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Page 1 of 31928 · PDF PAGE 12
II THE DESPAIR OF THE OLD WOMAN THE little shrivelled-up old woman felt her- self happy again in looking on the pretty child, to whom everyone was paying court, whom everyone was trying to please; a pretty crea- ture, as fragile as the little old woman herself, and like her, too, without teeth or hair. And she approached it, wooing it with baby-talk and pleasing faces. But the frightened baby struggled in the arms of the hag, and filled the house with its screams. Then the good old woman withdrew herself again into her eternal solitude, and wep…
1928 · PDF PAGE 91
…heir wrists, nymphs and goddesses carrying fruits, pastry and game on their heads, Hebes and Ganymedes offering with outstretched arms a little vase of soothing drinks, or the two- coloured pyramid of mixed ices, all history and all mythology dragged into the service of glut- tony. Directly before us on the pavement stood fixed a fine fellow of forty years old, with tired face and beard gone grey, holding by one hand a little boy, and carrying upon the other arm a little creature too weak to walk. He did a ser- vants office and took his childr…
1928 · PDF PAGE 109
…reat an assembly, I would gladly have fallen at the feet of this generous game- ster to thank him for his unheard-of munifi- cence; but, little by little, after I had left him, incurable mistrust entered again into my bosom; I no longer dared to believe in such prodigious happiness, and, as I lay down to sleep, kneeling once more in prayer (a tag of imbecile custom!) I repeated, half asleep; Oh God. Oh Lord my God, do Thou grant that the devil keep his word to me!
1928 · PDF PAGE 1
LITTLE POEMS IN PROSE
1928 · PDF PAGE 74
…e, eyeless face, whose heavy paunch hung over his thighs, and all whose skin was gilded and as if tattooed with the images of a crowd of little moving figures to represent the innumerable forms of universal wretchedness. There were little lank men who had hung themselves from a nail; there were little mis-
1928 · PDF PAGE 84
…rgotten; an intoxi- cating, indefinable perfume in the air; a power- ful scent of rose and of musk in the house, and further, behind our little estate, tall masts swinging on the swell; around us, at the end of the room lighted by a rosy light filtered by blinds, decorated with fresh mats and heady flowers, with seats here and there in Portu- guese rococo style of a heavy dark wood, where she would rest herself, so calm, so well at ease, smoking tobacco slightly flavoured with opium; beyond the compound, the noise of light-intoxicated birds, an…
1928 · PDF PAGE 111
…d me at the first glance more than did that of anyone else. He had posed more than once for me, and I have turned him at one time into a little gipsy, at another into an angel, at an- other into a Cupid; I have made him carry the strollers violin, the Crown of Thorns and the Nails of Christs Passion, and the torch of Eros. I took finally so lively a pleasure in all the droll ways of the gutter snipe that one day I asked his parentspoor folk enoughto give him to me altogether, promising to clothe him well, to give him some money, and not to …
1928 · PDF PAGE 3
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE LITTLE POEMS IN PROSE TRANSLATED BY ALEISTER CROWLEY With several added versions of the Epilogue by various hands and twelve copper plate engravings from the original drawings by JEAN DE BOSSCHERE EDWARD W. TITUS PARIS 4 RUE DELAMBRE 1928
1928 · PDF PAGE 70
…- possession worthy of her high rank, I give your sonI give himthe gift of pleasing. But please how?To please?Why to please? the little shop-keeper obstinately asked, for he was doubtless one of that very common class of reasoners who are incapable of rising to the height of the logic of the ab- surd. Because, because! replied the incensed Fairy, turning her back upon him, and rejoining her companions, she said to them, What do you think of this empty-headed little French- woman who wishes to understand everything; and who, having ob…
1928 · PDF PAGE 56
…g in the eyes of a cat. One day a missionary, while walking in the suburbs of Nankin, found that he had forgotten his watch, and asked a little boy what the time was. The gutter-snipe of the Flowery Kingdom hesitated at first, then, recollecting himself, he replied, I will find out for you. A minute later he reappeared, holding in his arms a fine big cat, and looking, as the saying is, in the white of its eyes, he unhesitatingly affirmed, It is just a little before noon. This turned out to be the case. As to me, if I bend over towards my be…
1928 · PDF PAGE 122
…o do anything, whatever it is, and also because I was afraid of being caught before getting out- side France. His three comrades showed little interest, which gave me to think This little fellow is al- ready an unintelligible. I looked at him atten- tively; in his eye and upon his brow there sate some precocious hint of doom, a thing which generally disarms, so to say, and which, I know not why, excited me to the point that for an instant I had a bizarre idea that I might have a brother unknown to myself. The sun was set. The solemn night wa…
1928 · PDF PAGE 69
… was at an end, for there re- mained no more presents, no more bounties to throw among all this human trash, when a brave fellow, a poor little tradesman I think, rose, and catching her by her robe of many- coloured smoke the Fairy who was nearest to him, cried, Ah, dear Lady, you are forgetting us, there is still my little child; I should be sorry to have come here for nothing. The Fairy might have been embarrassed, for there remained no longer anything at all; how- ever; she remembered in time a law very well known, though rarely applied in…
1928 · PDF PAGE 115
…t, 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, another from the third, and so on; some of them written in a half-jesting style as if seeking to disguise un- der the cloak …
1928 · PDF PAGE 112
… long time abroad. What were not my horror and amazement when, returning to my house, the first object which caught my sight was my good little friend, my lifes merry companion, hanging from the panel of the wardrobe! He feet almost touched the floor; a chair which he had doubt- less kicked away was overturned beside him; his head was convulsively crooked over one shoulder; his blood-suffused face, and his eyes, wide open, with affrightening fixity, made me think at the first moment that he was alive. To take him down was not so easy a task as…
1928 · PDF PAGE 118
…xity had fastened his gaze upon I knew not what point of heaven, said suddenly, Look, look there; do you see Him? He is sitting on that little lonely cloud, that lit- tle fire-coloured cloud that moves so softly, and He tooone would say that He was look- ing at us. But who then? asked the others. God, he replied, with an accent of perfect conviction. Ah, He is already very far awayin a moment you will not be able to see Him any more; I think He must be travelling, to visit every country.There, there! He is going to pass behind that ro…
1928 · PDF PAGE 121
…listened too long. One of them, drawing his bow across his violin, seemed to tell the story of some grievance, and the other, making his little hammer dance upon the strings of a little piano that was hung to his neck by a strap, seemed to be laughing at his neighbors complaint, while the third from time to time clashed his cymbals with an extraordinary violence. They were so pleased with themselves that they kept on playing their wild mens music even after the crowd had dispersed; finally they gathered up the half- pence that had been thrown…
1928 · PDF PAGE 54
… that my offer was not made in earnest, or that I might already be repenting of it. But at the same instant he was overthrown by another little savage, risen from I know not where, and so exactly like the first that one might have taken him for his twin brother. They rolled together on the ground, disputing the precious prey, neither wishing to give up half to his brother. The first, exasperated, seized the second by the hair, but the other caught his ear with his teeth and spat out a bleeding morsel of it, with a superb oath in his uncouth dia…
1928 · PDF PAGE 85
wine, and a great bed with linen, a little coarse, but clean; what better is there in the world? But returning alone to his house at that hour when the advice of wisdom is no longer suffocated by the roar of the exterior world, he said to himself: I have had to-day in dream three dwelling-places, which have given me one as much pleasure as the other; why inflict the trouble of travelling upon my body since my soul does it so easily, and why carry out plans, since planning is itself a sufficient pleas- ure?
1928 · PDF PAGE 92
…ns the heart; the song was right that evening as far as I was concerned; not only was I made tender by this family of eyes, but I felt a little ashamed of our bottles and glasses, that were greater than our thirst. I turned my looks to yours, dear love, to read my thought therein. I plunged into your eyes, so beautiful and so strangely sweet; into your green eyes, indwelt by caprice, and in- spired by the moon; when you said to me, Those people are unbearable, with their eyes staring out of their heads; could you not ask the proprietor to send…
1928 · PDF PAGE 110
…o attribute to maternal love all those words and actions which a mother says or does in the matter of her child? And yet, listen to this little story; where I was strangely mystified by the most natural illusion possible.