gun butts. I have called for plagues, to suffocate in sand and blood. Unhappiness has been my god. I have lain down in the mud, and dried myself off in the crime-infested air. I have played the fool to the point of madness.
And springtime brought me the frightful laugh of an idiot.
Now recently, when I found myself ready to croak! I thought to seek the key to the banquet of old, where I might find an appetite again.
That key is Charity. - This idea proves I was dreaming!
"You will stay a hyena, etc...," shouts the demon who once crowned me with such pretty poppies. "Seek death with all your desires, and all selfishness, and all the Seven Deadly Sins."
Ah! I've taken too much of that: - still, dear Satan, don't look so annoyed, I beg you! And while waiting for a few belated cowardices, since you value in a writer all lack of descriptive or didactic flair, I pass you these few foul pages from the diary of a Damned Soul.



Mauvais Sang
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J'ai de mes ancêtres gaulois l'oeil bleu blanc, la cervelle étroite, et la maladresse dans la lutte. Je trouve mon habillement aussi barbare que le leur. Mais je ne beurre pas ma chevelure.
Les Gaulois étaient les écorcheurs de bêtes, les brûleurs d'herbes les plus ineptes de leur temps.
D'eux, j'ai : l'idolâtrie et l'amour du sacrilège ; - Oh ! tous les vices, colère, luxure, - magnifique, la luxure ; - surtout mensonge et paresse.
J'ai horreur de tous les métiers. Maîtres et ouvriers, tous paysans, ignobles. La main à plume vaut la main à charrue. - Quel siècle à mains ! - Je n'aurai jamais ma main. Après, la domesticité mène trop loin. L'honnêteté de la mendicité me navre. Les criminels dégoûtent comme des châtrés : moi, je suis intact, et ça m'est égal.
Mais ! qui a fait ma langue perfide tellement qu'elle ait guidé et sauvegardé jusqu'ici ma paresse ? Sans me servir pour vivre même de mon corps, et plus oisif que le crapaud, j'ai vécu partout. Pas une famille d'Europe que je ne connaisse. - J'entends des familles comme la mienne, qui tiennent tout de la déclaration des Droits de l'Homme. - J'ai connu chaque fils de famille !
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Si j'avais des antécédents à un point quelconque de l'histoire de France !
Mais non, rien.
Il m'est bien évident que j'ai toujours été [de] race inférieure. Je ne puis comprendre la révolte. Ma race ne se souleva jamais que pour piller : tels les loups à la bête qu'ils n'ont pas tuée.
Je me rappelle l'histoire de la France fille aînée de l'Église. J'aurai fait, manant, le voyage de terre sainte, j'ai dans la tête des routes dans les plaines souabes, des vues de Byzance, des remparts de Solyme ; le culte de Marie, l'attendrissement sur le crucifié s'éveillent en moi parmi les mille féeries profanes. - Je suis assis, lépreux, sur les pots cassés et les orties, au pied d'un mur rongé par le soleil. - Plus tard, reître, j'aurais bivaqué sous les nuits d'Allemagne.
Ah ! encore : je danse le sabat dans une rouge clairière, avec des vieilles et des enfants.
Je ne me souviens pas plus loin que cette terre-ci et le christianisme. Je n'en finirais pas de me revoir dans ce passé. Mais toujours seul ; sans famille ; même, quelle langue parlais-je ? Je ne me vois jamais dans les conseils du Christ ; ni dans les conseils des Seigneurs, - représentants du Christ.
Qu'étais-je au siècle dernier : je ne me retrouve qu'aujourd'hui. Plus de vagabonds, plus de guerres vagues. La race inférieure a tout couvert - le peuple, comme on dit, la raison ; la nation et la science.
Oh ! la science ! On a tout repris. Pour le corps et pour l'âme, - le viatique, - on a la médecine et la philosophie, - les remèdes de bonnes femmes et les chansons populaires arrangées. Et les divertissements des princes et les jeux qu'ils interdisaient ! Géographie, cosmographie, mécanique, chimie !...
La science, la nouvelle noblesse ! Le progrès. Le monde marche ! Pourquoi ne tournerait-il pas ?
C'est la vision des nombres. Nous allons à l'Esprit. C'est très certain, c'est oracle, ce que je dis. Je comprends, et ne sachant m'expliquer sans paroles païennes, je voudrais me taire.
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Le sang païen revient ! L'esprit est proche, pourquoi Christ ne m'aide-t-il pas, en donnant à mon âme noblesse et liberté. Hélas ! l'Évangile a passé ! l'Évangile ! l'Évangile.
J'attends Dieu avec gourmandise. Je suis de race inférieure de toute éternité.
Me voici sur la plage armoricaine. Que les villes s'allument dans le soir. Ma journée est faite ; je quitte l'Europe. L'air marin brûlera mes poumons ; les climats perdus me tanneront. Nager, broyer l'herbe, chasser, fumer surtout ; boire des liqueurs fortes comme du métal bouillant, - comme faisaient ces chers ancêtres autour des feux.
Je reviendrai, avec des membres de fer, la peau sombre, l'oeil furieux : sur mon masque, on me jugera d'une race forte. J'aurai de l'or : je serai oisif et brutal. Les femmes soignent ces féroces infirmes retour des pays chauds. Je serai mêlé aux affaires politiques. Sauvé.
Maintenant je suis maudit, j'ai horreur de la patrie. Le meilleur, c'est un sommeil bien ivre, sur la grève.
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On ne part pas. - Reprenons les chemins d'ici, chargé de mon vice, le vice qui a poussé ses racines de souffrance à mon côté, dès l'âge de raison - qui monte au ciel, me bat, me renverse, me traîne.
La dernière innocence et la dernière timidité. C'est dit. Ne pas porter au monde mes dégoûts et mes trahisons.
Allons ! La marche, le fardeau, le désert, l'ennui et la colère.
À qui me louer ? Quelle bête faut-il adorer ? Quelle sainte image attaque-t-on ? Quels coeurs briserai-je ? Quel mensonge dois-je tenir ? - Dans quel sang marcher ?
Plutôt, se garder de la justice. - La vie dure, l'abrutissement simple, - soulever, le poing desséché, le couvercle du cercueil, s'asseoir, s'étouffer. Ainsi point de vieillesse, ni de dangers : la terreur n'est pas française.
- Ah ! je suis tellement délaissé que j'offre à n'importe quelle divine image des élans vers la perfection.
O mon abnégation, ô ma charité merveilleuse ! ici-bas, pourtant !
De profundis Domine, suis-je bête !
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Encore tout enfant, j'admirais le forçat intraitable sur qui se referme toujours le bagne ; je visitais les auberges et les garnis qu'il aurait sacrés par son séjour ; je voyais avec son idée le ciel bleu et le travail fleuri de la campagne ; je flairais sa fatalité dans les villes. Il avait plus de force qu'un saint, plus de bon sens qu'un voyageur - et lui, lui seul ! pour témoin de sa gloire et de sa raison.
Sur les routes, par des nuits d'hiver, sans gîte, sans habits, sans pain, une voix étreignait mon coeur gelé : "Faiblesse ou force : te voilà, c'est la force. Tu ne sais ni où tu vas ni pourquoi tu vas, entre partout, réponds à tout. On ne te tuera pas plus que si tu étais cadavre." Au matin j'avais le regard si perdu et la contenance si morte, que ceux que j'ai rencontrés ne m'ont peut-être pas vu.
Dans les villes la boue m'apparaissait soudainement rouge et noire, comme une glace quand la lampe circule dans la chambre voisine, comme un trésor dans la forêt ! Bonne chance, criais-je, et je voyais une mer de flammes et de fumées au ciel ; et, à gauche, à droite, toutes les richesses flambant comme un milliard de tonnerres.
Mais l'orgie et la camaraderie des femmes m'étaient interdites. Pas même un compagnon. Je me voyais devant une foule exaspérée, en face du peloton d'exécution, pleurant du malheur qu'ils n'aient pu comprendre, et pardonnant ! - Comme Jeanne d'Arc ! - "Prêtres, professeurs, maîtres, vous trompez en me livrant à la justice. Je n'ai jamais été de ce peuple-ci ; je n'ai jamais été chrétien ; je suis de la race qui chantait dans le supplice ; je ne comprends pas les lois ; je n'ai pas le sens moral, je suis une brute : vous trompez..."
Oui, j'ai les yeux fermés à votre lumière. Je suis une bête, un nègre. Mais je puis être sauvé. Vous êtes de faux nègres, vous maniaques, féroces, avares. Marchand, tu es nègre ; magistrat, tu es nègre ; général, tu es nègre ; empereur, vieille démangeaison, tu es nègre : tu as bu d'une liqueur non taxée, de la fabrique de Satan. - Ce peuple est inspiré par la fièvre et le cancer. Infirmes et vieillards sont tellement respectables qu'ils demandent à être bouillis. - Le plus malin est de quitter ce continent, où la folie rôde pour pourvoir d'otages ces misérables. J'entre au vrai royaume des enfants de Cham.
Connais-je encore la nature ? me connais-je ? - Plus de mots. J'ensevelis les morts dans mon ventre. Cris, tambour, danse, danse, danse, danse ! Je ne vois même pas l'heure où, les blancs débarquant, je tomberai au néant.
Faim, soif, cris, danse, danse, danse, danse !
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Les blancs débarquent. Le canon ! Il faut se soumettre au baptême, s'habiller, travailler.
J'ai reçu au coeur le coup de la grâce. Ah ! je ne l'avais pas prévu !
Je n'ai point fait le mal. Les jours vont m'être légers, le repentir me sera épargné. Je n'aurai pas eu les tourments de l'âme presque morte au bien, où remonte la lumière sévère comme les cierges funéraires. Le sort du fils de famille, cercueil prématuré couvert de limpides larmes. Sans doute la débauche est bête, le vice est bête ; il faut jeter la pourriture à l'écart. Mais l'horloge ne sera pas arrivée à ne plus sonner que l'heure de la pure douleur ! Vais-je être enlevé comme un enfant, pour jouer au paradis dans l'oubli de tout le malheur !
Vite ! est-il d'autres vies ? - Le sommeil dans la richesse est impossible. La richesse a toujours été bien public. L'amour divin seul octroie les clefs de la science. Je vois que la nature n'est qu'un spectacle de bonté. Adieu chimères, idéals, erreurs.
Le chant raisonnable des anges s'élève du navire sauveur : c'est l'amour divin. - Deux amours ! je puis mourir de l'amour terrestre, mourir de dévouement. J'ai laissé des âmes dont la peine s'accroîtra de mon départ ! Vous me choisissez parmi les naufragés, ceux qui restent sont-ils pas mes amis ?
Sauvez-les !
La raison est née. Le monde est bon. je bénirai la vie. J'aimerai mes frères. Ce ne sont plus des promesses d'enfance. Ni l'espoir d'échapper à la vieillesse et à la mort. Dieu fait ma force, et je loue Dieu.
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L'ennui n'est plus mon amour. Les rages, les débauches, la folie, dont je sais tous les élans et les désastres, - tout mon fardeau est déposé. Apprécions sans vertige l'étendu de mon innocence.
Je ne serais plus capable de demander le réconfort d'une bastonnade. Je ne me crois pas embarqué pour une noce avec Jésus-Christ pour beau-père.
Je ne suis pas prisonnier de ma raison. J'ai dit : Dieu.
Je veux la liberté dans le salut : comment la poursuivre ? Les goûts frivoles m'ont quitté. Plus besoin de dévouement ni d'amour divin. Je ne regrette pas le siècle des coeurs sensibles. Chacun a sa raison, mépris et charité : je retiens ma place au sommet de cette angélique échelle de bon sens.
Quant au bonheur établi, domestique ou non... non, je ne peux pas. Je suis trop dissipé, trop faible. La vie fleurit par le travail, vieille vérité : moi, ma vie n'est pas assez pesante, elle s'envole et flotte loin au-dessus de l'action, ce cher point du monde.
Comme je deviens vieille fille, à manquer du courage d'aimer la mort !
Si Dieu m'accordait le calme céleste, aérien, la prière, - comme les anciens saints. - Les saints ! des forts ! les anachorètes, des artistes comme il n'en faut plus !
Farce continuelle ! Mon innocence me ferait pleurer. La vie est la farce à mener par tous.
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Assez ! voici la punition. - En marche !
Ah ! les poumons brûlent, les tempes grondent ! la nuit roule dans mes yeux, par ce soleil ! le coeur... les membres...
Où va-t-on ? au combat ? je suis faible ! les autres avancent. Les outils, les armes... le temps !...
Feu ! feu sur moi ! Là ! ou je me rends. - Lâches ! - Je me tue ! Je me jette aux pieds des chevaux !
Ah !...
- Je m'y habituerai.
Ce serait la vie française, le sentier de l'honneur !


From my ancestors the Gauls I have pale blue eyes, a narrow brain, and awkwardness in competition. I think my clothes are as barbaric as theirs. But I don't butter my hair.
The Gauls were the most stupid hide-flayers and hay-burners of their time.
From them, I inherit: idolatry, and love of sacrelige; - oh! all sorts of vice, anger, lechery, - terrific stuff, lechery; - lying, above all, and laziness.
I have a horror of all trades and crafts. Bosses and workers, all of them peasants, and common. The hand that holds the pen is as good as the one that holds the plow. - What a century for hands! - I'll never learn to use my hands. And then, domesticity goes too far. The propriety of beggary shames me. Criminals are as disgusting as men without balls: I'm intact, and I don't care.
But! who has made my tongue so treacherous, that until now it has counseled and kept me in idleness? I have not used even my body to get along. Out-idling the sleepy toad, I have lived everywhere. There's not one family in Europe that I don't know. - Families, I mean, like mine, who owe their existence to the Declaration of the Rights of Man. - I have known each family's eldest son!
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If only I had a link to some point in the history of France!
But instead, nothing.
I am well aware that I have always been of an inferior race. I cannot understand revolt. My race has never risen, except to plunder: to devour like wolves a beast they did not kill.
I remember the history of France, the Eldest Daughter of the Church. I would have gone, a village serf, crusading to the Holy Land; my head is full of roads in the Swabian plains, of the sight of Byzantium, of the ramparts of Jerusalem; the cult of Mary, the pitiful thought of Christ crucified, turns in my head with a thousand profane enchantments. - I sit like a leper among broken pots and nettles, at the foot of a wall eaten away by the sun. - And later, a wandering mercenary, I would have bivouacked under German nighttimes.
Ah! one thing more: I dance the Sabbath in a scarlet clearing, with old women and children.
I don't remember much beyond this land, and Christianity. I will see myself forever in its past. But always alone; without a family; what language, in fact, did I used to speak? I never see myself in the councils of Christ; nor in the councils of the Lords, - Christ's representatives.
What was I in the century past: I only find myself today. The vagabonds, the hazy wars are gone. The inferior race has swept over all - the People, as they put it, Reason; Nation and Science.
Ah, Science! Everything is taken from the past. For the body and the soul, - the last sacrament, - we have Medicine and Philosophy, household remedies and folk songs rearrainged. And royal entertainments, and games that kings forbid! Geography, Cosmography, Mechanics, Chemistry!...
Science, the new nobility! Progress. The world moves!... And why shouldn't it?
We have visions of numbers. We are moving toward the Spirit. What I say is oracular and absolutely right. I understand, and since I cannot express myself except in pagan terms, I would rather keep quiet.
Pagan blood returns! The Spirit is at hand, why does Christ not help me, and grant my soul nobility and freedom. Ah! but the Gospel belongs to the past! The Gospel! The Gospel.
I wait gluttinously for God. I have been of an inferior race for ever and ever.
And now I am on the beaches of Brittany. Let cities light their lamps in the evening. My daytime is done; I am leaving Europe. The air of the sea will burn my lungs; lost climates will turn my skin to leather. To swim, to pulverize grass, to hunt, above all to smoke; to drink strong drinks, as strong as molten ore, - as did those dear ancestors around their fires.
I will come back with limbs of iron, with dark skin, and angry eyes: in this mask, they will think I belong to a strong race. I will have gold: I will be brutal and indolent. Women nurse these ferocious invalids come back from the tropics. I will become involved in politics. Saved.
Now I am accursed, I detest my native land. The best thing is a drunken sleep, stretched out on some strip of shore.
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But no one leaves. - Let us set out once more on our native roads, burdened with my vice, that vice that since the age of reason has driven roots of suffering into my side - that towers to heaven, beats me, hurls me down, drags me on.
Ultimate innocence, final timidity. All's said. Carry no more my loathing and treacheries before the world.
Come on! Marching, burdens, the desert, boredom and anger.
Hire myself to whom? What beasts adore? What sacred images destroy? What hearts shall I break? What lie maintain? - Through what blood wade?
Better to keep away from justice. - A hard life, outright stupor, - with a dried-out fist to lift the coffin lid, lie down, and suffocate. No old age this way, no danger: terror is very un-French.
- Ah! I am so forsaken I will offer at any shrine impulses toward perfection.
Oh my self-denial, my marvelous Charity! my Selfless love! And still here below!
De Profundis Domine, what an ass I am!
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When I was still a little child, I admired the hardened convict on whom the prison door will always close; I used to visit the bars and the rented rooms his presence had consecrated; I saw with his eyes the blue sky and the flower-filled work of the fields; I followed his fatal scent through city streets. He had more strength than the saints, more sense than any explorer - and he, he alone! was witness to his glory and his rightness.
Along the open road on winter nights, homeless, cold, and hungry, one voice gripped my frozen heart: "Weakness or strength: you exist, that is strength. You don't know where you are going or why you are going, go in everywhere, answer everyone. No one will kill you, any more than if you were a corpse." In the morning my eyes were so vacant and my face so dead, that the people I met may not even have seen me.
In cities, mud went suddenly red and black, like a mirror when a lamp in the next room moves, like treasure in the forest! Good luck, I cried, and I saw a sea of flames and smoke rise to heaven; and left and right, all wealth exploded like a billion thunderbolts.
But orgies and the companionship of women were impossible for me. Not even a friend. I saw myself before an angry mob, facing a firing squad, weeping out sorrows they could not understand, and pardoning! - like Joan of Arc! - "Priests, professors and doctors, you are mistaken in delivering me into the hands of the law. I have never been one of you; I have never been a Christian; I belong to the race that sang on the scaffold; I do not understand your laws; I have no moral sense; I am a brute; you are making a mistake..."
Yes, my eyes are closed to your light. I am an animal, a nigger. But I can be saved. You are fake niggers; maniacs, savages, misers, all of you. Businessman, you're a nigger; judge, you're a nigger; general, you're a nigger; emperor, old scratch-head, you're a nigger: you've drunk a liquor no one taxes, from Satan's still. - This nation is inspired by fever and cancer. Invalids and old men are so respectable that they ask to be boiled. - The best thing is to quit this continent where madness prowls, out to supply hostages for these wretches. I will enter the true kingdom of the sons of Cham.
Do I understand nature? Do I understand myself? No more words. I shroud dead men in my stomach.... Shouts, drums, dance, dance, dance! I can't even imagine the hour when the white men land, and I will fall into nothingness.
Thirst and hunger, shouts, dance, dance, dance!
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The white men are landing. Cannons! Now we must be baptized, get dressed, and go to work.
My heart has been stabbed by grace. Ah! I hadn't thought this would happen!
But I haven't done anything wrong. My days will be easy, and I will be spared repentance. I will not have had the torments of the soul half-dead to the Good, where austure light rises again like funeral candles. The fate of a first-born son, a premature coffin covered with shining tears. No doubt, perversion is stupid, vice is stupid; rottenness must always be cast away. But the clock must learn to strike more than hours of pure pain! Am I to be carried away like a child, to play in paradise, forgetting all this misery!
Quick! Are there any other lives? - Sleep for the rich is impossible. Wealth has always lived openly. divine love alone confers the keys of knowledge. I see that nature is only a show of kindness. Farewell chimeras, ideals and errors.
The reasonable song of angels rises from the rescue ship: it is divine love. - Two loves! I may die of earthly love, die of devotion. I have left behind creatures whose grief will grow at my going! You choose me from among the castaways, aren't those who remain my friends?
Save them!
I am reborn in reason. The world is good. I will bless life. I will love my brothers. There are no longer childhood promises. Nor the hope of escaping old age and death. God is my strength, and I praise God.
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Boredom is no longer my love. Rage, perversion, madness, whose every impulse and disaster I know, - my burden is set down entire. Let us appraise with clear heads the extent of my innocence.
I am no longer able to ask for the consolation of a beating. I don't imagine I'm off on a honeymoon with Jesus Christ as my father-in-law.
I am no prisoner of my own reason. I have said: God. I want freedom within salvation: how shall I go about it? A taste for frivolity has left me. No further need for divine love or for devotion to duty. I do not regret the age of emotion and feeling. To each his own reason, contempt, Charity: I keep my place at the top of the angelic ladder of good sense.
As for settled happiness, domestic or not... no, I can't. I am too dissipated, too weak. Work makes life blossom, an old idea, not mine; my life doesn't weigh enough, it drifts off and floats far beyond action, that third pole of the world.
What an old maid I'm turning into, to lack the courage to love death!
If only God would grant me that celestial calm, etherial calm, and prayer, - like the saints of old. - The Saints! They were strong! Anchorites, artists of a kind we no longer need!
Does this farce have no end? My innocence is enough to make me cry. Life is the farce we all must play.
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Stop it! this is your punishment. - Forward march!
Ah! my lungs burn, my temples roar! Night rolls in my eyes, beneath this sun! My heart... my arms and legs...
Where are we going? To battle? I am weak! the others go on ahead. Tools, weapons... give me time!...
Fire! Fire at me! Here! or I'll give myself up. - Cowards! - I'll kill myself! I'll throw myself beneath the horses' hooves!
Ah!...
- I'll get used to it.
That would be the French way, the path of honor!




Nuit de l'Enfer
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J'ai avalé une fameuse gorgée de poison. - Trois fois béni soit le conseil qui m'est arrivé ! - Les entrailles me brûlent. La violence du venin tord mes membres, me rend difforme, me terrasse. Je meurs de soif, j'étouffe, je ne puis crier. C'est l'enfer, l'éternelle peine ! Voyez comme le feu se relève ! Je brûle comme il faut. Va, démon !
J'avais entrevu la conversion au bien et au bonheur, le salut. Puis-je décrire la vision, l'air de l'enfer ne souffre pas les hymnes ! C'était des millions de créatures charmantes, un suave concert spirituel, la force et la paix, les nobles ambitions, que sais-je ?
Les nobles ambitions !
Et c'est encore la vie ! - Si la damnation est éternelle ! Un homme qui veut se mutiler est bien damné, n'est-ce pas ? Je me crois en enfer, donc j'y suis. C'est l'exécution du catéchisme. Je suis esclave de mon baptême. Parents, vous avez fait mon malheur et vous avez fait le vôtre. Pauvre innocent ! - L'enfer ne peut attaquer les païens. - C'est la vie encore ! Plus tard, les délices de la damnation seront plus profondes. Un crime, vite, que je tombe au néant, de par la loi humaine.
Tais-toi, mais tais-toi !... C'est la honte, le reproche, ici : Satan qui dit que le feu est ignoble, que ma colère est affreusement sotte. - Assez !... Des erreurs qu'on me souffle, magies, parfums faux, musiques puériles. - Et dire que je tiens la vérité, que je vois la justice : j'ai un jugement sain et arrêté, je suis prêt pour la perfection... Orgueil. - La peau de ma tête se dessèche. Pitié ! Seigneur, j'ai peur. J'ai soif, si soif ! Ah ! l'enfance, l'herbe, la pluie, le lac sur les pierres, le clair de lune quand le clocher sonnait douze... le diable est au clocher, à cette heure. Marie ! Sainte-Vierge !... - Horreur de ma bêtise.
Là-bas, ne sont-ce pas des âmes honnêtes, qui me veulent du bien... Venez... J'ai un oreiller sur la bouche, elles ne m'entendent pas, ce sont des fantômes. Puis, jamais personne ne pense à autrui. Qu'on n'approche pas. Je sens le roussi, c'est certain.
Les hallucinations sont innombrables. C'est bien ce que j'ai toujours eu : plus de foi en l'histoire, l'oubli des principes. Je m'en tairai : poètes et visionnaires seraient jaloux. Je suis mille fois le plus riche, soyons avare comme la mer.
Ah ça ! l'horloge de la vie s'est arrêtée tout à l'heure. Je ne suis plus au monde. - La théologie est sérieuse, l'enfer est certainement en bas - et le ciel en haut. - Extase, cauchemar, sommeil dans un nid de flammes.
Que de malices dans l'attention dans la campagne... Satan, Ferdinand, court avec les graines sauvages... Jésus marche sur les ronces purpurines, sans les courber... Jésus marchait sur les eaux irritées. La lanterne nous le montra debout, blanc et des tresses brunes, au flanc d'une vague d'émeraude...
Je vais dévoiler tous les mystères : mystères religieux ou naturels, mort, naissance, avenir, passé, cosmogonie, néant. Je suis maître en fantasmagories.
Écoutez !...
J'ai tous les talents ! - Il n'y a personne ici et il y a quelqu'un : je ne voudrais pas répandre mon trésor. - Veut-on des chants nègres, des danses de houris ? Veut-on que je disparaisse, que je plonge à la recherche de l'anneau* ? Veut-on ? Je ferai de l'or, des remèdes.
Fiez-vous donc à moi, la foi soulage, guide, guérit. Tous, venez, - même les petits enfants, - que je vous console, qu'on répande pour vous son coeur, - le coeur merveilleux ! - Pauvres hommes, travailleurs ! Je ne demande pas de prières ; avec votre confiance seulement, je serai heureux.
- Et pensons à moi. Ceci me fait peu regretter le monde. J'ai de la chance de ne pas souffrir plus. Ma vie ne fut que folies douces, c'est regrettable.
Bah ! faisons toutes les grimaces imaginables.
Décidément, nous sommes hors du monde. Plus aucun son. Mon tact a disparu. Ah ! mon château, ma Saxe, mon bois de saules. Les soirs, les matins, les nuits, les jours... Suis-je las !
Je devrais avoir mon enfer pour la colère, mon enfer pour l'orgueil, - et l'enfer de la caresse ; un concert d'enfers.
Je meurs de lassitude. C'est le tombeau, je m'en vais aux vers, horreur de l'horreur ! Satan, farceur, tu veux me dissoudre, avec tes charmes. Je réclame. Je réclame ! un coup de fourche, une goutte de feu.
Ah ! remonter à la vie ! Jeter les yeux sur nos difformités. Et ce poison, ce baiser mille fois maudit ! Ma faiblesse, la cruauté du monde ! Mon Dieu, pitié, cachez-moi, je me tiens trop mal ! - Je suis caché et je ne le suis pas.
C'est le feu qui se relève avec son damné.


I have just swallowed a terrific mouthful of poison. - Blessed, blessed, blessed the advice I was given! - My guts are on fire. The power of the poison twists my arms and legs, cripples me, drives me to the ground. I die of thirst, I suffocate, I cannot cry. This is Hell, eternal torment! See how the flames rise! I burn as I ought to. Go on, Devil!
I once came close to a conversion to the good and to felicity, salvation. How can I describe my vision, the air of Hell is too thick for hymns! There were millions of delightful creatures in smooth spiritual harmony, strength and peace, noble ambitions, I don't know what all?
Noble ambitions!
But I am still alive! - Suppose damnation is eternal! A man who wants to mutilate himself is certainly damned, isn't he? I believe I am in Hell, therefore I am. This is the catechism at work. I am the slave of my baptism. You, my parents, have ruined my life, and your own. Poor child! - Hell is powerless against pagans. - I am still alive! Later on, the delights of damnation will become more profound. A crime, quick, and let me fall to nothingness, condemned by human law.
Shut up, will you shut up!... Everything here is shame and reproach: Satan saying that the fire is worthless, that my anger is ridiculous and silly. - Ah, stop! ...those mistakes someone whispered, magic spells, deceptive odors, childish music. - And to think that I possess the truth, that I can have a vision of justice: my judgement is sound and firm, I am prime for perfection... Pride. - My scalp begins to tighten. Have mercy! Lord, I am afraid! Water, I thirst, I thirst! Ah, childhood, grass and rain, the puddle on the paving stones, Moonlight when the clock strikes twelve.... The devil is in the clock tower, right now! Mary! Holy Virgin!... - Horrible stupidity.
Look there, are those not honorable men, who wish me well?...Come on... a pillow over my mouth, they cannot hear me, they are only ghosts. Anyway, no one ever thinks of anyone else. Don't let them come closer. I must surely stink of burning flesh.
My hallucinations are endless. This is what I've always gone through: the end of my faith in history, the neglect of my principles. I shall say no more about this: poets and visionaries would be jealous. I am the richest one of all, a thousand times, and I will hoard it like the sea.
O God - the clock of life stopped but a moment ago. I am no longer within the world. - Theology is accurate; hell is certainly down below - and heaven is up on high. - Ecstacy, nightmare, sleep, in a nest of flames.
How the mind wanders idly in the country... Satan, Ferdinand, blows with the wild seed... Jesus walks on purple thorns but doesn't bend them... Jesus used to walk on troubled waters. In the light of the lantern we saw him there, all white, with long brown hair, standing in the curve of an emerald wave...
I will tear the veils from every mystery: mysteries of religion or of nature, death, birth, the future, the past, cosmogony, and nothingness. I am a master of phantasmagoria.
Listen!...
Every talent is mine! - There is no one here, and there is someone: I wouldn't want to waste my treasure. - Shall I give you Afric chants, belly dancers? Shall I disappear, shall I begin an attempt to discover the Ring? Shall I? I will manufacture gold, and medicines.
Put your faith in me, then. Faith comforts, it guides and heals. Come unto me all of you, - even the little children - let me console you, let me pour out my heart for you - my miraculous heart! - Poor men, poor laborers! I do not ask for prayers; give me only your trust, and I will be happy.
- Think of me, now. All this doesn't make me miss the world much. I'm lucky not to suffer more. My life was nothing but sweet stupidities, unfortunately.
Bah! I'll make all the ugly faces I can!
We are out of the world, that's sure. Not a single sound. My sense of touch is gone. Ah, my château, my Saxony, my willow woods! Evenings and mornings, nights and days... How tired I am!
I ought to have a special hell for my anger, a hell for my pride, - and a hell for sex; a whole symphony of hells!
I am weary, I die. This is the grave and I'm turning into worms, horror of horrors! Satan, you clown, you want to dissolve me with your charms. Well, I want it. I want it! Stab me with a pitchfork, sprinkle me with fire.
Ah! To return to life! To stare at our deformities. And this poison, this eternally accursed embrace! My weakness, and the world's cruelty! My God, have pity, hide me, I can't control myself at all! - I am hidden, and I am not.
And as the Damned soul rises, so does the fire.




Vierge Folle
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Écoutons la confession d'un compagnon d'enfer :
"O divin Époux, mon Seigneur, ne refusez pas la confession de la plus triste de vos servantes. Je suis perdue. Je suis saoûle. Je suis impure. Quelle vie !
"Pardon, divin Seigneur, pardon ! Ah ! pardon ! Que de larmes ! Et que de larmes encore plus tard, j'espère !
"Plus tard, je connaîtrai le divin Époux ! Je suis née soumise à Lui. - L'autre peut me battre maintenant !
"À présent, je suis au fond du monde ! O mes amies !... non, pas mes amies... Jamais délires ni tortures semblables... Est-ce bête !
"Ah ! je souffre, je crie. Je souffre vraiment. Tout pourtant m'est permis, chargée du mépris des plus méprisables coeurs.
"Enfin, faisons cette confidence, quitte à la répéter vingt autres fois, - aussi morne, aussi insignifiante !
"Je suis esclave de l'Époux infernal, celui qui a perdu les vierges folles. C'est bien ce démon-là. Ce n'est pas un spectre, ce n'est pas un fantôme. Mais moi qui ai perdu la sagesse, qui suis damnée et morte au monde, - on ne me tuera pas ! - Comment vous le décrire ! Je ne sais même plus parler. Je suis en deuil, je pleure, j'ai peur. Un peu de fraîcheur, Seigneur, si vous voulez, si vous voulez bien !
"Je suis veuve... - J'étais veuve... - mais oui, j'ai été bien sérieuse jadis, et je ne suis pas née pour devenir squelette !... - Lui était presque un enfant... Ses délicatesses mystérieuses m'avaient séduite. J'ai oublié tout mon devoir humain pour le suivre. Quelle vie ! La vraie vie est absente. Nous ne sommes pas au monde. Je sais où il va, il le faut. Et souvent il s'emporte contre moi, moi, la pauvre âme. Le Démon ! - c'est un Démon, vous savez, ce n'est pas un homme.
"Il dit : "Je n'aime pas les femmes. L'amour est à réinventer, on le sait. Elles ne peuvent plus que vouloir une position assurée. La position gagnée, coeur et beauté sont mis de côté : il ne reste que froid dédain, l'aliment du mariage aujourd'hui. Ou bien je vois des femmes, avec les signes du bonheur, dont, moi, j'aurai pu faire de bonnes camarades dévorées tout d'abord par des brutes sensibles comme des bûchers..."
"Je l'écoute faisant de l'infamie une gloire, de la cruauté un charme. "Je suis de race lointaine : mes pères étaient Scandinaves : ils se perçaient les côtes, buvaient leur sang. - Je me ferai des entailles partout le corps, je me tatouerai, je veux devenir hideux comme un Mongol : tu verras, je hurlerai dans les rues. Je veux devenir bien fou de rage. Ne me montre jamais de bijoux, je ramperais et me tordrais sur le tapis. Ma richesse, je la voudrais tachée de sang partout. Jamais je ne travaillerai... " Plusieurs nuits, son démon me saisissant, nous nous roulions, je luttais avec lui ! - Les nuits, souvent, ivre, il se poste dans des rues ou dans des maisons, pour m'épouvanter mortellement. - "On me coupera vraiment le cou ; ce sera dégoûtant." Oh ! ces jours où il veut marcher avec l'air du crime !
"Parfois il parle, en une façon de patois attendri, de la mort qui fait repentir, des malheureux qui existent certainement, des travaux pénibles, des départs qui déchirent les coeurs. Dans les bouges où nous nous enivrions, il pleurait en considérant ceux qui nous entouraient, bétail de la misère. Il relevait les ivrognes dans les rues noires. Il avait la pitié d'une mère méchante pour les petits enfants. - Il s'en allait avec des gentillesses de petite fille au catéchisme. - Il feignait d'être éclairé sur tout, commerce, art, médecine. - Je le suivais, il le faut !
"Je voyais tout le décor dont, en esprit, il s'entourait ; vêtements, draps, meubles : je lui prêtais des armes, une autre figure. Je voyais tout ce qui le touchait, comme il aurait voulu le créer pour lui. Quand il me semblait avoir l'esprit inerte, je le suivais, moi, dans des actions étranges et compliquées, loin, bonnes ou mauvaises : j'étais sûre de ne jamais entrer dans son monde. À côté de son cher corps endormi, que d'heures des nuits j'ai veillé, cherchant pourquoi il voulait tant s'évader de la réalité. Jamais homme n'eût pareil voeu. Je reconnaissais, - sans craindre pour lui, - qu'il pouvait être un sérieux danger dans société. - Il a peut-être des secrets pour changer la vie ? Non, il ne fait qu'en chercher, me répliquais-je. Enfin sa charité est ensorcelée, et j'en suis la prisonnière. Aucune autre âme n'aurait assez de force, - force de désespoir ! - pour la supporter, - pour être protégée et aimée par lui. D'ailleurs, je ne me le figurais pas avec une autre âme : on voit son Ange, jamais l'Ange d'un autre, - je crois. J'étais dans son âme comme dans un palais qu'on a vidé pour ne pas voir une personne si peu noble que vous : voilà tout. Hélas ! je dépendais bien de lui. Mais que voulait-il avec mon existence terne et lâche ? Il ne me rendait pas meilleure, s'il ne me faisait pas mourir ! Tristement dépitée, je lui dis quelquefois : "Je te comprends." Il haussait les épaules.
"Ainsi, mon chagrin se renouvelant sans cesse, et me trouvant plus égarée à ses yeux, - comme à tous les yeux qui auraient voulu me fixer, si je n'eusse été condamnée pour jamais à l'oubli de tous ! - j'avais de plus en plus faim de sa bonté. Avec ses baisers et ses étreintes amies, c'était bien un ciel, un sombre ciel, où j'entrais, et où j'aurais voulu être laissée, pauvre, sourde, muette, aveugle. Déjà j'en prenais l'habitude. Je nous voyais comme deux bons enfants, libres de se promener dans le Paradis de tristesse. Nous nous accordions. Bien émus, nous travaillions ensemble. Mais, après une pénétrante caresse, il disait : "Comme ça te paraîtra drôle, quand je n'y serai plus, ce par quoi tu as passé. Quand tu n'auras plus mes bras sous ton cou, ni mon coeur pour t'y reposer, ni cette bouche sur tes yeux. Parce qu'il faudra que je m'en aille, très-loin, un jour. Puis il faut que j'en aide d'autres : c'est mon devoir. Quoique ce ne soit guère ragoûtant... , chère âme... " Tout de suite je me pressentais, lui parti, en proie au vertige, précipitée dans l'ombre la plus affreuse : la mort. Je lui faisais promettre qu'il ne me lâcherait pas. Il l'a faite vingt fois, cette promesse d'amant. C'était aussi frivole que moi lui disant : "Je te comprends."
"Ah ! je n'ai jamais été jalouse de lui. Il ne me quittera pas, je crois. Que devenir ? Il n'a pas une connaissance ; il ne travaillera jamais. Il veut vivre somnambule. Seules, sa bonté et sa charité lui donneraient-elles droit dans le monde réel ? Par instants, j'oublie la pitié où je suis tombée : lui me rendra forte, nous voyagerons, nous chasserons dans les déserts, nous dormirons sur les pavés des villes inconnues, sans soins, sans peines. Ou je me réveillerai, et les lois et les moeurs auront changé, - grâce à son pouvoir magique, - le monde, en restant le même, me laissera à mes désirs, joies, nonchalances. Oh ! la vie d'aventures qui existe dans les livres des enfants, pour me récompenser, j'ai tant souffert, me la donneras-tu ? Il ne peut pas. J'ignore son idéal. Il m'a dit avoir des regrets, des espoirs : cela ne doit pas me regarder. Parle-t-il à Dieu ? Peut-être devrais-je m'adresser à Dieu. Je suis au plus profond de l'abîme, et je ne sais plus prier.
"S'il m'expliquait ses tristesses, les comprendrai-je plus que ses railleries ? Il m'attaque, il passe des heures à me faire honte de tout ce qui m'a pu toucher au monde, et s'indigne si je pleure.
"- Tu vois cet élégant jeune homme, entrant dans la belle et calme maison : il s'appelle Duval, Dufour, Armand, Maurice, que sais-je ? Une femme s'est dévouée à aimer ce méchant idiot : elle est morte, c'est certes une sainte au ciel, à présent. Tu me feras mourir comme il a fait mourir cette femme. C'est notre sort à nous, coeurs charitables... " Hélas ! Il avait des jours où tous les hommes agissant lui paraissaient les jouets de délires grotesques : il riait affreusement, longtemps. - Puis, il reprenait ses manières de jeune mère, de soeur aimée. S'il était moins sauvage, nous serions sauvés ! Mais sa douceur aussi est mortelle. Je lui suis soumise. - Ah ! je suis folle !
"Un jour peut-être il disparaîtra merveilleusement ; mais il faut que je sache, s'il doit remonter à un ciel, que je voie un peu l'assomption de mon petit ami !"
Drôle de ménage !


Let us hear the confession of an old friend in Hell:
"O Lord, O Celestial Bridegroom, do not turn thy face from the confession of the most pitiful of thy handmaidens. I am lost. I'm drunk. I'm impure. What a life!
"Pardon, Lord in Heaven, pardon! Ah! pardon! All these tears! And all the tears to come later on, I hope!
"Later on, I will meet the Celestial Bridegroom! I was born to be His slave. - That other one can beat me now!
"Right now, it's the end of the world! Oh, girls... my friends!... no, not my friends... I've never gone through anything like this, delerium, torments, anything... It's so silly.
"Oh! I cry, I'm suffering. I really am suffering. And still I've got a right to do whatever I want, now that I am covered with contempt by the most contemptible hearts.
"Well, let me make my confession anyway, though I may have to repeat it twenty times again, - so dull, and so insignificant!
"I am a slave of the Infernal Bridegroom, the one who seduced the foolish virgins. That's exactly the devil he is. He's no phantom, he's no ghost. But I, who have lost my wits, damned and dead to the world, - no one will be able to kill me! - How can I describe him to you! I can't even talk anymore. I'm all dressed in mourning, I'm crying, I'm afraid. Please, dear Lord, a little fresh air, if you don't mind, please!
"I am a widow... - I used to be a widow... - oh, yes, I used to be very serious in those days, I wasn't born to become a skeleton!... He was a child or almost... His delicate, mysterious ways enchanted me. I forgot all my duties in order to follow him. What a life we lead! True life is lacking. We are exiles from this world, really - I go where he goes, I have to. And lots of times he gets mad at me, at me, poor sinner. That Devil! He really is a Devil, you know, and not a man.
"He says: "I don't love women. Love has to be reinvented, we know that. The only thing women can ultimately imagine is security. Once they get that, love, beauty, everything else goes out the window: all they have left is cold disdain, that's what marriages live on nowadays. Sometimes I see women who ought to be happy, with whom I could have found companionship, already swallowed up by brutes with as much feeling as an old log..."
"I listen to him turn infamy into glory, cruelty into charm. "I belong to an ancient race: my ancestors were Norsemen: they slashed their own bodies, drank their own blood. - I'll slash my body all over, I'll tattoo myself, I want to be as ugly as a Mongol: you'll see, I'll scream in the streets. I want to get really mad with anger. Don't show me jewels; I'll get down on all fours and writhe on the carpet. I want my wealth stained all over with blood. I will never do any work... "Several times, at night, his demon seized me, and we rolled about wrestling! - Sometimes at night when he's drunk he hangs around street corners or behind doors, to scare me to death. - I'll get my throat cut for sure; won't that be disgusting." And, oh! those days when he wants to go around pretending he's a criminal!
"Sometimes he talks, in his backcountry words, full of emotion, about death, and how it makes us repent, and how surely there are miserable people in the world, about exhausting work, and about saying goodbye and how it tears your heart. In the dives where we used to get drunk, he would cry when he looked at the people around us - cattle of the slums. He used to pick up drunks in the dark streets. He had the pity of a brutal mother for little children. - He went around with all the sweetness of a little girl on her way to Sunday school. He pretended to know all about everything, business, art, medicine. - And I always went along with him, I had to!
"I used to see clearly all the trappings that he hung up in his imagination; costumes, fabric, furniture... It was I who lent him weapons, and a change of face. I could visualize everything that affected him, exactly as he would have imagined it for himself. Whenever he seemed depressed, I would follow him into strange, complicated adventures, on and on, into good and evil: but I always knew I could never be a part of his world. Beside his dear body, as he slept, I lay awake hour after hour, night after night, trying to imagine why he wanted so much to escape from reality. No man before ever had such a desire. I was aware - without being afraid for him - that he could become a serious menace to society. Did he, perhaps, have secrets that would remake life? No, I told myself, he was only looking for them. But of course, his charity is under a spell, and I am its prisoner. No one else could have the strength - the strength of despair! - to stand it, to stand being cared for and loved by him. Besides, I could never imagine him with anybody else: we all have eyes for our own Dark Angel, never other people's Angels, - at least I think so. I lived in his soul as if it were a palace that had been cleared out so that the most unworthy person in it would be you: that's all. Ah! really I used to depend on him terribly. But what did he want with my dull, my cowardly existence? He couldn't improve me, though he never managed to kill me! I get so sad and disappointed; sometimes I say to him: "I understand you." He just shrugs his shoulders.
"And so my heartaches kept growing and growing, and I saw myself going more and more to pieces - and everyone else would have seen it, too, if I hadn't been so miserable that no one even looked at me anymore! and still more and more I craved his affection... His kisses and his friendly arms around me were just like heaven-- a dark heaven, that I could go into, and where I wanted only to be left - poor, deaf, dumb, and blind. Already, I was getting to depend on it. And I used to imagine that we were two happy children free to wander in a Paradise of sadness. We were in absolute harmony. Deeply moved, we labored side by side. But then, after a piercing embrace, he would say : "How funny it will all seem, all you've gone through, when I'm not here anymore. When you no longer feel my arms around your shoulders, nor my heart beneath you, nor this mouth on your eyes. Because I will have to go away someday, far away. Besides, I've got to help out others too: that's what I'm here for. although I won't really like it... dear heart..." And in that instant I could feel myself, with him gone, dizzy with fear, sinking down into the most horrible blackness: into death. I made him promise that he would never leave me. And he promised, twenty times; promised like a lover. It was as meaningless as my saying to him: "I understand you."
"Oh, I've never been jealous of him. He'll never leave me, I'm sure of it. What will he do? He doesn't know a soul; he'll never work. He wants to live like a sleepwalker. Can his kindness and his charity by themselves give him his place in the real world? There are moments when I forget the wretched mess I've fallen into: he will give me strength, we'll travel, we'll go hunting in the desert, we'll sleep on the sidewalks of unknown cities, carefree and happy. Or else some day I'll wake up and - his magic power will have changed all laws and morals, - but the world will still be the same and leave me my desires and my joys and my lack of concern. Oh! that wonderful world of adventures that we found in children's books, - won't you give me that world? I've suffered so much, I deserve a reward. He can't. I don't know what he really wants. He says he has hopes and regrets: but they have nothing to do with me. Does he talk to God? Maybe I should talk to God myself. I am in the depths of an abyss, and I have forgotten how to pray.
"Suppose he did explain his sadness to me, would I understand it any better than his jokes and insults? He attacks me, he spends hours making me ashamed of everything in the world that has ever meant anything to me, and then he gets mad if I cry.
"- Do you see that lovely young man going into that beautiful, peaceful house? His name is Duval, Dufour, Armand, Maurice, whatever you please. There is a woman who has spent her life loving that evil creature: she died. I'm sure she's a saint in heaven right now. You are going to kill me the way he killed that woman. That's what's in store for all of us who have unselfish hearts..." Oh, dear! There were days when all men of action seemed to him like the toys of some grotesque raving: he would laugh, horribly, on and on. - Then he would go back to acting like a young mother, or an older sister. If he were not such a wild thing, we would be saved! But even his sweetness is mortal. I am his slave. - Oh, I've lost my mind!
"Some day maybe he'll just disappear miraculously, but I absolutely must be told about it, I mean if he's going to go back up into heaven or someplace, so that I can go and watch for just a minute the Assumption of my darling boy!"
One hell of a household!




Alchimie du Verbe
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À moi. L'histoire d'une de mes folies.
Depuis longtemps je me vantais de posséder tous les paysages possibles, et trouvais dérisoires les célébrités de la peinture et de la poésie moderne.
J'aimais les peintures idiotes, dessus de portes, décors, toiles de saltimbanques, enseignes, enluminures populaires ; la littérature démodée, latin d'église, livres érotiques sans orthographe, romans de nos aïeules, contes de fées, petits livres de l'enfance, opéras vieux, refrains niais, rythmes naïfs.
Je rêvais croisades, voyages de découvertes dont on n'a pas de relations, républiques sans histoires, guerres de religion étouffées, révolutions de moeurs, déplacements de races et de continents : je croyais à tous les enchantements.
J'inventai la couleur des voyelles ! - A noir, E blanc, I rouge, O bleu, U vert. - Je réglai la forme et le mouvement de chaque consonne, et, avec des rythmes instinctifs, je me flattai d'inventer un verbe poétique accessible, un jour ou l'autre, à tous les sens. Je réservais la traduction.
Ce fut d'abord une étude. J'écrivais des silences, des nuits, je notais l'inexprimable. Je fixais des vertiges.
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Loin des oiseaux, des troupeaux, des villageoises,
Que buvais-je, à genoux dans cette bruyère
Entourée de tendres bois de noisetiers,
Dans un brouillard d'après-midi tiède et vert ?
Que pouvais-je boire dans cette jeune Oise,
- Ormeaux sans voix, gazon sans fleurs, ciel couvert ! -
Boire à ces gourdes jaunes, loin de ma case
Chérie? Quelque liqueur d'or qui fait suer.
Je faisais une louche enseigne d'auberge.
- Un orage vint chasser le ciel. Au soir
L'eau des bois se perdait sur les sables vierges,
Le vent de Dieu jetait des glaçons aux mares ;
Pleurant, je voyais de l'or - et ne pus boire. -
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À quatre heures du matin, l'été,
Le sommeil d'amour dure encore.
Sous les bocages s'évapore
L'odeur du soir fêté.
Là-bas, dans leur vaste chantier,
Au soleil des Hespérides,
Déjà s'agitent - en bras de chemise -
Les Charpentiers.
Dans leurs Déserts de mousse, tranquilles,
Ils préparent les lambris précieux
Où la ville
Peindra de faux cieux
O, pour ces Ouvriers charmants
Sujets d'un roi de Babylone,
Vénus ! quitte un instant les Amants
Dont l'âme est en couronne.
O Reine des Bergers,
Porte aux travailleurs l'eau-de-vie,
Que leurs forces soient en paix
En attendant le bain dans la mer à midi
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La vieillerie poétique avait une bonne part dans mon alchimie du verbe.
Je m'habituai à l'hallucination simple : je voyais très franchement une mosquée à la place d'une usine, une école de tambours faite par des anges, des calèches sur les routes du ciel, un salon au fond d'un lac ; les monstres, les mystères ; un titre de vaudeville dressait des épouvantes devant moi.
Puis j'expliquai mes sophismes magiques avec l'hallucination des mots !
Je finis par trouver sacré le désordre de mon esprit. J'étais oisif, en proie à une lourde fièvre : j'enviais la félicité des bêtes, - les chenilles, qui représentent l'innocence des limbes, les taupes, le sommeil de la virginité !
Mon caractère s'aigrissait. je disais adieu au monde dans d'espèces de romances :
Chanson de la plus haute Tour
Qu'il vienne, qu'il vienne,
Le temps dont on s'éprenne
J'ai tant fait patience
Qu'a jamais j'oublie ;
Craintes et souffrances
Aux cieux sont parties.
Et la soif malsaine
Obscurcit mes veines
Qu'il vienne, qu'il vienne,
Le temps dont on séprenne
Telle la prairie
À l'oubli livrée,
Grandie, et fleurie
D'encens et d'ivraies
Au bourdon farouche
Des sales mouches.
Qu'il vienne, qu'il vienne,
Le temps dont on s'éprenne
J'aimai le désert, les vergers brûlés, les boutiques fanées, les boissons tiédies. Je me traînais dans les ruelles puantes et, les yeux fermés, je m'offrais au soleil, dieu de feu.
"Général, s'il reste un vieux canon sur tes remparts en ruines, bombarde-nous avec des blocs de terre sèche. Aux glaces des magasins spendides ! dans les salons ! Fais manger sa poussière à la ville. Oxyde les gargouilles. Emplis les boudoirs de poudre de rubis brûlante..."
Oh ! le moucheron enivré à la pissotière de l'auberge, amoureux de la bourrache, et que dissout un rayon !
Faim
Si j'ai du goût, ce n'est guère
Que pour la terre et les pierres.
Je déjeune toujours d'air,
De roc, de charbons, de fer.
Mes faims, tournez. Paissez, faims,
Le pré des sons.
Attirez le gai venin
Des liserons.
Mangez les cailloux qu'on brise,
Les vieilles pierres d'églises ;
Les galets des vieux déluges,
Pains semés dans les vallées grises.
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Le loup criait sous les feuilles
En crachant les belles plumes
De son repas de volailles :
Comme lui je me consume.
Les salades, les fruits
N'attendent que la cuillette ;
Mais l'araignée de la haie
Ne mange que des violettes.
Que je dorme ! que je bouille
Aux autels de Salomon.
Le bouillon court sur la rouille,
Et se mêle au Cédron.
Enfin, ô bonheur, ô raison, j'écartai du ciel l'azur, qui est du noir, et je vécus, étincelle d'or de la lumière nature. De joie, je prenais une expression bouffonne et égarée au possible :
Elle est retrouvée.
Quoi ? - L'Éternité.
C'est la mer mêlée
Au soleil.
Mon âme éternelle,
Observe ton voeu
Malgré la nuit seule
Et le jour en feu.
Donc tu te dégages
Des humains suffrages
Des communs élans
Et voles selon...
- Jamais d'espérance
Pas d'orietur.
Science et patience,
Le supplice est sûr.
Plus de lendemain,
Braises de satin,
Votre ardeur
Est le devoir.
Elle est retrouvée !
- Quoi ? - L'Éternité.
C'est la mer mêlée
Au soleil.
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Je devins un opéra fabuleux : je vis que tous les êtres ont une fatalité de bonheur : l'action n'est pas la vie, mais une façon de gâcher quelque force, un énervement. La morale est la faiblesse de la cervelle.
À chaque être, plusieurs autres vies me semblaient dues. Ce monsieur ne sait ce qu'il fait : il est un ange. Cette famille est une nichée de chiens. Devant plusieurs hommes, je causai tout haut avec un moment d'une de leurs autres vies. - Ainsi, j'ai aimé un porc.
Aucun des sophismes de la folie, - la folie qu'on enferme, - n'a été oublié par moi : je pourrais les redire tous, je tiens le système.
Ma santé fut menacée. La terreur venait. Je tombais dans des sommeils de plusieurs jours, et, levé, je continuais les rêves les plus tristes. J'étais mûr pour le trépas, et par une route de dangers ma faiblesse me menait aux confins du monde et de la Cimmérie, patrie de l'ombre et des tourbillons.
Je dus voyager, distraire les enchantements assemblés sur mon cerveau. Sur la mer, que j'aimais comme si elle eût dû me laver d'une souillure, je voyais se lever la croix consolatrice. J'avais été damné par l'arc-en-ciel. Le Bonheur était ma fatalité, mon remords, mon ver : ma vie serait toujours trop immense pour être dévouée à la force et à la beauté.
Le Bonheur ! Sa dent, douce à la mort, m'avertissait au chant du coq,- ad matutinum, au Christus venit,- dans les plus sombres villes :
O saisons, ô châteaux,
Quelle âme est sans défaut ?
J'ai fait la magique étude
Du Bonheur, qu'aucun n'élude.
Salut à lui, chaque fois
Que chante le coq gaulois.
Ah! je n'aurais plus d'envie :
Il s'est chargé de ma vie.
Ce charme a pris âme et corps,
Et dispersé les efforts.
O saisons, ô châteaux,
L'heure de sa fuite, hélas !
sera l'heure du trépas
O saisons, ô châteaux !
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Cela s'est passé. Je sais aujourd'hui saluer la beauté.



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My turn now. The story of one of my insanities.
For a long time I boasted that I was master of all possible landscapes and I thought the great figures of modern painting and poetry were laughable.
What I liked were: absurd paintings, pictures over doorways, stage sets, carnival backdrops, billboards, bright-colored prints; old-fashioned literature, church Latin, erotic books full of misspellings, the kind of novels our grandmothers read, fairy tales, little children's books, old operas, silly old songs, the nave rhythms of country rimes.
I dreamed of Crusades, voyages of discovery that nobody had heard of, republics without histories, religious wars stamped out, revolutions in morals, movements of races and continents: I used to believe in every kind of magic.
I invented colors for the vowels! - A black, E white, I red, O blue, U green. - I made rules for the form and movement of every consonant, and I boasted of inventing, with rhythms from within me, a kind of poetry that all the senses, sooner or later, would recognize. And I alone would be its translator.
I began it as an investigation. I turned silences and nights into words. What was unutterable, I wrote down. I made the whirling world stand still.
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Far from flocks, from birds and country girls,
What did I drink within that leafy screen
Surrounded by tender hazlenut trees
In the warm green mist of afternoon?
What could I drink from this young Oise
- Toungeless trees, flowerless grass, dark skies! -
Drink from these yellow gourds, far from the hut
I loved? Some golden draught that made me sweat.
I would have made a doubtful sign for an inn.
- Later, toward evening, the sky filled with clouds...
Water from the woods runs out on virgin sands,
And heavenly winds cast ice thick on the ponds;
Then I saw gold, and wept, but could not drink.
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At four in the morning, in summertime,
Love's drowsiness still lasts...
The bushes blow away the odor
Of the night's feast.
Beyond the bright Hesperides,
Within the western workshop of the Sun,
Carpenters scramble - in shirtsleeves -
Work is begun.
And in desolate, moss-grown isles
They raise their precious panels
Where the city
Will paint a hollow sky
For these charming dabblers in the arts
Who labor for a King in Babylon,
Venus! Leave for a moment
Lovers' haloed hearts.
O Queen of Shepherds!
Carry the purest eau-de-vie
To these workmen while they rest
And take their bath at noonday, in the sea
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The worn-out ideas of old-fashioned poetry played an important part in my alchemy of the word.
I got used to elementary hallucination: I could very precisely see a mosque instead of a factory, a drum corps of angels, horse carts on the highways of the sky, a drawing room at the bottom of a lake; monsters and mysteries; a vaudeville's title filled me with awe.
And so I explained my magical sophistries by turning words into visions!
At last, I began to consider my mind's disorder a sacred thing. I lay about idle, consumed by an oppressive fever: I envied the bliss of animals - caterpillars, who portray the innocence of a second childhood, moles, the slumber of virginity!
My mind turned sour. I said farewell to the world in poems something like ballads:
A Song from the highest Tower
Let it come, let it come,
The season we can love
I have waited so long
That at length I forget;
And leave unto heaven
My fear and regret.
A sick thirst
Darkens my veins.
Let it come, let it come,
The season we can love
So the green field
To oblivion falls,
Overgrown, flowering,
With incense and weeds
And the cruel noise
Of dirty flies.
Let it come, let it come,
The season we can love
I loved the desert, burnt orchards, tired old shops, warm drinks. I dragged myself through stinking alleys, and with my eyes closed I offered myself to the sun, the god of fire.
"General, if on your ruined ramparts one cannon still remains, shell us with clods of dried-up earth. Shatter the mirrors of expensive shops! And the drawing rooms! Make the city swallow its dust. Turn gargoyles to rust. Stuff boudoirs with rubies' fiery powder..."
Oh! the little fly drunk at the urinal of a country inn, in love with rotting weeds, a ray of light dissolves him!
Hunger
I only find within my bones
A taste for eating earth and stones.
When I feed, I feed on air,
Rocks and coals and iron ore.
My hunger, turn. Hunger, feed,
A field of bran.
Gather as you can the bright
Poison weed.
Eat the rocks a beggar breaks,
The stones of ancient churches' walls;
Pebbles, children of the flood,
Loaves left lying in the mud.
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Beneath the bush a wolf will howl
Spitting bright feathers
From his feast of fowl:
Like him, I devour myself.
Waiting to be gathered
Fruits and grasses spend their hours;
The spider spinning in the hedge
Eats only flowers.
Let me sleep! Let me boil
On the altars of Solomon;
Let me soak the rusty soil,
And flow into Kendron.
Finally, O reason, O happiness, I cleared from the sky the blue which is darkness, and I lived as a golden spark of this light Nature. In my delight, I made my face look as comic and as wild as I could:
It is recovered.
What? - Eternity.
In the whirling light
Of the sun in the sea.
O my eternal soul,
Hold fast to desire
In spite of the night
And the day on fire.
You must set yourself free
From the striving of Man
And the applause of the World
You must fly as you can...
- No hope forever
No orietur.
Science and patience,
The torment is sure.
The fire within you,
Soft silken embers,
Is our whole duty
But no one remembers.
It is recovered.
What? Eternity.
In the whirling light
Of the sun in the sea.
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I became a fabulous opera: I saw that everyone in the world was doomed to happiness. Action isn't life: it's merely a way of ruining a kind of strength, a means of destroying nerves. Morality is water on the brain.
It seemed to me that everyone should have had several other lives as well. This gentleman doesn't know what he's doing: he's an angel. That family is a litter of puppy dogs. With some men, I often talked out loud with a moment from one of their other lives. - That's how I happened to love a pig.
Not a single one of the brilliant arguments of madness, - the madness that gets locked up, - did I forget: I could go through them all again, I've got the system down by heart.
It affected my health. Terror loomed ahead. I would fall again and again into a heavy sleep, which lasted several days at a time, and when I woke up, my sorrowful dreams continued. I was ripe for fatal harvest, and my weakness led me down dangerous roads to the edge of the world, to the Cimmerian shore, the haven of whirlwinds and darkness.
I had to travel, to dissipate the enchantments that crowded my brain. On the sea, which I loved as if it were to wash away my impurity, I watched the compassionate cross arise. I had been damned by the rainbow. Felicity was my doom, my gnawing remorse, my worm: my life would forever be too large to devote to strength and to beauty.
Felicity! The deadly sweetness of its sting would wake me at cockcrow, - ad matutinum, at the Christus venit, - in the somberest of cities:
O seasons, O chateaus!
Where is the flawless soul?
I learned the magic of
Felicity, it enchants us all.
To Felicity, sing life and praise
Whenever Gaul's cock crows.
Now all desire has gone:
It has made my life its own.
That spell has caught heart and soul
And scattered every trial.
O seasons, O chateaus!
And, oh! the day it disappears
Will be the day I die.
O seasons, O chateaus!
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All that is over. Today, I know how to celebrate beauty.



L'Impossible
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Ah ! cette vie de mon enfance, la grande route par tous les temps, sobre surnaturellement, plus désintéressé que le meilleur des mendiants, fier de n'avoir ni pays, ni amis, quelle sottise c'était. - Et je m'en aperçois seulement !
- J'ai eu raison de mépriser ces bonshommes qui ne perdraient pas l'occasion d'une caresse, parasites de la propreté et de la santé de nos femmes, aujourd'hui qu'elles sont si peu d'accord avec nous. J'ai eu raison dans tous mes dédains : puisque je m'évade !
Je m'évade !
Je m'explique.
Hier encore, je soupirais : "Ciel ! sommes-nous assez de damnés ici-bas ! Moi, j'ai tant de temps déjà dans leur troupe ! Je les connais tous. Nous nous reconnaissons toujours ; nous nous dégoûtons. La charité nous est inconnue. Mais nous sommes polis ; nos relations avec le monde sont très convenables." Est-ce étonnant ? Le monde ! les marchands, les naïfs ! - Nous ne sommes pas déshonorés. - Mais les élus, comment nous recevraient-ils ? Or il y a des gens hargneux et joyeux, de faux élus, puisqu'il nous faut de l'audace ou de l'humilité pour les aborder. Ce sont les seuls élus. Ce ne sont pas des bénisseurs !
M'étant retrouvé deux sous de raison - ça passe vite ! - je vois que mes malaises viennent de ne m'être pas figuré assez tôt que nous sommes à l'Occident. Les marais occidentaux ! Non que je croie la lumière altérée, la forme exténuée, le mouvement égaré... Bon ! voici que mon esprit veut absolument se charger de tous les développements cruels qu'a subis l'esprit depuis la fin de l'Orient... Il en veut, mon esprit !
... Mes deux sous de raison sont finis ! L'esprit est autorité, il veut que je sois en Occident. Il faudrait le faire taire pour conclure comme je voulais.
J'envoyais au diable les palmes des martyrs, les rayons de l'art, l'orgueil des inventeurs, l'ardeur des pillards; je retournais à l'Orient et à la sagesse première et éternelle. - Il paraît que c'est un rêve de paresse grossière !
Pourtant, je ne songeais guère au plaisir d'échapper aux souffrances modernes. je n'avais pas en vue la sagesse bâtarde du Coran. - Mais n'y a-t-il pas un supplice réel en ce que, depuis cette déclaration de la science, le christianisme, l'homme se joue, se prouve les évidences, se gonfle du plaisir derépéter ces preuves, et ne vit que comme cela ? Torture subtile, niaise ; source de mes divagations spirituelles. La nature pourrait s'ennuyer, peut-être ! M. Prud'homme est né avec le Christ.
N'est-ce pas parce que nous cultivons la brume ? Nous mangeons la fièvre avec nos légumes aqueux. Et l'ivrognerie ! et le tabac ! et l'ignorance ! et les dévouements ! - Tout cela est-il assez loin de la pensée de la sagesse de l'Orient, la patrie primitive ? Pourquoi un monde moderne, si de pareils poisons s'inventent !
Les gens d'Église diront : C'est compris. Mais vous voulez parler de l'Éden. Rien pour vous dans l'histoire des peuples orientaux. - C'est vrai ; c'est à l'Éden que je songeais ! Qu'est-ce que c'est pour mon rêve, cette pureté des races antiques !
Les philosophes : Le monde n'a pas d'âge. L'humanité se déplace, simplement. Vous êtes en Occident, mais libre d'habiter dans votre Orient, quelque ancien qu'il vous le faille, - et d'y habiter bien. Ne soyez pas un vaincu. Philosophes, vous êtes de votre Occident.
Mon esprit, prends garde. Pas de partis de salut violents. Exerce-toi ! - Ah ! la science ne va pas assez vite pour nous !
- Mais je m'aperçois que mon esprit dort.
S'il était bien éveillé toujours à partir de ce moment, nous serions bientôt à la vérité, qui peut-être nous entoure avec ses anges pleurant !... - S'il avait été éveillé jusqu'à ce moment-ci, c'est que je n'aurais pas cédé aux instincts délétères, à une époque immémoriale !... S'il avait toujours été bien éveillé, je voguerais en pleine sagesse !...
O pureté ! pureté !
C'est cette minute d'éveil qui m'a donné la vision de la pureté ! - Par l'esprit on va à Dieu !
Déchirante infortune !


Ah! My life as a child, the open road in every weather; I was unnaturally abstinent, more detached than the best of beggars, proud to have no country, no friends, what stupidity that was. - And only now I realize it!
- I was right to distrust old men who never lost a chance for a caress, parasites on the health and cleanliness of our women, today when women are so much a race apart from us.
I was right in everything I distrusted: because I am running away!
I am running away!
I'll explain.
Even yesterday, I kept sighing: "God! There are enough of us damned down here! I've done time enough already in their ranks! I know them all. We always recognize each other; we disgust each other. Charity is unheard of among us. Still, we're polite; our relations with the world are quite correct." Is that surprising? The world! Businessmen, and idiots! - there's no dishonor in being here. - But the company of the elect, how would they receive us? For there are surely people, happy people, the false elect, since we must be bold or humble to aproach them. These are the real elect. No saintly hypocrites, these!
Since I've got back two cents' worth of reason - how quickly it goes! - I can see that my troubles come from not realizing soon enough that this is the Western World. These Western swamps! Not that light has paled, form worn out, or movement been misguided... All right! Now my mind wants absolutely to take on itself all the cruel developments that mind had undergone since the Orient collapsed... My mind demands it!
... And that's the end of my two cents' worth of reason! The mind is in control, it insists that I remain in the West. It will have to be silenced if I expect it to end as I always wanted to.
I used to say, to hell with martyrs' palms, all beacons of art, the inventor's pride, the plunderer's frenzy; I expected to return to the Orient and to original, eternal wisdom. But this is evidently a dream of depraved laziness!
And yet I had no intention of trying to escape from modern suffering. I have no high regard for the bastard wisdom of the Koran. - But isn't there a very real torment in knowing that since the dawn of that scientific discovery, Christianity, Man has been making a fool of himself, proving what is obvious, puffing with pride as he repeats his proofs, and living on that alone! This is a subtle, stupid torment; and this is the source of my spiritual ramblings. Nature may well be bored with it all! Prudhomme was born with Christ.
Isn't it because we cultivate the fog! We swallow fever with our watery vegetables. And drunkenness! And tobacco! And ignorance! And blind faith! - Isn't this all a bit far from the thought, the wisdom of the Orient, the original fatherland? Why have a modern world, if such poisons are invented!
Priests and preachers will say: Of course. But you are really referring to Eden. There is nothing for you in the past hsitory of Oriental races.... True enough. It was Eden I meant! How can this purity of ancient races affect my dream?
Philosophers will say: the world has no ages. Humanity moves from place to place, that's all. You are a Western man, but quite free to live in your Orient, as old a one as you want, - and to live in it as you like. Don't be a defeatist. Philosophers, you are part and parcel of your Western world!
Careful, mind. Don't rush madly after salvation. Train yourself! - Ah! Science never goes fast enough for us!
- But I see that my mind is asleep.
If it stays wide awake from this moment on, we would soon reach the truth, which may even now surround us with its weeping angels!... - If it had been wide awake until this moment, I would have never given in to degenerate instincts, long ago!... - If it had always been wide awake, I would be floating in wisdom!...
O Purity! Purity!
In this moment of awakening, I had a vision of purity! Through the mind we go to God!
What a crippling misfortune!



L'Éclair
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Le travail humain ! c'est l'explosion qui éclaire mon abîme de temps en temps.
"Rien n'est vanité ; à la science, et en avant !" crie l'Ecclésiaste moderne, c'est-à-dire Tout le monde. Et pourtant les cadavres des méchants et des fainéants tombent sur le coeur des autres... Ah ! vite, vite un peu ; là-bas, par delà la nuit, ces récompenses futures, éternelles... les échappons-nous ?...
- Qu'y puis-je ? Je connais le travail ; et la science est trop lente. Que la prière galope et que la lumière gronde... je le vois bien. C'est trop simple, et il fait trop chaud ; on se passera de moi. J'ai mon devoir, j'en serai fier à la façon de plusieurs, en le mettant de côté.
Ma vie est usée. Allons ! feignons, fainéantons, ô pitié ! Et nous existerons en nous amusant, en rêvant amours monstres et univers fantastiques, en nous plaignant et en nous querellant les apparences du monde, saltimbanque, mendiant, artiste, bandit, - prêtre ! Sur mon lit d'hôpital, l'odeur de l'encens m'est revenue si puissante ; gardien des aromates sacrés, confesseur, martyr...
Je reconnais là ma sale éducation d'enfance. Puis quoi !... Aller mes vingt ans, si les autres vont vingt ans...
Non ! non ! à présent je me révolte contre la mort ! Le travail paraît trop léger à mon orgueil : ma trahison au monde serait un supplice trop court. Au dernier moment, j'attaquerais à droite, à gauche...
Alors, - oh ! - chère pauvre âme, l'éternité serait-elle pas perdue pour nous !


Human labor! That explosion lights up my abyss from time to time.
"Nothing is vanity; on toward knowledge!" cries the modern Ecclesiastes, which is Everyone. And still the bodies of the wicked and the idle fall upon the hearts of all the rest... Ah! quick, quick, quick there; beyond the night... that future reward, that eternal reward... will we escape it?
- What more can I do? Labor I know; and science is too slow. That praying gallops and that light roars... I'm well aware of it. It's too simple, and the weather's too hot; you can all do without me. I have my duty; but I will be proud, as others have been, to set it aside.
My life is worn out. Well, let's pretend, let's do nothing! oh, pitiful! And we will exist, and amuse ourselves, dreaming of monstrous loves and fantastic worlds, complaining and quarreling with the appearances of the world, acrobat, beggar, artist, bandit, - priest! On my hospital bed, the odor of incense came so strongly back to me; guardian of the holy aromatics, confessor, martyr...
There I recognize my filthy childhood education. Then what!... Turn twenty: I'll do my twenty years, if everyone else does...
No! No! Now I rise up against death! Labor seems too easy for pride like mine: To betray me to the world would be too slight a punishment. At the last moment I would attack, to the right, to the left...
- Oh! - poor dear soul, eternity then might not be lost!



Matin
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N'eus-je pas une fois une jeunesse aimable, héroïque, fabuleuse, à écrire sur des feuilles d'or, - trop de chance ! Par quel crime, par quelle erreur, ai-je mérité ma faiblesse actuelle ? Vous qui prétendez que des bêtes poussent des sanglots de chagrin, que des malades désespèrent, que des morts rêvent mal, tâchez de raconter ma chute et mon sommeil. Moi, je ne puis pas plus m'expliquer que le mendiant avec ses continuels Pater et Ave Maria. Je ne sais plus parler !
Pourtant, aujourd'hui, je crois avoir fini la relation de mon enfer. C'était bien l'enfer ; l'ancien, celui dont le fils de l'homme ouvrit les portes.
Du même désert, à la même nuit, toujours mes yeux las se réveillent à l'étoile d'argent, toujours, sans que s'émeuvent les Rois de la vie, les trois mages, le coeur l'âme, l'esprit. Quand irons-nous, par delà les grèves et les monts, saluer la naissance du travail nouveau, la sagesse nouvelle, la fuite des tyrans et des démons, la fin de la superstition, adorer - les premiers ! - Noël sur la terre !
Le chant des cieux, la marche des peuples ! Esclaves, ne maudissons pas la vie.


Hadn't I once a youth that was lovely, heroic, fabulous, something to write down on pages of gold? - I was too lucky! Through what crime, by what fault did I deserve my present weakness? You who imagine that animals sob with sorrow, that the sick despair, that the dead have bad dreams, try now to relate my fall and my sleep. I can explain myself no better than the beggar wth his endless Aves and Pater Nosters. I no longer know how to talk!
And yet, today, I think I have finished this account of my Hell. And it was Hell; the old one, whose gates were opened by the Son of Man.
From the same desert, toward the same dark sky, my tired eyes forever open on the silver star, forever; but the three wise men never stir, the Kings of life, the heart, the soul, the mind. When will we go, over mountains and shores, to hail the birth of new labor, new wisdom, the flight of tyrants and demons, the end of superstition, - to be the first to adore! - Christmas on earth!
The song of the heavens, the marching of nations! We are slaves, let us not curse life!



Adieu
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L'automne, déjà ! - Mais pourquoi regretter un éternel soleil, si nous sommes engagés à la découverte de la clarté divine, - loin des gens qui meurent sur les saisons.
L'automne. Notre barque élevée dans les brumes immobiles tourne vers le port de la misère, la cité énorme au ciel taché de feu et de boue. Ah ! les haillons pourris, le pain trempé de pluie, l'ivresse, les mille amours qui m'ont crucifié ! Elle ne finira donc point cette goule reine de millions d'âmes et de corps morts et qui seront jugés ! Je me revois la peau rongée par la boue et la peste, des vers plein les cheveux et les aisselles et encore de plus gros vers dans le coeur, étendu parmi les inconnus sans âge, sans sentiment... J'aurais pu y mourir... L'affreuse évocation ! J'exècre la misère.
Et je redoute l'hiver parce que c'est la saison du comfort !
- Quelquefois je vois au ciel des plages sans fin couvertes de blanches nations en joie. Un grand vaisseau d'or, au-dessus de moi, agite ses pavillons multicolores sous les brises du matin. J'ai créé toutes les fêtes, tous les triomphes, tous les drames. J'ai essayé d'inventer de nouvelles fleurs, de nouveaux astres, de nouvelles chairs, de nouvelles langues. J'ai cru acquérir des pouvoirs surnaturels. Eh bien ! je dois enterrer mon imagination et mes souvenirs ! Une belle gloire d'artiste et de conteur emportée !
Moi ! moi qui me suis dit mage ou ange, dispensé de toute morale, je suis rendu au sol, avec un devoir à chercher, et la réalité rugueuse à étreindre ! Paysan !
Suis-je trompé ? la charité serait-elle soeur de la mort, pour moi ?
Enfin, je demanderai pardon pour m'être nourri de mensonge. Et allons.
Mais pas une main amie ! et où puiser le secours ?
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Oui l'heure nouvelle est au moins très-sévère.
Car je puis dire que la victoire m'est acquise : les grincements de dents, les sifflements de feu, les soupirs empestés se modèrent. Tous les souvenirs immondes s'effacent. Mes derniers regrets détalent, - des jalousies pour les mendiants, les brigands, les amis de la mort, les arriérés de toutes sortes. - Damnés, si je me vengeais !
Il faut être absolument moderne.
Point de cantiques : tenir le pas gagné. Dure nuit ! le sang séché fume sur ma face, et je n'ai rien derrière moi, que cet horrible arbrisseau !... Le combat spirituel est aussi brutal que la bataille d'hommes ; mais la vision de la justice est le plaisir de Dieu seul.
Cependant c'est la veille. Recevons tous les influx de vigueur et de tendresse réelle. Et à l'aurore, armés d'une ardente patience, nous entrerons aux splendides villes.
Que parlais-je de main amie ! Un bel avantage, c'est que je puis rire des vieilles amours mensongères, et frapper de honte ces couples menteurs, - j'ai vu l'enfer des femmes là-bas ; - et il me sera loisible de posséder la vérité dans une âme et un corps.
avril-août, 1873.




Farewell
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Autumn already! - But why regret the everlasting sun, if we are sworn to a search for divine brightness, - far from those who die as seasons turn.
Autumn. Our boat, risen out of a hanging fog, turns toward poverty's harbor, the monstrous city, its sky stained with fire and mud. Ah! Those stinking rags, bread soaked with rain, drunkenness, and the thousands of loves who nailed me to the cross! Will there never, ever be an end to that ghoulish queen of a million dead souls and bodies and who will all be judged! I can see myself again, my skin corroded by dirt and disease, hair and armpits crawling with worms, and worms still larger crawling in my heart, stretched out among ageless, heartless, unknown figures... I could easily have died there... What a horrible memory! I detest poverty.
And I dread winter because it's so cozy!
- Sometimes in the sky I see endless sandy shores covered with white rejoicing nations. A great golden ship, above me, flutters many-colored pennants in the morning breeze. I was the creator of every feast, every triumph, every drama. I tried to invent new flowers, new planets, new flesh, new languages. I thought I had acquired supernatural powers. Ha! I have to bury my imagination and my memories! What an end to a splendid career as an artist and storyteller!
I! I called myself a magician, an angel, free from all moral constraint, I am sent back to the soil to seek some obligation, to wrap gnarled reality in my arms! A peasant!
Am I deceived? Would Charity be the sister of death, for me?
Well, I shall ask forgiveness for having lived on lies. And that's that.
But not one friendly hand! and where can I look for help?
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True, the new era is nothing if not harsh.
For I can say that I have gained a victory; the gnashing of teeth, the hissing of hellfire, the stinking sighs subside. All my monstrous memories are fading. My last longings depart, - jealousy of beggars, bandits, friends of death, all those that the world passed by. - Damned souls, if I were to take vengance!
One must be absolutely modern.
Never mind hymns of thanksgiving: hold on to a step once taken. A hard night! Dried blood smokes on my face, and nothing lies behind me but that repulsive little tree!... The battle for the soul is as brutal as the battles of men; but the sight of justice is the pleasure of God alone.
Yet this is the watch by night. Let us all accept new strength, and real tenderness. And at dawn, armed with glowing patience, we will enter the cities of glory.
Why did I talk about a friendly hand! My great advantage is that I can laugh at old love affairs full of falsehood, and stamp with shame such deceitful couples, - I went through women's Hell over there; - and I will be able now to possess the truth within one body and one soul.
April-August, 1873.



















Arthur Rimbaud ? “A Season in Hell” (1873)
May 17, 2009 at 6:44 pm (Poetry & Literature)

1
Once, if my memory serves me well, my life was a banquet where every heart revealed itself, where every wine flowed.
One evening I took Beauty in my arms ? and I thought her bitter ? and I insulted her.
I steeled myself against justice.
I fled. O witches, O misery, O hate, my treasure was left in your care!
I have withered within me all human hope. With the silent leap of a sullen beast, I have downed and strangled every joy.
I have called for executioners; I want to perish chewing on their gun butts. I have called for plagues, to suffocate in sand and blood. Unhappiness has been my god. I have lain down in the mud, and dried myself off in the crime-infested air. I have played the fool to the point of madness.
And springtime brought me the frightful laugh of an idiot.
Now recently, when I found myself ready to croak! I thought to seek the key to the banquet of old, where I might find an appetite again.
That key is Charity. ? This idea proves I was dreaming!
“You will stay a hyena, etc…,” shouts the demon who once crowned me with such pretty poppies. “Seek death with all your desires, and all selfishness, and all the Seven Deadly Sins.”
Ah! I’ve taken too much of that: ? still, dear Satan, don’t look so annoyed, I beg you! And while waiting for a few belated cowardices, since you value in a writer all lack of descriptive or didactic flair, I pass you these few foul pages from the diary of a Damned Soul.

Bad Blood
From my ancestors the Gauls I have pale blue eyes, a narrow brain, and awkwardness in competition. I think my clothes are as barbaric as theirs. But I don’t butter my hair.
The Gauls were the most stupid hide-flayers and hay-burners of their time.
From them, I inherit: idolatry, and love of sacrelige; ? oh! all sorts of vice, anger, lechery, ? terrific stuff, lechery; ? lying, above all, and laziness.
I have a horror of all trades and crafts. Bosses and workers, all of them peasants, and common. The hand that holds the pen is as good as the one that holds the plow. ? What a century for hands! ? I’ll never learn to use my hands. And then, domesticity goes too far. The propriety of beggary shames me. Criminals are as disgusting as men without balls: I’m intact, and I don’t care.
But! who has made my tongue so treacherous, that until now it has counseled and kept me in idleness? I have not used even my body to get along. Out-idling the sleepy toad, I have lived everywhere. There’s not one family in Europe that I don’t know. ? Families, I mean, like mine, who owe their existence to the Declaration of the Rights of Man. ? I have known each family’s eldest son!
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If only I had a link to some point in the history of France!
But instead, nothing.
I am well aware that I have always been of an inferior race. I cannot understand revolt. My race has never risen, except to plunder: to devour like wolves a beast they did not kill.
I remember the history of France, the Eldest Daughter of the Church. I would have gone, a village serf, crusading to the Holy Land; my head is full of roads in the Swabian plains, of the sight of Byzantium, of the ramparts of Jerusalem; the cult of Mary, the pitiful thought of Christ crucified, turns in my head with a thousand profane enchantments. ? I sit like a leper among broken pots and nettles, at the foot of a wall eaten away by the sun. ? And later, a wandering mercenary, I would have bivouacked under German nighttimes.
Ah! one thing more: I dance the Sabbath in a scarlet clearing, with old women and children.
I don’t remember much beyond this land, and Christianity. I will see myself forever in its past. But always alone; without a family; what language, in fact, did I used to speak? I never see myself in the councils of Christ; nor in the councils of the Lords, ? Christ’s representatives.
What was I in the century past: I only find myself today. The vagabonds, the hazy wars are gone. The inferior race has swept over all ? the People, as they put it, Reason; Nation and Science.
Ah, Science! Everything is taken from the past. For the body and the soul, ? the last sacrament, ? we have Medicine and Philosophy, household remedies and folk songs rearrainged. And royal entertainments, and games that kings forbid! Geography, Cosmography, Mechanics, Chemistry!…
Science, the new nobility! Progress. The world moves!… And why shouldn’t it?
We have visions of numbers. We are moving toward the Spirit. What I say is oracular and absolutely right. I understand, and since I cannot express myself except in pagan terms, I would rather keep quiet.
Pagan blood returns! The Spirit is at hand, why does Christ not help me, and grant my soul nobility and freedom. Ah! but the Gospel belongs to the past! The Gospel! The Gospel.
I wait gluttinously for God. I have been of an inferior race for ever and ever.
And now I am on the beaches of Brittany. Let cities light their lamps in the evening. My daytime is done; I am leaving Europe. The air of the sea will burn my lungs; lost climates will turn my skin to leather. To swim, to pulverize grass, to hunt, above all to smoke; to drink strong drinks, as strong as molten ore, ? as did those dear ancestors around their fires.
I will come back with limbs of iron, with dark skin, and angry eyes: in this mask, they will think I belong to a strong race. I will have gold: I will be brutal and indolent. Women nurse these ferocious invalids come back from the tropics. I will become involved in politics. Saved.
Now I am accursed, I detest my native land. The best thing is a drunken sleep, stretched out on some strip of shore.
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But no one leaves. ? Let us set out once more on our native roads, burdened with my vice, that vice that since the age of reason has driven roots of suffering into my side ? that towers to heaven, beats me, hurls me down, drags me on.
Ultimate innocence, final timidity. All’s said. Carry no more my loathing and treacheries before the world.
Come on! Marching, burdens, the desert, boredom and anger.
Hire myself to whom? What beasts adore? What sacred images destroy? What hearts shall I break? What lie maintain? ? Through what blood wade?
Better to keep away from justice. ? A hard life, outright stupor, ? with a dried-out fist to lift the coffin lid, lie down, and suffocate. No old age this way, no danger: terror is very un-French.
? Ah! I am so forsaken I will offer at any shrine impulses toward perfection.
Oh my self-denial, my marvelous Charity! my Selfless love! And still here below!
De Profundis Domine, what an ass I am!
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When I was still a little child, I admired the hardened convict on whom the prison door will always close; I used to visit the bars and the rented rooms his presence had consecrated; I saw with his eyes the blue sky and the flower-filled work of the fields; I followed his fatal scent through city streets. He had more strength than the saints, more sense than any explorer ? and he, he alone! was witness to his glory and his rightness.
Along the open road on winter nights, homeless, cold, and hungry, one voice gripped my frozen heart: “Weakness or strength: you exist, that is strength. You don’t know where you are going or why you are going, go in everywhere, answer everyone. No one will kill you, any more than if you were a corpse.” In the morning my eyes were so vacant and my face so dead, that the people I met may not even have seen me.
In cities, mud went suddenly red and black, like a mirror when a lamp in the next room moves, like treasure in the forest! Good luck, I cried, and I saw a sea of flames and smoke rise to heaven; and left and right, all wealth exploded like a billion thunderbolts.
But orgies and the companionship of women were impossible for me. Not even a friend. I saw myself before an angry mob, facing a firing squad, weeping out sorrows they could not understand, and pardoning! ? like Joan of Arc! ? “Priests, professors and doctors, you are mistaken in delivering me into the hands of the law. I have never been one of you; I have never been a Christian; I belong to the race that sang on the scaffold; I do not understand your laws; I have no moral sense; I am a brute; you are making a mistake…”
Yes, my eyes are closed to your light. I am an animal, a nigger. But I can be saved. You are fake niggers; maniacs, savages, misers, all of you. Businessman, you’re a nigger; judge, you’re a nigger; general, you’re a nigger; emperor, old scratch-head, you’re a nigger: you’ve drunk a liquor no one taxes, from Satan’s still. ? This nation is inspired by fever and cancer. Invalids and old men are so respectable that they ask to be boiled. ? The best thing is to quit this continent where madness prowls, out to supply hostages for these wretches. I will enter the true kingdom of the sons of Cham.
Do I understand nature? Do I understand myself? No more words. I shroud dead men in my stomach…. Shouts, drums, dance, dance, dance! I can’t even imagine the hour when the white men land, and I will fall into nothingness.
Thirst and hunger, shouts, dance, dance, dance!
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The white men are landing. Cannons! Now we must be baptized, get dressed, and go to work.
My heart has been stabbed by grace. Ah! I hadn’t thought this would happen!
But I haven’t done anything wrong. My days will be easy, and I will be spared repentance. I will not have had the torments of the soul half-dead to the Good, where austure light rises again like funeral candles. The fate of a first-born son, a premature coffin covered with shining tears. No doubt, perversion is stupid, vice is stupid; rottenness must always be cast away. But the clock must learn to strike more than hours of pure pain! Am I to be carried away like a child, to play in paradise, forgetting all this misery!
Quick! Are there any other lives? ? Sleep for the rich is impossible. Wealth has always lived openly. divine love alone confers the keys of knowledge. I see that nature is only a show of kindness. Farewell chimeras, ideals and errors.
The reasonable song of angels rises from the rescue ship: it is divine love. ? Two loves! I may die of earthly love, die of devotion. I have left behind creatures whose grief will grow at my going! You choose me from among the castaways, aren’t those who remain my friends?
Save them!
I am reborn in reason. The world is good. I will bless life. I will love my brothers. There are no longer childhood promises. Nor the hope of escaping old age and death. God is my strength, and I praise God.
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Boredom is no longer my love. Rage, perversion, madness, whose every impulse and disaster I know, ? my burden is set down entire. Let us appraise with clear heads the extent of my innocence.
I am no longer able to ask for the consolation of a beating. I don’t imagine I’m off on a honeymoon with Jesus Christ as my father-in-law.
I am no prisoner of my own reason. I have said: God. I want freedom within salvation: how shall I go about it? A taste for frivolity has left me. No further need for divine love or for devotion to duty. I do not regret the age of emotion and feeling. To each his own reason, contempt, Charity: I keep my place at the top of the angelic ladder of good sense.
As for settled happiness, domestic or not… no, I can’t. I am too dissipated, too weak. Work makes life blossom, an old idea, not mine; my life doesn’t weigh enough, it drifts off and floats far beyond action, that third pole of the world.
What an old maid I’m turning into, to lack the courage to love death!
If only God would grant me that celestial calm, etherial calm, and prayer, ? like the saints of old. ? The Saints! They were strong! Anchorites, artists of a kind we no longer need!
Does this farce have no end? My innocence is enough to make me cry. Life is the farce we all must play.
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Stop it! this is your punishment. ? Forward march!
Ah! my lungs burn, my temples roar! Night rolls in my eyes, beneath this sun! My heart… my arms and legs…
Where are we going? To battle? I am weak! the others go on ahead. Tools, weapons… give me time!…
Fire! Fire at me! Here! or I’ll give myself up. ? Cowards! ? I’ll kill myself! I’ll throw myself beneath the horses’ hooves!
Ah!…
? I’ll get used to it.
That would be the French way, the path of honor!

Night in Hell
I have just swallowed a terrific mouthful of poison. ? Blessed, blessed, blessed the advice I was given! ? My guts are on fire. The power of the poison twists my arms and legs, cripples me, drives me to the ground. I die of thirst, I suffocate, I cannot cry. This is Hell, eternal torment! See how the flames rise! I burn as I ought to. Go on, Devil!
I once came close to a conversion to the good and to felicity, salvation. How can I describe my vision, the air of Hell is too thick for hymns! There were millions of delightful creatures in smooth spiritual harmony, strength and peace, noble ambitions, I don’t know what all?
Noble ambitions!
But I am still alive! ? Suppose damnation is eternal! A man who wants to mutilate himself is certainly damned, isn’t he? I believe I am in Hell, therefore I am. This is the catechism at work. I am the slave of my baptism. You, my parents, have ruined my life, and your own. Poor child! ? Hell is powerless against pagans. ? I am still alive! Later on, the delights of damnation will become more profound. A crime, quick, and let me fall to nothingness, condemned by human law.
Shut up, will you shut up!… Everything here is shame and reproach: Satan saying that the fire is worthless, that my anger is ridiculous and silly. ? Ah, stop! …those mistakes someone whispered, magic spells, deceptive odors, childish music. ? And to think that I possess the truth, that I can have a vision of justice: my judgement is sound and firm, I am prime for perfection… Pride. ? My scalp begins to tighten. Have mercy! Lord, I am afraid! Water, I thirst, I thirst! Ah, childhood, grass and rain, the puddle on the paving stones, Moonlight when the clock strikes twelve.… The devil is in the clock tower, right now! Mary! Holy Virgin!… ? Horrible stupidity.
Look there, are those not honorable men, who wish me well?…Come on… a pillow over my mouth, they cannot hear me, they are only ghosts. Anyway, no one ever thinks of anyone else. Don’t let them come closer. I must surely stink of burning flesh.
My hallucinations are endless. This is what I’ve always gone through: the end of my faith in history, the neglect of my principles. I shall say no more about this: poets and visionaries would be jealous. I am the richest one of all, a thousand times, and I will hoard it like the sea.
O God ? the clock of life stopped but a moment ago. I am no longer within the world. ? Theology is accurate; hell is certainly down below ? and heaven is up on high. ? Ecstacy, nightmare, sleep, in a nest of flames.
How the mind wanders idly in the country… Satan, Ferdinand, blows with the wild seed… Jesus walks on purple thorns but doesn’t bend them… Jesus used to walk on troubled waters. In the light of the lantern we saw him there, all white, with long brown hair, standing in the curve of an emerald wave…
I will tear the veils from every mystery: mysteries of religion or of nature, death, birth, the future, the past, cosmogony, and nothingness. I am a master of phantasmagoria.
Listen!…
Every talent is mine! ? There is no one here, and there is someone: I wouldn’t want to waste my treasure. ? Shall I give you Afric chants, belly dancers? Shall I disappear, shall I begin an attempt to discover the Ring? Shall I? I will manufacture gold, and medicines.
Put your faith in me, then. Faith comforts, it guides and heals. Come unto me all of you, ? even the little children ? let me console you, let me pour out my heart for you ? my miraculous heart! ? Poor men, poor laborers! I do not ask for prayers; give me only your trust, and I will be happy.
? Think of me, now. All this doesn’t make me miss the world much. I’m lucky not to suffer more. My life was nothing but sweet stupidities, unfortunately.
Bah! I’ll make all the ugly faces I can!
We are out of the world, that’s sure. Not a single sound. My sense of touch is gone. Ah, my chateau, my Saxony, my willow woods! Evenings and mornings, nights and days… How tired I am!
I ought to have a special hell for my anger, a hell for my pride, ? and a hell for sex; a whole symphony of hells!
I am weary, I die. This is the grave and I’m turning into worms, horror of horrors! Satan, you clown, you want to dissolve me with your charms. Well, I want it. I want it! Stab me with a pitchfork, sprinkle me with fire.
Ah! To return to life! To stare at our deformities. And this poison, this eternally accursed embrace! My weakness, and the world’s cruelty! My God, have pity, hide me, I can’t control myself at all! ? I am hidden, and I am not.
And as the Damned soul rises, so does the fire.

Delirium
I
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The Foolish Virgin
Let us hear the confession of an old friend in Hell:
“O Lord, O Celestial Bridegroom, do not turn thy face from the confession of the most pitiful of thy handmaidens. I am lost. I’m drunk. I’m impure. What a life!
“Pardon, Lord in Heaven, pardon! Ah! pardon! All these tears! And all the tears to come later on, I hope!
“Later on, I will meet the Celestial Bridegroom! I was born to be His slave. ? That other one can beat me now!
“Right now, it’s the end of the world! Oh, girls… my friends!… no, not my friends… I’ve never gone through anything like this, delerium, torments, anything… It’s so silly.
“Oh! I cry, I’m suffering. I really am suffering. And still I’ve got a right to do whatever I want, now that I am covered with contempt by the most contemptible hearts.
“Well, let me make my confession anyway, though I may have to repeat it twenty times again, ? so dull, and so insignificant!
“I am a slave of the Infernal Bridegroom, the one who seduced the foolish virgins. That’s exactly the devil he is. He’s no phantom, he’s no ghost. But I, who have lost my wits, damned and dead to the world, ? no one will be able to kill me! ? How can I describe him to you! I can’t even talk anymore. I’m all dressed in mourning, I’m crying, I’m afraid. Please, dear Lord, a little fresh air, if you don’t mind, please!
“I am a widow… ? I used to be a widow… ? oh, yes, I used to be very serious in those days, I wasn’t born to become a skeleton!… He was a child or almost… His delicate, mysterious ways enchanted me. I forgot all my duties in order to follow him. What a life we lead! True life is lacking. We are exiles from this world, really ? I go where he goes, I have to. And lots of times he gets mad at me, at me, poor sinner. That Devil! He really is a Devil, you know, and not a man.
“He says: “I don’t love women. Love has to be reinvented, we know that. The only thing women can ultimately imagine is security. Once they get that, love, beauty, everything else goes out the window: all they have left is cold disdain, that’s what marriages live on nowadays. Sometimes I see women who ought to be happy, with whom I could have found companionship, already swallowed up by brutes with as much feeling as an old log…”
“I listen to him turn infamy into glory, cruelty into charm. “I belong to an ancient race: my ancestors were Norsemen: they slashed their own bodies, drank their own blood. ? I’ll slash my body all over, I’ll tattoo myself, I want to be as ugly as a Mongol: you’ll see, I’ll scream in the streets. I want to get really mad with anger. Don’t show me jewels; I’ll get down on all fours and writhe on the carpet. I want my wealth stained all over with blood. I will never do any work… “Several times, at night, his demon seized me, and we rolled about wrestling! ? Sometimes at night when he’s drunk he hangs around street corners or behind doors, to scare me to death. ? I’ll get my throat cut for sure; won’t that be disgusting.” And, oh! those days when he wants to go around pretending he’s a criminal!
“Sometimes he talks, in his backcountry words, full of emotion, about death, and how it makes us repent, and how surely there are miserable people in the world, about exhausting work, and about saying goodbye and how it tears your heart. In the dives where we used to get drunk, he would cry when he looked at the people around us ? cattle of the slums. He used to pick up drunks in the dark streets. He had the pity of a brutal mother for little children. ? He went around with all the sweetness of a little girl on her way to Sunday school. He pretended to know all about everything, business, art, medicine. ? And I always went along with him, I had to!
“I used to see clearly all the trappings that he hung up in his imagination; costumes, fabric, furniture… It was I who lent him weapons, and a change of face. I could visualize everything that affected him, exactly as he would have imagined it for himself. Whenever he seemed depressed, I would follow him into strange, complicated adventures, on and on, into good and evil: but I always knew I could never be a part of his world. Beside his dear body, as he slept, I lay awake hour after hour, night after night, trying to imagine why he wanted so much to escape from reality. No man before ever had such a desire. I was aware ? without being afraid for him ? that he could become a serious menace to society. Did he, perhaps, have secrets that would remake life? No, I told myself, he was only looking for them. But of course, his charity is under a spell, and I am its prisoner. No one else could have the strength ? the strength of despair! ? to stand it, to stand being cared for and loved by him. Besides, I could never imagine him with anybody else: we all have eyes for our own Dark Angel, never other people’s Angels, ? at least I think so. I lived in his soul as if it were a palace that had been cleared out so that the most unworthy person in it would be you: that’s all. Ah! really I used to depend on him terribly. But what did he want with my dull, my cowardly existence? He couldn’t improve me, though he never managed to kill me! I get so sad and disappointed; sometimes I say to him: “I understand you.” He just shrugs his shoulders.
“And so my heartaches kept growing and growing, and I saw myself going more and more to pieces ? and everyone else would have seen it, too, if I hadn’t been so miserable that no one even looked at me anymore! and still more and more I craved his affection… His kisses and his friendly arms around me were just like heaven ? a dark heaven, that I could go into, and where I wanted only to be left ? poor, deaf, dumb, and blind. Already, I was getting to depend on it. And I used to imagine that we were two happy children free to wander in a Paradise of sadness. We were in absolute harmony. Deeply moved, we labored side by side. But then, after a piercing embrace, he would say : “How funny it will all seem, all you’ve gone through, when I’m not here anymore. When you no longer feel my arms around your shoulders, nor my heart beneath you, nor this mouth on your eyes. Because I will have to go away someday, far away. Besides, I’ve got to help out others too: that’s what I’m here for. although I won’t really like it… dear heart…” And in that instant I could feel myself, with him gone, dizzy with fear, sinking down into the most horrible blackness: into death. I made him promise that he would never leave me. And he promised, twenty times; promised like a lover. It was as meaningless as my saying to him: “I understand you.”
“Oh, I’ve never been jealous of him. He’ll never leave me, I’m sure of it. What will he do? He doesn’t know a soul; he’ll never work. He wants to live like a sleepwalker. Can his kindness and his charity by themselves give him his place in the real world? There are moments when I forget the wretched mess I’ve fallen into: he will give me strength, we’ll travel, we’ll go hunting in the desert, we’ll sleep on the sidewalks of unknown cities, carefree and happy. Or else some day I’ll wake up and ? his magic power will have changed all laws and morals, ? but the world will still be the same and leave me my desires and my joys and my lack of concern. Oh! that wonderful world of adventures that we found in children’s books, ? won’t you give me that world? I’ve suffered so much, I deserve a reward. He can’t. I don’t know what he really wants. He says he has hopes and regrets: but they have nothing to do with me. Does he talk to God? Maybe I should talk to God myself. I am in the depths of an abyss, and I have forgotten how to pray.
“Suppose he did explain his sadness to me, would I understand it any better than his jokes and insults? He attacks me, he spends hours making me ashamed of everything in the world that has ever meant anything to me, and then he gets mad if I cry.
“? Do you see that lovely young man going into that beautiful, peaceful house? His name is Duval, Dufour, Armand, Maurice, whatever you please. There is a woman who has spent her life loving that evil creature: she died. I’m sure she’s a saint in heaven right now. You are going to kill me the way he killed that woman. That’s what’s in store for all of us who have unselfish hearts…” Oh, dear! There were days when all men of action seemed to him like the toys of some grotesque raving: he would laugh, horribly, on and on. ? Then he would go back to acting like a young mother, or an older sister. If he were not such a wild thing, we would be saved! But even his sweetness is mortal. I am his slave. ? Oh, I’ve lost my mind!
“Some day maybe he’ll just disappear miraculously, but I absolutely must be told about it, I mean if he’s going to go back up into heaven or someplace, so that I can go and watch for just a minute the Assumption of my darling boy!”
One hell of a household!

Delirium
II
 ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄
Alchemy of the Word
 ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄
My turn now. The story of one of my insanities.
For a long time I boasted that I was master of all possible landscapes and I thought the great figures of modern painting and poetry were laughable.
What I liked were: absurd paintings, pictures over doorways, stage sets, carnival backdrops, billboards, bright-colored prints; old-fashioned literature, church Latin, erotic books full of misspellings, the kind of novels our grandmothers read, fairy tales, little children’s books, old operas, silly old songs, the nave rhythms of country rimes.
I dreamed of Crusades, voyages of discovery that nobody had heard of, republics without histories, religious wars stamped out, revolutions in morals, movements of races and continents: I used to believe in every kind of magic.
I invented colors for the vowels! ? A black, E white, I red, O blue, U green. ? I made rules for the form and movement of every consonant, and I boasted of inventing, with rhythms from within me, a kind of poetry that all the senses, sooner or later, would recognize. And I alone would be its translator.
I began it as an investigation. I turned silences and nights into words. What was unutterable, I wrote down. I made the whirling world stand still.
 ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄
Far from flocks, from birds and country girls,
What did I drink within that leafy screen
Surrounded by tender hazlenut trees
In the warm green mist of afternoon?
What could I drink from this young Oise
? Toungeless trees, flowerless grass, dark skies! ?
Drink from these yellow gourds, far from the hut
I loved? Some golden draught that made me sweat.
I would have made a doubtful sign for an inn.
? Later, toward evening, the sky filled with clouds…
Water from the woods runs out on virgin sands,
And heavenly winds cast ice thick on the ponds;
Then I saw gold, and wept, but could not drink.

At four in the morning, in summertime,
Love’s drowsiness still lasts…
The bushes blow away the odor
Of the night’s feast.
Beyond the bright Hesperides,
Within the western workshop of the Sun,
Carpenters scramble ? in shirtsleeves ?
Work is begun.
And in desolate, moss-grown isles
They raise their precious panels
Where the city
Will paint a hollow sky
For these charming dabblers in the arts
Who labor for a King in Babylon,
Venus! Leave for a moment
Lovers’ haloed hearts.
O Queen of Shepherds!
Carry the purest eau-de-vie
To these workmen while they rest
And take their bath at noonday, in the sea
 ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄
The worn-out ideas of old-fashioned poetry played an important part in my alchemy of the word.
I got used to elementary hallucination: I could very precisely see a mosque instead of a factory, a drum corps of angels, horse carts on the highways of the sky, a drawing room at the bottom of a lake; monsters and mysteries; a vaudeville’s title filled me with awe.
And so I explained my magical sophistries by turning words into visions!
At last, I began to consider my mind’s disorder a sacred thing. I lay about idle, consumed by an oppressive fever: I envied the bliss of animals ? caterpillars, who portray the innocence of a second childhood, moles, the slumber of virginity!
My mind turned sour. I said farewell to the world in poems something like ballads:
A Song from the highest Tower
Let it come, let it come,
The season we can love
I have waited so long
That at length I forget;
And leave unto heaven
My fear and regret.
A sick thirst
Darkens my veins.
Let it come, let it come,
The season we can love
So the green field
To oblivion falls,
Overgrown, flowering,
With incense and weeds
And the cruel noise
Of dirty flies.
Let it come, let it come,
The season we can love
I loved the desert, burnt orchards, tired old shops, warm drinks. I dragged myself through stinking alleys, and with my eyes closed I offered myself to the sun, the god of fire.
“General, if on your ruined ramparts one cannon still remains, shell us with clods of dried-up earth. Shatter the mirrors of expensive shops! And the drawing rooms! Make the city swallow its dust. Turn gargoyles to rust. Stuff boudoirs with rubies’ fiery powder…”
Oh! the little fly drunk at the urinal of a country inn, in love with rotting weeds, a ray of light dissolves him!
Hunger
I only find within my bones
A taste for eating earth and stones.
When I feed, I feed on air,
Rocks and coals and iron ore.
My hunger, turn. Hunger, feed,
A field of bran.
Gather as you can the bright
Poison weed.
Eat the rocks a beggar breaks,
The stones of ancient churches’ walls;
Pebbles, children of the flood,
Loaves left lying in the mud.
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Beneath the bush a wolf will howl
Spitting bright feathers
From his feast of fowl:
Like him, I devour myself.
Waiting to be gathered
Fruits and grasses spend their hours;
The spider spinning in the hedge
Eats only flowers.
Let me sleep! Let me boil
On the altars of Solomon;
Let me soak the rusty soil,
And flow into Kendron.
Finally, O reason, O happiness, I cleared from the sky the blue which is darkness, and I lived as a golden spark of this light Nature. In my delight, I made my face look as comic and as wild as I could:
It is recovered.
What? ? Eternity.
In the whirling light
Of the sun in the sea.
O my eternal soul,
Hold fast to desire
In spite of the night
And the day on fire.
You must set yourself free
From the striving of Man
And the applause of the World
You must fly as you can…
? No hope forever
No orietur.
Science and patience,
The torment is sure.
The fire within you,
Soft silken embers,
Is our whole duty
But no one remembers.
It is recovered.
What? Eternity.
In the whirling light
Of the sun in the sea.
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I became a fabulous opera: I saw that everyone in the world was doomed to happiness. Action isn’t life: it’s merely a way of ruining a kind of strength, a means of destroying nerves. Morality is water on the brain.
It seemed to me that everyone should have had several other lives as well. This gentleman doesn’t know what he’s doing: he’s an angel. That family is a litter of puppy dogs. With some men, I often talked out loud with a moment from one of their other lives. ? That’s how I happened to love a pig.
Not a single one of the brilliant arguments of madness, ? the madness that gets locked up, ? did I forget: I could go through them all again, I’ve got the system down by heart.
It affected my health. Terror loomed ahead. I would fall again and again into a heavy sleep, which lasted several days at a time, and when I woke up, my sorrowful dreams continued. I was ripe for fatal harvest, and my weakness led me down dangerous roads to the edge of the world, to the Cimmerian shore, the haven of whirlwinds and darkness.
I had to travel, to dissipate the enchantments that crowded my brain. On the sea, which I loved as if it were to wash away my impurity, I watched the compassionate cross arise. I had been damned by the rainbow. Felicity was my doom, my gnawing remorse, my worm: my life would forever be too large to devote to strength and to beauty.
Felicity! The deadly sweetness of its sting would wake me at cockcrow, ? ad matutinum, at the Christus venit, ? in the somberest of cities:
O seasons, O chateaus!
Where is the flawless soul?
I learned the magic of
Felicity, it enchants us all.
To Felicity, sing life and praise
Whenever Gaul’s cock crows.
Now all desire has gone:
It has made my life its own.
That spell has caught heart and soul
And scattered every trial.
O seasons, O chateaus!
And, oh! the day it disappears
Will be the day I die.
O seasons, O chateaus!
 ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄
All that is over. Today, I know how to celebrate beauty.

The Impossible
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Ah! My life as a child, the open road in every weather; I was unnaturally abstinent, more detached than the best of beggars, proud to have no country, no friends, what stupidity that was. ? And only now I realize it!
? I was right to distrust old men who never lost a chance for a caress, parasites on the health and cleanliness of our women, today when women are so much a race apart from us.
I was right in everything I distrusted: because I am running away!
I am running away!
I’ll explain.
Even yesterday, I kept sighing: “God! There are enough of us damned down here! I’ve done time enough already in their ranks! I know them all. We always recognize each other; we disgust each other. Charity is unheard of among us. Still, we’re polite; our relations with the world are quite correct.” Is that surprising? The world! Businessmen, and idiots! ? there’s no dishonor in being here. ? But the company of the elect, how would they receive us? For there are surely people, happy people, the false elect, since we must be bold or humble to aproach them. These are the real elect. No saintly hypocrites, these!
Since I’ve got back two cents’ worth of reason ? how quickly it goes! ? I can see that my troubles come from not realizing soon enough that this is the Western World. These Western swamps! Not that light has paled, form worn out, or movement been misguided… All right! Now my mind wants absolutely to take on itself all the cruel developments that mind had undergone since the Orient collapsed… My mind demands it!
… And that’s the end of my two cents’ worth of reason! The mind is in control, it insists that I remain in the West. It will have to be silenced if I expect it to end as I always wanted to.
I used to say, to hell with martyrs’ palms, all beacons of art, the inventor’s pride, the plunderer’s frenzy; I expected to return to the Orient and to original, eternal wisdom. But this is evidently a dream of depraved laziness!
And yet I had no intention of trying to escape from modern suffering. I have no high regard for the bastard wisdom of the Koran. ? But isn’t there a very real torment in knowing that since the dawn of that scientific discovery, Christianity, Man has been making a fool of himself, proving what is obvious, puffing with pride as he repeats his proofs, and living on that alone! This is a subtle, stupid torment; and this is the source of my spiritual ramblings. Nature may well be bored with it all! Prudhomme was born with Christ.
Isn’t it because we cultivate the fog! We swallow fever with our watery vegetables. And drunkenness! And tobacco! And ignorance! And blind faith! ? Isn’t this all a bit far from the thought, the wisdom of the Orient, the original fatherland? Why have a modern world, if such poisons are invented!
Priests and preachers will say: Of course. But you are really referring to Eden. There is nothing for you in the past hsitory of Oriental races…. True enough. It was Eden I meant! How can this purity of ancient races affect my dream?
Philosophers will say: the world has no ages. Humanity moves from place to place, that’s all. You are a Western man, but quite free to live in your Orient, as old a one as you want, ? and to live in it as you like. Don’t be a defeatist. Philosophers, you are part and parcel of your Western world!
Careful, mind. Don’t rush madly after salvation. Train yourself! ? Ah! Science never goes fast enough for us!
? But I see that my mind is asleep.
If it stays wide awake from this moment on, we would soon reach the truth, which may even now surround us with its weeping angels!… ? If it had been wide awake until this moment, I would have never given in to degenerate instincts, long ago!… ? If it had always been wide awake, I would be floating in wisdom!…
O Purity! Purity!
In this moment of awakening, I had a vision of purity! Through the mind we go to God!
What a crippling misfortune!

Lightning
 ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄
Human labor! That explosion lights up my abyss from time to time.
“Nothing is vanity; on toward knowledge!” cries the modern Ecclesiastes, which is Everyone. And still the bodies of the wicked and the idle fall upon the hearts of all the rest… Ah! quick, quick, quick there; beyond the night… that future reward, that eternal reward… will we escape it?
? What more can I do? Labor I know; and science is too slow. That praying gallops and that light roars… I’m well aware of it. It’s too simple, and the weather’s too hot; you can all do without me. I have my duty; but I will be proud, as others have been, to set it aside.
My life is worn out. Well, let’s pretend, let’s do nothing! oh, pitiful! And we will exist, and amuse ourselves, dreaming of monstrous loves and fantastic worlds, complaining and quarreling with the appearances of the world, acrobat, beggar, artist, bandit, ? priest! On my hospital bed, the odor of incense came so strongly back to me; guardian of the holy aromatics, confessor, martyr…
There I recognize my filthy childhood education. Then what!… Turn twenty: I’ll do my twenty years, if everyone else does…
No! No! Now I rise up against death! Labor seems too easy for pride like mine: To betray me to the world would be too slight a punishment. At the last moment I would attack, to the right, to the left…
? Oh! ? poor dear soul, eternity then might not be lost!

Morning
Hadn’t I once a youth that was lovely, heroic, fabulous, something to write down on pages of gold? ? I was too lucky! Through what crime, by what fault did I deserve my present weakness? You who imagine that animals sob with sorrow, that the sick despair, that the dead have bad dreams, try now to relate my fall and my sleep. I can explain myself no better than the beggar wth his endless Aves and Pater Nosters. I no longer know how to talk!
And yet, today, I think I have finished this account of my Hell. And it was Hell; the old one, whose gates were opened by the Son of Man.
From the same desert, toward the same dark sky, my tired eyes forever open on the silver star, forever; but the three wise men never stir, the Kings of life, the heart, the soul, the mind. When will we go, over mountains and shores, to hail the birth of new labor, new wisdom, the flight of tyrants and demons, the end of superstition, ? to be the first to adore! ? Christmas on earth!
The song of the heavens, the marching of nations! We are slaves, let us not curse life!

Farewell
 ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄
Autumn already! ? But why regret the everlasting sun, if we are sworn to a search for divine brightness, ? far from those who die as seasons turn.
Autumn. Our boat, risen out of a hanging fog, turns toward poverty’s harbor, the monstrous city, its sky stained with fire and mud. Ah! Those stinking rags, bread soaked with rain, drunkenness, and the thousands of loves who nailed me to the cross! Will there never, ever be an end to that ghoulish queen of a million dead souls and bodies and who will all be judged! I can see myself again, my skin corroded by dirt and disease, hair and armpits crawling with worms, and worms still larger crawling in my heart, stretched out among ageless, heartless, unknown figures… I could easily have died there… What a horrible memory! I detest poverty.
And I dread winter because it’s so cozy!
? Sometimes in the sky I see endless sandy shores covered with white rejoicing nations. A great golden ship, above me, flutters many-colored pennants in the morning breeze. I was the creator of every feast, every triumph, every drama. I tried to invent new flowers, new planets, new flesh, new languages. I thought I had acquired supernatural powers. Ha! I have to bury my imagination and my memories! What an end to a splendid career as an artist and storyteller!
I! I called myself a magician, an angel, free from all moral constraint, I am sent back to the soil to seek some obligation, to wrap gnarled reality in my arms! A peasant!
Am I deceived? Would Charity be the sister of death, for me?
Well, I shall ask forgiveness for having lived on lies. And that’s that.
But not one friendly hand! and where can I look for help?
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True, the new era is nothing if not harsh.
For I can say that I have gained a victory; the gnashing of teeth, the hissing of hellfire, the stinking sighs subside. All my monstrous memories are fading. My last longings depart, ? jealousy of beggars, bandits, friends of death, all those that the world passed by. ? Damned souls, if I were to take vengeance!
One must be absolutely modern.
Never mind hymns of thanksgiving: hold on to a step once taken. A hard night! Dried blood smokes on my face, and nothing lies behind me but that repulsive little tree!… The battle for the soul is as brutal as the battles of men; but the sight of justice is the pleasure of God alone.
Yet this is the watch by night. Let us all accept new strength, and real tenderness. And at dawn, armed with glowing patience, we will enter the cities of glory.
Why did I talk about a friendly hand! My great advantage is that I can laugh at old love affairs full of falsehood, and stamp with shame such deceitful couples, ? I went through women’s Hell over there; ? and I will be able now to possess the truth within one body and one soul.
April-August, 1873





Le Bateau Ivre : Arthur Rimbaud

  Comme je descendais des Fleuves impassibles,
  Je ne me sentis plus guidé par les haleurs :
  Des Peaux-Rouges criards les avaient pris pour cibles
  Les ayant cloués nus aux poteaux de couleurs.

  J'étais insoucieux de tous les équipages,
  Porteur de blés flamands ou de cotons anglais.
  Quand avec mes haleurs ont fini ces tapages
  Les Fleuves m'ont laissé descendre où je voulais.

  Dans les clapotements furieux des marées
  Moi l'autre hiver plus sourd que les cerveaux d'enfants,
  Je courus ! Et les Péninsules démarrées
  N'ont pas subi tohu-bohus plus triomphants.

  La tempête a béni mes éveils maritimes.
  Plus léger qu'un bouchon j'ai dansé sur les flots
  Qu'on appelle rouleurs éternels de victimes,
  Dix nuits, sans regretter l'oeil niais des falots !

  Plus douce qu'aux enfants la chair des pommes sures,
  L'eau verte pénétra ma coque de sapin
  Et des taches de vins bleus et des vomissures 
  Me lava, dispersant gouvernail et grappin

  Et dès lors, je me suis baigné dans le Poème
  De la Mer, infusé d'astres, et lactescent,
  Dévorant les azurs verts ; où, flottaison blême
  Et ravie, un noyé pensif parfois descend ;

  Où, teignant tout à coup les bleuités, délires
  Et rythmes lents sous les rutilements du jour,
  Plus fortes que l'alcool, plus vastes que nos lyres,
  Fermentent les rousseurs amères de l'amour !

  Je sais les cieux crevant en éclairs, et les trombes
  Et les ressacs et les courants : Je sais le soir,
  L'aube exaltée ainsi qu'un peuple de colombes,
  Et j'ai vu quelque fois ce que l'homme a cru voir !

  J'ai vu le soleil bas, taché d'horreurs mystiques,
  Illuminant de longs figements violets,
  Pareils à des acteurs de drames très-antiques
  Les flots roulant au loin leurs frissons de volets !

  J'ai rêvé la nuit verte aux neiges éblouies,
  Baiser montant aux yeux des mers avec lenteurs,
  La circulation des sèves inouïes,
  Et l'éveil jaune et bleu des phosphores chanteurs !

  J'ai suivi, des mois pleins, pareille aux vacheries
  Hystériques, la houle à l'assaut des récifs,
  Sans songer que les pieds lumineux des Maries
  Pussent forcer le mufle aux Océans poussifs !

  J'ai heurté, savez-vous, d'incroyables Florides
  Mêlant aux fleurs des yeux de panthères à peaux
  D'hommes ! Des arcs-en-ciel tendus comme des brides
  Sous l'horizon des mers, à de glauques troupeaux !

  J'ai vu fermenter les marais énormes, nasses
  Où pourrit dans les joncs tout un Léviathan !
  Des écroulement d'eau au milieu des bonaces,
  Et les lointains vers les gouffres cataractant !

  Glaciers, soleils d'argent, flots nacreux, cieux de braises !
  Échouages hideux au fond des golfes bruns
  Où les serpents géants dévorés de punaises
  Choient, des arbres tordus, avec de noirs parfums !

  J'aurais voulu montrer aux enfants ces dorades
  Du flot bleu, ces poissons d'or, ces poissons chantants.
  - Des écumes de fleurs ont bercé mes dérades
  Et d'ineffables vents m'ont ailé par instants.

  Parfois, martyr lassé des pôles et des zones,
  La mer dont le sanglot faisait mon roulis doux
  Montait vers moi ses fleurs d'ombres aux ventouses jaunes
  Et je restais, ainsi qu'une femme à genoux...

  Presque île, balottant sur mes bords les querelles
  Et les fientes d'oiseaux clabaudeurs aux yeux blonds
  Et je voguais, lorsqu'à travers mes liens frêles
  Des noyés descendaient dormir, à reculons !

  Or moi, bateau perdu sous les cheveux des anses,
  Jeté par l'ouragan dans l'éther sans oiseau,
  Moi dont les Monitors et les voiliers des Hanses
  N'auraient pas repêché la carcasse ivre d'eau ;

  Libre, fumant, monté de brumes violettes,
  Moi qui trouais le ciel rougeoyant comme un mur
  Qui porte, confiture exquise aux bons poètes,
  Des lichens de soleil et des morves d'azur,

  Qui courais, taché de lunules électriques,
  Planche folle, escorté des hippocampes noirs,
  Quand les juillets faisaient crouler à coups de triques
  Les cieux ultramarins aux ardents entonnoirs ;

  Moi qui tremblais, sentant geindre à cinquante lieues
  Le rut des Béhémots et les Maelstroms épais,
  Fileur éternel des immobilités bleues,
  Je regrette l'Europe aux anciens parapets !

  J'ai vu des archipels sidéraux ! et des îles
  Dont les cieux délirants sont ouverts au vogueur :
  - Est-ce en ces nuits sans fond que tu dors et t'exiles,
  Million d'oiseaux d'or, ô future Vigueur ? -

  Mais, vrai, j'ai trop pleuré ! Les Aubes sont navrantes.
  Toute lune est atroce et tout soleil amer :
  L'âcre amour m'a gonflé de torpeurs enivrantes.
  Ô que ma quille éclate ! Ô que j'aille à la mer !

  Si je désire une eau d'Europe, c'est la flache
  Noire et froide où vers le crépuscule embaumé
  Un enfant accroupi plein de tristesses, lâche
  Un bateau frêle comme un papillon de mai.

  Je ne puis plus, baigné de vos langueurs, ô lames,
  Enlever leur sillage aux porteurs de cotons,
  Ni traverser l'orgueil des drapeaux et des flammes,
  Ni nager sous les yeux horribles des pontons.




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