Little Poems in Prose

XXXVI THE DESIRE OF PAINTING UNHAPPY perhaps is the man, but happy is the artist whom desire tears in pieces. I am on fire to paint her who appeared to me so rarely and who fled so quickly, like a beautiful, regrettable thing which the traveller, borne away into the night, leaves behind him. How long it is since she disappeared. She is beautiful, and more than beautiful. She is surprising. In her black abounds, and every thought that she inspires is of night and the abyss. Her eyes are two caverns where mystery sparkles vaguely, and her glance kin- dles like lightning. It is an explosion in the depths of shadow. I would compare her to a black sun; if one could imagine a black star that shed light and happiness; but she makes one think more readily of the moon, which doubtless has marked her with its fearful influence. Not the white idyllic moon, which resembles a cold bride, but the sinister, intoxicating moon, hung from the height of a stormy night and jostled