Little Poems in Prose

But now a terrible and heavy blow is smit- ten on the door, and, as in infernal dreams, it seems to me that I receive the blow of a mat- tock in the midriff. And now a spectre has come in. It is a bail- iff, who comes to torture me in the Name of the Law, an infamous harlot who comes crying pity, and to ass the frivolities of her life to the sorrows of mine, or the guttersnipe errand-boy of an editor who wants the continuation of my manuscript. The heavenly room, the Idol, the Queen of Dreams, the Slyphide, as the great René calls her, all this magic has disappeared at the spec- tre’s brutal knock. Horror! I remember, I remember! This hovel, this dwelling-place of ennui eternal, is indeed my own. Here is the foolish, dusty, bat- tered furniture, and here the fire-place without flame or ember, befouled with spittle; the sad windows where the rain has traced furrows in the dust; the blotted or unfinished manuscript, the almanack where the pencil has marked the disastrous days. And this other-world perfume, in which, with a sensitiveness made perfect, I grew drunk—alas! is replaced by the smell of stale tobacco mingled with I know not what sicken-