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Page 1 of 11928 · PDF PAGE 32
X ONE OCLOCK IN THE MORNING AT last alone. One hears no more of any- thing but the wheels of some belated and ex- hausted cabs. For some hours we shall be lords of silence, if not rest. At last the tyranny of the human countenance disappears, and I shall not suffer except from myself. At last! it is then allowed me to take mine ease in a bath of shadows. First let me double- lock the door. It seems to me that this turning of the key will intensify my solitude and strengthen the barricades that separate me from the world. Horrible life; horribl…
1928 · PDF PAGE 168
Then at last my soul broke forth, and wisely did she cry, No matter where, no matter where, so long as it is out of the world!
1928 · PDF PAGE 42
…ed ambition, unfortunate inventors, abor- tive glories, broken hearts; by all those stormy and imprisoned souls in which still groan the last sighs of a tempest, and who recoil from the insolent gaze of the joyful and the idle: these shadowy retreats are the meeting-places of lifes cripples. It is above all to these places that the poet and the philosopher love to direct their eager guesses, which find there an assured pasture. For is there is a place which they disdain to visit, as I insinuated in the last story, it is above all the gaiety of…
1928 · PDF PAGE 115
and she wished to keep it as a relic at once horrible and dearand she took possession of the nail and the cord. At last, at last, all was over. There was nothing more to do but to go back to work even more eagerly than was my custom, so as to drive away, little by little, this tiny corpse which haunted the halls of my brain, and whose phantom with its great fixed eyes wore me out. But the next day I received a packet of letters, some from the tenants in my own house, some from next door; one from the first floor, another from the second, anoth…
1928 · PDF PAGE 113
…aithful so far to the customs of civilized man, who is never willing, I know not why, to mix himself up in the business of a suicide. At last a doctor turned dup who said that the child had been dead for several hours. When later on we had to unclothe him for burial the de- gree of rigor mortis was such that, despairing of bending the limbs, we were obliged to tear and cut the clothes to take them off him. The Commissary of Police, to whom natu- rally I had to report the incident, looked at me asquint, and said, This matter needs clearing up,…
1928 · PDF PAGE 99
…t his beloved, his inimitable Fanciullo? it is pleasant and admissible to be- lieve it. The guilty nobles had enjoyed the comedy for the last time; in the same night they were wiped out of life. Since then many a mime, justly appreciated in divers countries, has come to play before the Court of His Highness, but not one has been able to equal the marvellous talent of Fanciullo, nor to obtain the same degree of fa- vour.
1928 · PDF PAGE 72
XXI THE TEMPTATIONS: OR, LOVE, RICHES AND GLORY TWO superb Satans and a She-Devil not less remarkable than they, last night climbed the mysterious staircase by which Hell emerges to assault the weakness of a sleeping man, and secretly communicates with him. In their glory they came as it were erect upon a platform and stood in front of me. A sulphur- ous splendour emanated from these three mighty Beings, cutting them from the thick darkness of the night. So proud and so master- ful was their manner that at first I took them to be indeed gods. T…
1928 · PDF PAGE 67
…IRY GIFTS THE Fairies had met in solemn session to distribute their gifts among all the new-born, children who had come into life in the last twenty-four hours. All these old-fashioned and capricious sis- ters of Fate, all these bizarre mothers of joy and sorrow, were of many different kinds; some had a gloomy and sombre expression, others, a mischievous and clever one; some were young, who had always been young; oth- ers old, who had always been old. Every father who believed in fairies had come, each one carrying his new-born child in his arm…
1928 · PDF PAGE 81
…entence upon those who love solitude and mystery. In our chattering race there are individuals who would accept with less repugnance the last penalty of the law if they were allowed to make a lengthy speech from the scaffold free from
1928 · PDF PAGE 128
…were all so obsessed by the image of the absent land that I think they would have eaten grass more enthusiasti- cally than do cattle. At last we sighted the
1928 · PDF PAGE 129
…ade farewell to this incomparable beauty I felt myself smitten down even to death, and therefore whenever one of my companions cried At last! I was only able to cry Already!
1928 · PDF PAGE 30
…, that the man was bound to find it rather difficult to make the ascent, and to catch in many a place the corners of his merchandise. At last he appeared. Having examined all his glasses with curiosity, I said to him: What, you have no coloured glasses?Rose glasses, red glasses, blue glasses, magic glasses, glasses of Paradise! You impudent fellow; you dare to walk about in the poor quarters of the town, and you have not even glasses which make life look beautiful! And I pushed him vigorously towards the staircase, where he stumbled and swor…
1928 · PDF PAGE 95
…eyond that, was there in his soul a more or less well defined intention of clemency? That is a point which has never been cleared up. At last, the great day being arrived, this lit- tle court displayed all its pomp, and it would be difficult to imagine, unless one had seen it, all that the privileged class of a small State with limited resources can exhibit in the way of splendour on an occasion of royal solemnity. This was doubly true, first of all by the magic of the luxury displayed, and secondly by the mysterious moral interest which was at…
1928 · PDF PAGE 44
… she sought in the news- papers with quick glancing eyes, long since burnt out by tears, some news of powerful and personal interest. At last, in the afternoon, under a charming autumn sky, one of those skies whence de- scend the armies of regret and of remem- brance, she seated herself in a garden, aside, far from the crowd, to listen to one of those concerts whose regimental music the people of Paris so enjoy. That was doubtless the little debauch of this innocent old woman, or shall I say of this puri- fied old woman; the well-earned consola…
1928 · PDF PAGE 147
…own enjoyments which you have possibly neglectedI mean the comic side of love; a side which does not ex- clude admiration. I admired my last mistress more than I think you hated or loved yours. And everyone admired her as much as I did. When we went into a restaurant, at the end of some minutes everyone forgot to eat in order to look at her. The waiters themselves, and the lady at the cash-desk, felt the contagious ec- stasy so strangely that they would forget their duties. In short, I lived for some time alone with a living phenomenon. She at…
1928 · PDF PAGE 164
…u remember the time and the occasion when this unusual passion was born in you? With what difficulty did I make her under- stand me; at last I succeeded; but then she answered me very sadly, and even, if my memory serves me, turned away her eyes; I do not know, I do not remember. What bizarre things does not one find in a great city when one knows how to walk about and how to look! Life swarms with innocent monsters. Oh Lord my God, Thou Creator, Thou Master, Thou who hast made law and lib-
1928 · PDF PAGE 145
…the irritating mediocrity of women. What I love above all in animals is their frank- ness; judge them, what I must have suffered with my last mistress. She was a princes bastard. Beautiful, it goes without saying; without that, why should I have taken her? But she spoilt that great quality by an unbecoming and deformed ambi- tion. She was a woman who always wished to play a mans part:You are not a man; Oh, if only I were a man!of us two it is I who am the man. Such were the insupportable refrains that came ever from that mouth from which…
1928 · PDF PAGE 54
…gain and sent his conqueror rolling to the ground by butting him in the stomach. But why should I describe the hide- ous struggle, which lasted indeed far longer than their puerile powers had led me to ex- pect? The cake journeyed from hand to hand and changed from pocket to pocket at each in- stant, but alas! it changed also in size, and when at last, exhausted, panting, bleeding, they stopped for lack of strength to go on,
1928 · PDF PAGE 120
…r comfort- able anywhere, and I always believe that I should be better anywhere else but where I am. Well, let me tell you! I saw at the last Fair in the next village three men, who live as I should like to live. You never noticed them; they were tall, almost black, and very proud, although in rags, with the air of having need of nobody. Their large dark eyes became quite brilliant while they made music; a music so surprising, so exciting, that it makes one want first to dance and then to weep and then to do
1928 · PDF PAGE 114
…ger, that the nail remained fixed in the wall with a long piece of rope still hanging to it. I darted forward rapidly to tear down these last traces of the catastrophe, and as I was going to throw them out of the open window the poor woman seized my arm and said to me in a voice too earnest to resist, Oh Sir, leave me that; I beg you, I beseech you. Her despair had doubtless, it seemed to me, so disturbed her brain that it had begotten a ten- derness for the instrument of her sons death,