The Dedalus Book of Decadence: (Moral Ruins)

by Brian Stableford

  Serge stood up again; he began to pace back and forth across the room, taking great strides, with his hands crossed behind his back, his brow obstinately furrowed and his eyes fixed on the deep pile of the carpet. Then, suddenly, he stopped.

  “You’ve noticed, I suppose, the remarkable ugliness of the people one encounters in the street? All the little people, openly going about their business: the petty clerks and their managers; the domestic servants. You must have observed how absurdly exaggerated their mannerisms are, and how oddly fantastic they look, whenever they ride on a tram! When the first chill of winter descends upon the city they become quite terrible. Is it their everyday cares that make them so? Is it the depressing weight of their tawdry preoccupations, or the anxiety they feel at the end of every month, when they cannot pay the debts which fall due, or the apathy of the penniless who feel trapped by a life which is stale and devoid of surprises? Is it that they live with such troubles, without their minds being able to entertain a slightly more elevated thought or their hearts a slightly broader desire? It always seems to me that I have never seen such wretched caricatures of the human features! What gives them their hallucinatory quality, I wonder? Does the sensation arise because one is brought abruptly face to face with their ugliness? Is it because of some relaxation brought about in them by the warmness of the benches or the deleterious influence of the stale air? Whatever causes it, there’s a sudden increase in their evident bestiality: all the people huddled together on the seats; all those struggling against one another in the gangway; the fat women collapsed in the four corners; the old ones with pinched and green – tinged faces, and knotted fingers whose knuckles are turning white with the cold, and thinning hair, always looking meanly sideways at one another from beneath their flabby eyelids; the dubious characters with their coats buttoned up to the neck whose shirts one never sees…

  “I ask you, could there possibly exist beneath the grey November sky any more dismal and repugnant spectacle than the passengers on board a tram? When the cold outside has stiffened all their features, solidified all their characteristics, hardened their eyes and narrowed their brows beneath their caps, their glazed, empty expressions are those of lunatics or sleepwalkers. If they are thinking anything at all, that only makes it all the worse, because their thoughts are always low and sordid and their sideways glances always thievish; if they dream at all they only dream of self-enrichment, and that by venal means – by cheating and stealing from their fellows.

  “Modern life, whether lived in luxury or in hardship, has imbued men and women alike with the souls of bandits and blackguards. Envy, hatred and the hopelessness of being poor are remaking people in new images, flattened about the head and sharpened about the features, like crocodiles or vipers; avarice and selfishness give others the snouts of old pigs or the jaws of sharks. Whenever one boards a tram one steps into a bestiary where every base impulse has imprinted its brutal stigmata on the surrounding faces; it is as though one enters a cage where frogs and snakes and all manner of repulsive creatures are together entrapped, grotesquely dressed up as if by some clever caricaturist, in trousers and coats.…and since the beginning of the month I have been forced to make such journeys daily!

  “My salary, you see, is a mere twenty-five thousand francs, and I must take the tram just as my doorkeeper does. Every day I must share the vehicle with the men who have pigs’ heads and the women with birdlike profiles, the lawyer’s clerks like black crows with a wolfish hunger in their eyes, and milliners’ errand-boys with the flat features of lizards. I’m forced to mingle promiscuously with the ignoble and the unspeakable, unexpectedly reduced to their level. It’s beyond my powers of endurance. I’m afraid of it.

  “Do you understand what I’m saying? I’m terrified.”

  “The other day – it was Saturday, still quite early – the nightmarish impression was so very strong that it became quite insupportable. I’d taken the tram from the Louvre to Sèvres, and the distressing effect of the suburban landscape, perhaps exacerbated by the desolation of the Avenue de Versailles, brought me to such a pitch of anguish while I watched all those ugly faces, that I had to get off near the Pont-du-Jour. I couldn’t bear it any longer; I was possessed, so sharply that I could have cried out for merciful relief, by the conviction that all the people facing and sitting to either side of me were beings of some alien race, half-beast and half-man: the disgusting products of I don’t know what monstrous copulations, anthropoid creatures far closer to the animal than to the human, with every foul instinct and all the viciousness of wolves, snakes and rats incarnate in their filthy flesh.

  “Sitting between two others of the same kind, rightin front of me, there was a cigarette-smoking hag with a long, mottled neck like a stork’s, and hard, widely-spaced little teeth set in a mouth that gaped like the mouth of a fish. The pupils of her staring, startled eyes were extraordinarily dilated. That foolish woman seemed to me to be the archetype of an entire species, and as I looked at her, an unreasoning dread took hold of me that if she should open her mouth to speak, no human language would emerge, but only the clucking and cackling of a hen. I knew that she was in truth a creature of the poultry-yard, and I was seized by a great sorrow and an infinite grief to think that a human being might degenerate so. To cap it all, she wore a hat of purple velvet, secured by a cameo brooch.

  “I had to get off!

  “Every day on the tramway, inside the tram, in that same carriage, the horror of the faces of all those living spectres emerges, further increased in the evening by the harsh light of the streetlamps. The same animal profiles are slowly set free from the glimpsed faces, for my eyes only, visible to no one except myself.

  It is a kind of possession, do you see?

  “But I know that I play my part too. I make that dreadful hell myself; I, and I alone, provide its trappings.”

  *********

  11.

  SPLEEN

  by Paul Verlaine

  The roses were so very red,

  And the ivy so intensely black.

  My love, you have only to turn your head

  And all my hopelessness floods back!

  The vault of the sky was so deeply blue,

  The sea so green and the air so mild.

  I fear and hope to win from you

  A curse that I might be defiled.

  Of the gloss upon the holly leaf,

  And the sunlit bush I can take no more,

  Through all my far-flung fields of grief,

  Your memory has passed before.

  **********

  12.

  THE FAUN by

  Remy de Gourmont

  She had retired early after the evening meal, weary of the innocent laughter of the little children and the forced joviality which was required of all parents at this season of the year. She felt wretched, and more than a little unhappy.

  What had annoyed and upset her most of all was the way that her husband took care to put on a hypocritical show of affection whenever the eyes of the world were upon them; like all other wives, she would have preferred it if he had treated her badly in public and behaved in a loving manner when they were alone.

  After dismissing her maid she drew the bolt; then, secure in the knowledge that she would not be disturbed, she was able to feel a little less unhappy.

  She undressed slowly and gracefully, imagining as she did so how pleasant it would be if there were someone into whose loving arms she might melt, someone who would murmur endearments as they embraced, complimenting the slope of her shoulder and the delicacy of her knee, thus renewing the assurance that she was desirable in body and soul. She amused herself with this melancholy pretence, quite content to languish for a while in the realm of the imagination, which surely held no surprises for such as she.

  Though she continued to touch herself, innocence was eventually overtaken by shame, or at least by delicacy.

  She stopped and picked up her dress – although, like Arlette when Robert the Devil had
favoured her with his intimacies, she would just as soon have torn the garment apart instead of hanging it up. But regrets were no use; there were bad times and there were good times, and that was the way of things. She gathered a fur-trimmed gown about herself, and knelt down demurely before the fireplace.

  She took up the poker and stirred the fire, rearranging and reinvigorating the incandescent logs. She soaked up the warmth, still restless with annoyance.

  Why, she wondered, did she allow the hypocritical attentions of her husband to upset her so much? Could she not be more dignified? Was she not capable of sensible self-control, of keeping herself calm – on this of all nights. Why was it that she had to make herself unhappy, until she was so vexed, so overwrought and so sick at heart that she was on the brink of tears? If she could not contrive to console and control herself better than this she would soon be a nervous wreck.

  The fact that it was Christmas Eve made everything seem worse; this was one of those magical days when it became a crime to be alone, when the company of others was so very necessary to stave off remorse and painful thoughts. She must try to be constructive, to make herself better – but she had not the strength of will to do it. Her thoughts wandered again, and became confused; and within that confusion there remained only one word on which she could focus her attention: Christmas! Sad, stupid Christmas!

  The image came into her mind of a little girl, not long returned from midnight mass, who lay asleep in her bed, dreaming of the gifts which were brought to the infant Jesus.…

  But no, it was all too banal! All the world gave way annually to such sentimental visions, but to what purpose? They were the meagre consolation of undistinguished souls who had not the power to evoke more satisfying illusions. Such commonplace and vulgar thoughts were insipid and silly, unworthy of the investment of her desire!

  Rebelling against her memories of youth and innocence, she turned her thoughts instead to the delights of sensuality. The warmth which flooded the hearth now that the logs burned more brightly was changed by the alchemy of her imagination into a wicked titillation. She amused herself with the notion that peculiar caresses were flowing over her, like little angels without wings, hotter and more agile than the capering flames which played like demons about the burning logs.

  She gave herself up to a dream of sumptuous fornication, imagining that she might sink into an unexpected stupor, a complaisant victim of desire, right there beside the fire with the fur about her – yes, with the complicity of that furry creature, of that amorous and devoted goat.…

  Some lascivious spirit which possessed that lukewarm chamber collected its atoms then, and began to materialise. A shadow shaped like the head of a faun fell upon the mirror which hung on the chimney-breast, and a curious draught stirred her hair, warming the nape of her neck.

  She was afraid, but she was possessed by a perverse desire to inflame her fear; she did not, however, dare to lift her eyes to the looking-glass to see what might be reflected there. The feeling which flooded her being was achingly sweet; but that shadow of which she had caught the merest glimpse was alarming, strange and absurdly peculiar. She had had an impression of a solid and hairy head, of devouring eyes, of a mouth that was large and somewhat obscene, of a pointed beard…

  She shivered.

  He must be tall and broad, very handsome and very strong, this being who had emerged from her dream to make love to her! How she trembled within the compass of his arms! She continued to tremble, aware that she was possessed, aware that she had become the prey of some strange amorous monster which had lain in wait for her, had coveted her body.

  The fur slid away from her shoulder, and immediately she felt a violent kiss scalding the bared flesh – a kiss so ardent and so powerful that she knew it would leave a visible mark like the brand of a red-hot iron. She tried to pull the mantle back to cover her shoulder – a belated gesture of modesty – but the Being would not let her do it; he seized her two arms with his own two hands. It did not displease her to be defeated so easily; the violence of the action was a tribute to her desirability. Her back and her shoulders had been made to be seen, to receive such fiercely courteous kisses; did she not owe it to herself to enjoy the fruits of her voluptuousness?

  The weight of the other’s huge body pressed down upon her, and she felt the panting breath of the incubus upon her, like the heat from a forge; it made her want to laugh recklessly. “What a vile imposition!” she thought. “He is atrociously, beautifully masterful…I can see from the corner of my eye how he looks at me.…

  As she turned her head towards him, the bestial mask which was his face descended upon hers, and that mouth – so large, and certainly more than alittle obscene! – crushed her lips.

  She shut her eyes, but too late! For just an instant, she had seen the monster face to face, and knew that it was not the mere reflection of her self-indulgent dream – that in becoming real it had been deformed, intosomething so foul, so ugly, so intoxicated with a purely bestial lust that.…

  She was suddenly overcome with shame, and instantly straightened herself. And when she looked at last into the mirror which was mounted on the chimney-breast…

  ….She saw herself, naked in body and in soul, all alone in her empty, dismal room.

  **********

  13.

  THE DRUNKEN BOAT

  by Arthur Rimbaud

  While I was borne along by the passionless flow,

  I sensed that my halers had left me to float free;

  They had become victims of some savage

  Redskin foe, Stripped naked and nailed to some painted tree.

  I could not care at all for the men I bore,

  Or the cargoes of cotton and wheat they stowed below,

  When, like the halers, they troubled me no more,

  The rivers carried me on wherever I cared to go.

  In the furious tidal races of the coast,

  Last winter, while lost in childish thought,

  I ran! And the peninsulas were never host

  To such a clamour of triumphant sport.

  My turbulent awakenings were tempest-blessed,

  Ten nights upon the storm-tossed crests I danced,

  By the power of the ever-rolling waves possessed,

  And by the constant gleam of harbour lights romanced.

  Children never found such sweetness in fallen fruit,

  As was in the water leached into my pinewood hull,

  Which washed away the blue wine spilt and spewed,

  And left me rudderless and anchorless before the lull.

  From that time on I bathed in the Poem of the Sea,

  Heavy with milk and infused by the stars with light,

  Devouring the blue pastures where, at last set free,

  A drowning dreamer finds that deep and drear respite

  Whose blueness by delirium is now remade,

  Pulsating beneath the lightfall from above,

  Stronger than alcohol, huger than harps displayed,

  Fermenting the bitter rednesses of love!

  I know the whirlpools and the lightning-riven sky

  Of the sea enraged; but I know too the sea serene,

  Launching the silver rays of dawn like doves on high;

  And sights which men have sometimes dreamed, I’ve seen.

  I have seen the setting sun, by horrid mists encaged

  Painting with violet light the sullen clouds,

  Like actors in a play which long ago was staged

  Before the rolling waves and restless crowds.

  I have dreamed of greenlit nights and dazzling snows,

  Of kisses rising slowly to the sea’s dark eyes,

  Of the circulation of undreamed of flows,

  And the phosphorescent glints of vivid dyes.

  For months on end I have followed the swells

  Which batter the coral reefs in maddened herds,

  Never dreaming that the luminous conch-shells

  Could quell the ocean’s
rage with murmurous words!

  You little dream what Floridan landfalls I have made

  Where I looked into the eyes of panthers with human skin,

  And saw rainbows like bridles incredibly displayed

  Beneath the sea’s horizons where the shoals begin.

  I have seen the stagnant marshlands like enormous snares

  Among whose reeds the corpses of Leviathans decay,

  While waterfalls disturb the calm of their abandoned lairs,

  Exploring the abyssal depths where once they lay.

  Glaciers and silver suns, pearly waves and skies afire!

  And turbid gulfs with rotting wrecks upon their beds,

  Where monstrous serpents extend their verminous empire

  From the twisted trees to the darkness odorous with dreads!

  I yearned to bring children to see the dolphins play

  Upon the blue waves with the singing golden fish.

  – As I drifted, the flowers of foam about me lay

  Until wings lent by strange winds would carry me away.

  Sometimes, that weary martyr of the poles and tropics,

  The sea, whose sobbing rocked me like a gentle breeze

  Would lift towards me some shadow-bloom with yellow calyx,

  Beneath which I would rest like a woman on her knees…

  Almost an island, with pale-eyed birds about my shore,

  Which painted me with droppings while they clamorously fought.