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Page 1 of 31928 · PDF PAGE 184
…these heights Where I can watch my city hour by hour; Her hells and hospitals and bawdy light, Where every evil opens like a flower. You know, o Satan, lord of my grief unsung, I go not down to weep against your power, But like an old tramp in rotting dung Rather would I get drunk with this great whore Whose rank infernal charm preserves me young. And if in sheets obscure she still must snore, A bleary bitch, or like a young girl go Tripping in veils of evening, gold once more, I love you, o my city, in your woe, Sad capital, whose whores and b…
1928 · PDF PAGE 76
…elicious con- tralto singers, and also a little of that hoarse- ness which characterizes the throats of very old drunkards. Wilt though know my power? cried the false goddess with her charming and paradoxi- cal voice; Listen! and she put to her mouth a gigantic trumpet covered with ribands like the reed-pipe, on which were written the titles of all the newspapers in the world, and through this trumpet she cried my name, which thus rolled across space with the noise of a hundred thousand thunders, and came back to me on the echo of the most …
1928 · PDF PAGE 43
…ore saddening widow? She who drags, holding his hand, a brat with whom she cannot share her reverie, or she who is quite alone? I do not know. . . . Once upon a time it happened to me that I fol- lowed during long hours a mournful old woman of this type; stiff, straight, under a little word- out shawl; she bore herself in all her being with stoical pride. She was evidently condemned by absolute solitude to the habits of a celibate of long standing, and the masculine character of her manners added something mysteriously pi- quant to their auster…
1928 · PDF PAGE 74
thee the Lord of Souls, and thou shalt be the master of living matter, more so even than the sculptor can be of his clay, and thou shalt know the pleasure, ceaselessly re-born, of leaving thyself to forget thyself in another, and to draw other souls, until thou dost confound them with thine own. And I answered him, Thank you for noth- ing. What should I do with this parcel of be- ings, who doubtless are worth no more than my poor self? Though I have sometimes shame in remembering, I wish to forget nothing. And even if I did not know you, old …
1928 · PDF PAGE 28
…nt failed, but at the eleventh it succeeded much too well. Another will light a cigar close to a barrel of gunpowder in order to see, to know, to tempt Fate, to force himself to give proof of his en- ergy; to ape the gamester, to know the pleas- ures of anxiety; and this incited by caprice, by idleness, by nothing at all. This kind of energy springs from boredom and reverie, and those in whom it so obsti- nately appears are in general, as I have said, the most indolent and dreamy of all beings. Another, so mightily timid that he lowers his eyes…
1928 · PDF PAGE 25
…erstand and to feel beauty immortal. Ah, Goddess, have pity of my sadness, of my madness! But the implacable Venus looks afar off upon I know not what, with marble eyes.
1928 · PDF PAGE 119
…s decided that I should sleep in the same bed as my nurse. He drew his comrades nearer to him, and low- ered his voice. Oh, you do not know what a strange feeling it gives, not to be alone in bed, but with ones nurse in the shadows. As I was not asleep, I amused myself while she slept in passing my hand over her arms and her neck and her shoulders. Her arms and neck are ever so much fatter tan those of all other women, and her skin is so soft, so soft, that one would say it was letter paper, or silk paper. I had so much pleasure in this that…
1928 · PDF PAGE 11
…ther, nor sister, nor brother. Your friends? There you employ a word whose sense I have never understood. Your country? I do not know its latitude. Beauty? I would love it willingly, Goddess and Immortal. Gold? I hate is as you hate God. Ah, what then do you love, strange man? I love the clouds . . . . the clouds that float . . . down there . . . the marvellous clouds.
1928 · PDF PAGE 39
…th, one might compare you with great accuracy to a young she-frog invok- ing the Ideal. If you despise King Log (as I am at present, you know well) beware of King Stork, who will crunch you and swallow you and kill at his pleasure! Poet as I am, I am not the dupe that you would like to think; and if you weary me too often with your affected complainings I will treat you like a wild woman of the woods or throw you out of the window like an empty bottle.
1928 · PDF PAGE 180
…ay contemplate the town outspread Hospital, brothel, jail, hell, purgatory, Where each thing monstrous rears its pros- pered head! Well knowst thou Satan (ease this woe of mine!) I went not thither useless tears to shed, But an old lecher withs old concubine, To madden sense on the enormous bitch Whose hellish charm pours youth for me like wine Whether thou sleep in mornings sheets (dear witch!) Heavy, obscure, and chill; or preen thee, vain, In evenings veils, with gold embroidery rich.
1928 · PDF PAGE 185
… with quiet eyes The city: hospital, limbo, brothel, gaol, Where all iniquity opens flowerwise. O Satan, patron of my soul dismayed, You know I sought no refuge for vain sighs, But like an old pauper with his cinder-jade I coveted drunkenness from the mammoth trull Whose hell-born charms bring back my youth [thats strayed. While you still sleep obscure and leaden dull, Clouted with morning, rheumy-eyed, or preen Yourself in gold-laced evening, veiled in full, I love you, infamous Capital! To quean And highwayman, you tender ravishment Which lu…
1928 · PDF PAGE 186
…e city in her mag- nitude, Her brothels, pest-house, prison, purgatory, hell, Where like a flower flourishes all vicious brood. You well know, Satan, fount of soul- devouring harms, I went not there to shed vain tears in dolor- ous mood, But, like a shrewd old lecher in his womans arms, To drink deep of the lures of this lewd be- hemoth, Who keeps my youth aflame with necro- mantic charms. Whether past noon youre still in bed, asth- matic, wroth And torpid, or quitting the dim haunt you inhabit, You prance in trailing veils of evenings gold-…
1928 · PDF PAGE 51
…s I passed, to lay some money on one of the boards, hoping that he would divine my inten- tion, when a great eddy of people, caused by I know not what disturbance, bore me far away from him. And, on my homeward round, obsessed by this sight, I sought to analyse my sudden sad- ness; and I said to myself: I have just seen the image of the old man of letters who has survived the generation which he so brilliantly amused; of the old poet, without friends, with- out family, without children, degraded by his misery and by public ingratitude, into who…
1928 · PDF PAGE 27
…E BAD GLAZIER THERE are natures which are purely con- templative and altogether unfitted for action, yet which, under a mysterious and unknown impulse, sometimes act with a rashness of which they would have believed themselves to be incapable. One such, fearing to find some disappoint- ing intelligence at the porters lodge, hangs about for an hour without daring to go home; another keeps a letter for a fortnight without unsealing it, or only makes up his mind after six months to take some step which was nec- essary a year before: such feel the…
1928 · PDF PAGE 100
…which he closely examined. Curious and careful disposition, said I to myself. We met a poor man who, trembling, held out to us his capI know nothing more disqui- eting than the dumb eloquence of these be- seeching eyes, which contain, for the sensitive man who understands how to read therein, both so much humility, and so much reproach. There is therein something approaching this depth of complex sentiment in the watery eyes of whipped dogs. My friends alms were much more consid- erable than my own, and I said to him, You are right; after th…
1928 · PDF PAGE 60
…s is wedded to silence; where the food itself is at once poetical, rich, and ex- citing; where everything resembles you, dear angel. You know the feverish malady which takes possession of us in times of wretchedness and cold; this homesickness for unknown coun-
1928 · PDF PAGE 144
…e not precisely old or young, they bore that unmistakable distinction which belongs to the veterans of Marshal Joy, that indescribableI know not what to call itthat cold and banter- ing sadness which clearly says, We have lived strongly, and we seek something to admire and to respect. One of them turned the conversation to the subject of women. It would have been more philosophical not to speak of it at all, but many witty persons after drinking do not despise commonplace talk. At such times one listens to whoever is speaking as one listens…
1928 · PDF PAGE 160
…ing in the wind with her bonnet strings. No, I am not a doctor, I am sure of it. Come home with me, you will be very pleased with me, I know. Doubtless I will come and see you, later on. Ah, ah, said she, still clinging to my arm and shaking with laughter, you are a doctor who is fond of his joke; I have known several like that; come along. I passionately love the mysterious, because I always hope to unravel it; so I let myself be carried off by this companion, or rather by this unhoped-for problem. I omit the description of her garret.…
1928 · PDF PAGE 135
…ed all the room like a phosphorescent atmosphere, like a luminous poison, and all this living light was thinking and saying: Thou shalt know eternally the influence of my kiss; thou shalt be beautifully in my fashion. Thou shalt love that which I love and which loves
1928 · PDF PAGE 81
… me that solitude is bad for man, and, to support this thesis, quotes, like all unbelievers, the sayings of the Fathers of the Church. I know that the devil gladly haunts barren places, and that the spirit of murder and of lust inflames itself miraculously in solitudes; but it is just possible that this solitude is only dan- gerous for the idle and dispersed soul, which peoples it with its passions and chimeras. It is certain that a wind-bag whose su- preme pleasure consists in speaking from a platform or a rostrum would run serious trou- ble o…