“Oh, but I was never jealous of him! I don’t think he’ll ever really leave me. What would become of him? He hasn’t a friend in the world: and he won’t take a job. He wants to live the life of a sleepwalker. Can goodness and charity by themselves find him a place in the world? From time to time, I forget my pitiful circumstances and think: he’ll make me strong, we’ll explore together, we’ll hunt in deserts, we’ll sleep on the sidewalks of unknown cities, without worries, without sorrow. Or I’ll awake and find that his magical powers will have transformed all laws and customs, leaving the world intact; I’ll be left with my desires, joys, insouciance. Oh, give me this life of innocent adventure in return for the suffering I’ve endured. But he won’t. I can’t appreciate his ideals. He told me he has regrets, hopes: but they don’t concern me. Does he speak of God? Perhaps I should. I’m at the very bottom of the abyss, and I’ve forgotten how to pray.
“Were he to explain his sorrows, would I understand them better than his derision? He attacks me, spending hours making me feel guilty for everything that has ever meant anything to me in this life, and yet, he takes umbrage when I cry.
“ ‘—Do you see that dapper fellow, going into that lovely, little house: his name is Duval, Dufour, Armand, Maurice, something. And inside, some woman has devoted her life to loving that idiot: she’s probably dead, doubtless a saint in heaven. You’ll kill me as surely as he killed that woman. That’s what happens to people like us, we who are kind-hearted …’ Alas! There were days when he believed all mankind’s motions were dictated by some wholesale, grotesque delirium: and he’d laugh wretchedly, at length. —Then, like some sweet sister, his maternal impulses would return. Were he less of a savage, we’d be saved! But even his sweetness is mortal. Surrendered, I follow. —I’m insane!
“Perhaps one day he’ll miraculously disappear; but were he returned to heaven, I would need to know that I might glimpse my darling’s assumption.”
One strange couple.
DELIRIA
II
ALCHEMY OF THE WORD
My turn. A tale of one of my follies.
For some time, I’d boasted a mastery of every arena, and had found famous painters and poets ridiculous.
I preferred bad paintings: hanging above doors, on sets or carnival backdrops, billboards, cheap prints; and unfashionable literature, church Latin, barely literate erotica, novels beloved by grannies, fairy tales, children’s books, old operas, silly songs, simple scansions.
I dreamed crusades, unimagined journeys of discovery, invisible republics, failed religious wars, moral revolutions, racial and continental drift: I believed in every enchantment.
I invented colors for vowels! —Black A, white E, red I, blue O, green U.—I regulated the shape and movement of every consonant, and, based on an inner scansion, flattered myself with the belief I had invented a poetic language that, one day or another, would be understood by everyone, and that I alone would translate.
It started out as an exercise. I wrote silences; nights; I recorded the unnameable. I found the still point of the turning Earth.
Far from birds, herds, and village girls,
What did I drink, on my knees, in this heath
Surrounded by delicate hazelnut trees,
And warm green afternoon mist.
What of this budding brook could I have drunk,
—Voiceless elms, flowerless grass, cloudy sky.—
Drunk from these yellow gourds, far from my beloved
Cabin? A golden liquor that makes you sweat.
I made a suspect sign for an inn.
A storm came, chased the sky. At night,
Water from forests disappeared on virgin sands,
Godly wind tossed ice upon ponds;
Crying, I saw gold—but could not drink.—
At four in the morning, in summer,
Love’s sleep lives.
Beneath the bowers, dawn stirs
The scent of evening celebrations.
But there, under the great oak
Near the Hesperidean sun,
Carpenters in shirtsleeves
Are already busy
In their mossy Desert, peacefully,
They prepare precious woodwork
On which the town
Will paint fake skies.
O Venus! For these charming workers’ sakes
Subjects of some Babylonian king
Leave these Lovers be
Leave their souls entwined.
O Queen of Shepherds,
Bring drink to these workmen,
So their vigor is restored
While waiting to swim in the noontime sea.
Worn-out poetical fashions played a healthy part in my alchemy of the word.
I settled into run-of-the-mill hallucinations: I very clearly saw a mosque in place of a factory, a group of drummers consisting of angels, carriages on the heavenly highways, a sitting room at the bottom of a lake; monsters, mysteries; the title of a vaudeville could conjure anything.
Then, I explained my magical sophisms with hallucinations of words!
I ended up believing my spiritual disorder sacred. I was lazy, proof of my fever: I envied the happiness of animals—caterpillars, symbolic of the innocence of limbo; moles, virginity’s sleep!
I grew bitter. I said farewell to the world in a ballad:
SONG FROM THE TALLEST TOWER
May it come, may it come,
The age when we’ll be one.
I’ve been so patient
I nearly forgot.
Fear and suffering
Have taken wing.
Unwholesome thirst
Stains my veins.
May it come, may it come,
The age with which we’ll be as one.
So the meadow
Surrendered,
Lush and blossoming
With incense and weeds,
And the fierce buzzing
Of filthy flies.
May it come, may it come,
The age with which we’ll be as one.
I loved deserts, scorched orchards, sun-bleached shops, warm drinks. I dragged myself through stinking streets and, eyes closed, offered myself to the sun, god of fire.
“General, if upon your ruined ramparts a single cannon yet remains, bombard us with clods of earth. Strike shop mirrors! Sitting rooms! Feed our cities dust. Coat gargoyles in rust. Fill boudoirs with fiery, ruby ash …”
Oh! The drunken gnat in the urinal of an inn, smitten with borage, dissolved by a shaft of light!
HUNGER
If I have taste, it’s for
Earth and stone,
I feast on air,
Rock, iron, coal.
Turn, my hungers. Graze
A field of sounds.
Sample bindwood’s poison;
It merrily abounds.
Eat rocks we crack,
Old church stones,
Pebbles floods attack
Loaves in valleys sown.
The wolf howls beneath the leaves
While spitting out pretty plumes
From his feast of fowl:
I, like him, myself consume.
Salad and fruit
Are waiting to be picked;
But the spider in the hedge
Eats only violets.
Let me sleep! Let me boil
On Solomon’s altars.
The brew bubbles up and spills
Merging with the Kidron.
O happiness, o reason: I finally chased the blue from the sky, this blue that’s really black; and I lived, a golden spark, forged from natural light.
Full of joy, I expressed myself as ridiculously and strangely as possible.
Rediscovered!
What? —Eternity.
Sea and sun
As one.
My eternal soul,
Heed you vow
Despite empty night
And fiery day.
Break
From
earthly approval,
And common urges!
And soar, accordingly …
—No hope.
Nul orietur.
Knowledge through patience,
Suffering is certain.
No more tomorrow,
Your silken embers,
Your duty,
Is ardor.
Rediscovered.
What? —Eternity.
Sea and sun
As one.
I became opera: I saw that all living things were doomed, to bliss: that’s not living; it’s just a way to waste what we have, a drain. Morality is a weakness of mind.
It seemed to me that we were owed other lives. One fellow knows not what he does: he’s an angel. Another family is a litter of puppies. I argued with countless men, using examples drawn from their other lives. —That’s how I fell in love with a pig.
Madness—the kind you lock away—breeds sophistries, and I haven’t avoided a single one. I could list them all: I’ve got them down.
My health suffered. Terror struck. I’d sleep for days, and, risen, such sad dreams would stay with me. I was ripe for death, and down a dangerous road my weakness drew me to the edges of the earth and on to Cimmeria, that dark country of winds.
I sought voyages, to disperse enchantments that had colonized my mind. Above a sea I came to love as if it were rinsing me of stain, I watched a consoling cross rise. Damnation, in the shape of a rainbow. Bliss was my undoing, my remorse, my worm: my life would always be too ungovernable to devote to strength and beauty.
Bliss! Her tooth, sweet as death, bit, every time a cock crowed in the darkest cities—ad matutinum, when Christus venit:
ad matutinum … Christus venit: “In the morning … when Christ comes.”
O seasons, o châteaux!
Who possesses a perfect soul?
I made a magical study
Of inescapable bliss
Think of Bliss each time you hear
The rooster’s call, far or near.
Bliss has finally set me free
From desire’s tyranny.
Its spell took soul and shape
Letting every goal escape.
O seasons, o châteaux!
When Bliss departs at last
Death takes us each, alas.
O seasons, o châteaux!
But that’s over with. Now I know how to greet beauty.
THE IMPOSSIBLE
My high youth! The great roads in every weather, a supernatural sobriety, a disinterest matched only by the most accomplished beggars, and such pride at having no country, no friends—what idiocy that all was! And I’m only realizing it now!
—I was right to scorn men who never miss a kiss, parasites on the propriety and health of our women who, as a result, have been left so little in common with us.
All my disdain was on the mark: after all, I’m still leaving.
Leaving!
Let me explain.
Even yesterday, I sighed: “For God’s sake! I think there are enough damned souls down here! I’ve had plenty: I know them all. We always recognize each other; and drive each other nuts. We see charity as a foreign concept. But we’re polite about it; our interactions with the world exhibit every propriety.” Is this so shocking? The world: businessmen and simpletons! —We’re hardly embarrassing ourselves.
But how will the elect receive us? Many of them are insincere, given, to approach them, we muster stores of courage or humility. But they’re all we have. So count your blessings!
Since I seem to have rediscovered my two cents’ worth of reason—it doesn’t go far! —I see that my discomfort comes from not having realized sooner that we’re in the West. Western swamps! Not that I believe that all light has been spoiled, all forms exhausted, all movements misdirected … It’s nonetheless clear that my animus has every desire to adopt the latest advances in cruelty, developed since the East fell. Every desire indeed!
Well … that about does it for my two cents! The soul knows best, wants me to head East. I’ll have to shut it up if I want to end up as I’d hoped.
I cursed the hands of saints, and with them any glimmers of art, pride of inventors, enthusiasm of pillorers; I returned to the East and to its early, eternal wisdom. —However, it seems now it too has been a fetid, vulgar dream!
Nonetheless, I never really let myself dream of the joy of escaping modernity’s tortures. I never had the Koran’s bastard wisdom in mind. —Isn’t it torture to realize that since the advent of science and Christianity, man has been playing with himself, proving facts, puffing with pride every time he repeats his proofs, and acting like this is some sort of life! What subtle, idiotic torture; and the source of my spiritual wanderings. Perhaps even nature grows tired of itself! M. Prudhomme was born at Christ’s side.
We’re brewing all this fog! We eat fever with our watery vegetables. Drunkenness! Tobacco! Ignorance! Worship! —What does it have to do with the thinking and wisdom of the East, that primitive homeland? Why bother with a modern world, if the same poisons spread?
Men of the Church say: Understood. But you mean to say Eden. There’s nothing to learn in the history of the Eastern peoples. —True enough; I was dreaming of Eden! What does the purity of ancient races have to do with my dream!
Philosophers: The world is ageless. Humanity moves where it will. You’re in the West, but free to live in an East of your imagining, however ancient as fits your needs—and to live well there. Be not among the defeated. Philosophers, you’re from your West!
Take heed, soul. Don’t fall prey to sudden salvation. Get ready! Science never moves fast enough for us!
—But it seems my soul sleeps.
Were it truly awake from this moment forward, we would be approaching a truth that, even now, may be encircling us with her weeping angels! —Had it been awake, I wouldn’t have succumbed to injurious instincts, to an immemorial age …! —If it had never been awakened, I would be drifting through purest wisdom …!
O purity!
This instant of awakening has conjured a vision of purity! The spirit leads us to God!
Bitter misfortune!
LIGHTNING
Man’s labors! Explosions that, from time to time, illuminate my abyss.
“Nothing is vanity; to knowledge, and beyond!” cries the modern Ecclesiastes, which is to say Everyone. And yet, the cadavers of the wicked and idle fall upon the hearts of everyone else … Oh hurry up, hurry up; below, beyond the night, will we miss the eternal rewards that await …?
—What can I do? I know work: and science is too slow. How prayer gallops, how light rumbles … I see it all. It’s too clear, too hot; you’ll make do without me. I have my task, and I’ll be as proud as anyone else, when I set it aside.
My life has been worn away. So come! Let’s pretend, let’s sit idly by … O how pitiful! And we’ll go on living our lives of simple amusement, dreaming of grotesque loves and fantastic worlds, complaining and arguing over the shape and appearance of the earth, acrobat, beggar, artist, bandit—priest! In my hospital bed, the stench of incense suddenly returned; guardian of sacred scents, confessor, martyr …
Then and there, I admitted my filthy upbringing. Who cares! Twenty years is plenty, if it’s plenty for everyone else …
No! No! Now is too soon: to hell with death! My pride won’t settle for something as insubstantial as work: my betrayal of the world is too brief a torture. At the last possible moment, I’ll lash out to the right … to the left …!
And then—oh my soul—we’ll have lost any hope of eternity!
MORNING
Once upon a time, wasn’t my childhood pleasant, heroic, fabulous, worthy of being written on golden leaves—what luck! What crime or error left me deserving my present weakness? Those of you who believe that animals cry tears of sorrow, that the sick suffer, that the dead have nightmares, try to explain my fall, and my sleep. I can now no longer explain myself any better than a beggar mumbling his Pater and Ave Maria. I
no longer know how to speak!
And yet, today, I believe I’ve finished speaking of my hell. It was truly hell; the real thing, whose doors were swung open by the son of man.
Out of the same desert, on the same night, my weary eyes forever stare at—a silver star, but without setting life’s Kings in motion, the three magi—heart, soul, spirit. When, beyond mountains and rivers, will we embrace the birth of new endeavors, new wisdom, the departure of tyrants and demons, the end of superstition, and be the first to worship Christmas all across the earth!
The song of heaven, the progress of nations! Slaves, curse not this life.
FAREWELL
Autumn already! —But if we’re seeking divine clarity there’s no point in bemoaning an everlasting sun, far from those who die with the seasons.
Autumn. Our boat, risen through the moveless fogs, turns towards misery’s port, an enormous city whose sky is stained with fire and mud. Ah … the rotting rags, rain-soaked bread, drunkenness, a thousand crucifying loves! This ghoulish queen will never relent, queen of millions of dead souls and bodies that will be judged! And there I see myself again, skin eaten away by mud and plague, my hair full of worms, my armpits too, and my heart full of fatter worms, just lying there beside ageless, loveless unknowns … I could have died there … Unbearable. I hate poverty.
A Season in Hell & Illuminations Page 4