with a penciled check on dates to be careful of.
The other-worldly scent, in which I tippled with a practiced sensibility, is, alas! replaced by the fetid odor of tobacco mixed with a species of evil-smelling mildew. One breathes in rancid desolation.
In this shrunken world, so full of disgust, a single object attracts me: the vial of laudanum; old and terrible lover; like all lovers, alas, fertile in caresses and betrayal.
Oh! yes! Time has reappeared; Time reigns absolute now; and with that hideous old character has come his devilish retinue of Memories, Regrets, Convulsions, Fears, Anguish, Nightmare, Rage, Neurosis.
I swear that now the seconds are strongly, solemnly accentuated and each, flying off the clock, cries, “I am Life insupportable. I am implacable Life.”
There is only one single Second in human life with the mission of announcing good news, the good news that causes for each of us an inexplicable fear.
Yes! Time reigns, recovering his brutal dictatorship. And he drives me as if I were an ox, with his double goad. — “Gee up! ass! sweat, you slave! damn you! Live!”
3. The elemental called a sylphide is a spirit of air. The reference here is to a loved adolescent girl imagined by Chateaubriand (the ‘great René’).
VI
To Each His Chimæra
Under a wide gray sky, in a great dusty plain, pathless, grassless, without so much as a thistle or a nettle, I came across some men walking, their shoulders bent.
Each carried on his back an enormous Chimæra, heavy as a sack of flour or charcoal, or a Roman foot-soldier’s pack.
But the monstrous beast was no dead weight; on the contrary, it enveloped and mauled its man with supple and powerful muscles; scratching with two enormous claws the chest of its mount. And its fabulous head surmounted the man’s, like one of those horrible helmets ancient warriors wore, hoping to increase the terror of their foes.
I questioned one of these men and asked him where they were going. He told me he didn’t know, nor did the others; but obviously they were going somewhere, since they were driven by an invincible need to go.
Curious to note: none of these travelers seemed annoyed by the fierce beast hanging at his neck and attached to his back; one must suppose he considered it a part of himself. All these faces, tired and serious, betrayed no despair; under the splenetic cupola of sky, feet sunk in the dust of a soil every bit as desolate as the sky, they trudged on, with the resigned faces of those condemned forever to hope.
And the cortege passed by me and sank into the atmosphere at the horizon, where the planet’s rounded surface renders it unavailable to human curiosity.
And for a few moments I persisted in trying to solve the mystery; but soon irresistible Indifference came over me, and I was more heavily burdened with it than they by their crushing Chimæras.
VII
The Fool and Venus
What a fine day! The vast park swoons under the burning eye of the sun, like youth under Love’s dominion.
The universal ecstasy of things no sound expresses; the waters themselves as if put to sleep. Quite other than with human celebrations: here the orgy is silent.
It would seem that light increasing steadily makes objects sparkle more and more; that flowers in their excitement burn with desire to pit their colors against the blue of the sky; and that heat, rendering their scent visible, lifts them starward like smoke.
But in this universal enjoyment, I noticed one unblessed being.
At the feet of a colossal Venus, one of those made-up fools (voluntary buffoons employed in getting kings to laugh when overtaken by Remorse or Ennui, all tricked out in a loud and ridiculous costume, capped with horns and bells) crouching down against the pedestal, lifted his tear-filled eyes towards the immortal Goddess.
And his eyes said: — “I am the last and the most solitary of human beings, deprived of love and friendship, lower in that respect than the most imperfect animal. Nevertheless, I too am made so as to comprehend and appreciate immortal Beauty! Ah! Goddess! have pity on my sorrow, on my folly!”
But implacable Venus gazes yonder towards who knows what with her eyes of marble.
VIII
Dog and Flask
“ — My beautiful dog, good dog, dear bow-wow, come closer and sniff an excellent perfume, purchased at the best scent shop in town.”
And the dog, wagging his tail, which I suppose, in these poor creatures, the sign corresponding to laugh and to smile, approaches and, curious, puts his moist nose to the unstoppered flask; after which, drawing back in fright, barks at me, clearly a reproach.
“ — Ah! wretched dog, if I had offered you a bundle of excrement, you would have sniffed its scent with delight and perhaps devoured it. So you too, unworthy companion of my sad life, you are like the public, to whom one must not present the delicate perfumes which exasperate them, but carefully selected crap.”
IX
The Bad Glazier
There are natures purely contemplative, completely unsuited for action, who nevertheless, under mysterious unknown impulses, act sometimes with a rapidity of which they would suppose themselves incapable.
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