VII 
  
THE MADMAN AND VENUS 
  
  
WHAT an admirable day! The vast park 
swoons under the burning eye of the sun like 
youth under the dominion of love. 
The universal ecstasy of things expresses it-
self by no noise; the very waters seem to 
sleep; how different from human festivals! 
Here it is an orgy of silence. 
One might say that an ever-increasing light 
makes things glitter more and more: that the 
excited flowers burn with desire to rival the 
sky’s blue by the vigour of their colour, and 
that the heat, making their perfumes visible, 
sends them up before the altar of the day-star 
like clouds. 
Nevertheless, in all this enjoyment I beheld 
one suffering. 
At the fool of a colossal Venus, one of those 
artificial madmen, one of those professional 
buffoons whose duty it is to make kings laugh 
when remorse or weariness sits heavy upon 
them, muffled in a startling and ridiculous cos-
tume, with the horns and bells of a fool’s cap,