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Page 1 of 11928 · PDF PAGE 52
…moment within my soul. My thoughts flitted with a lightness like that of the atmosphere; vulgar passions, such as hate and profane love, seemed to me as far away as the clouds which defiled at the bottom of the abyss under my feet. My soul seemed to me as vast and as pure as the cupula of the sky which covered me. The memory of earthly things reached my heart weakened and diminished, like the sound of the bells of the unseen cattle which were feeding far, very far, on the slope of the oppo- site mountain. Upon the small unstirred lake, black by…
1928 · PDF PAGE 105
…ildren; never again to confront the lofty billows of the sea. Strange faces were there, of men and women, marked with a fatal beauty; it seemed to me that I had known them long since, at times and in countries whose exact remem- brance I could no longer fix, and which rather inspired me with a fraternal sympathy than with that fear which usually arises at the sight of the unknown. If I wished to try to define in any way their strange expression, I would say that never have I seen eyes that shone more forcefully with the horror of boredom and wi…
1928 · PDF PAGE 121
both at once, and I think one would become quite mad if one listened too long. One of them, drawing his bow across his violin, seemed to tell the story of some grievance, and the other, making his little hammer dance upon the strings of a little piano that was hung to his neck by a strap, seemed to be laughing at his neighbors complaint, while the third from time to time clashed his cymbals with an extraordinary violence. They were so pleased with themselves that they kept on playing their wild mens music even after the crowd had dispersed; f…
1928 · PDF PAGE 104
…eels into a sub- terranean dwelling-place where shone a luxury of which none of the above-ground dwellings of Paris can show a rival. It seemed strange to me that I should so often have passed this wondrous den without ever perceiving its door. There an exquisite though heavy atmosphere reigned, which made one forget almost in- stantly all the fastidious horrors of life. One breathed there a sombre happiness, somewhat like that which the lotus-eaters must experi- ence when, disembarking upon an enchanted isle, lighted by the gleam of eternal af…
1928 · PDF PAGE 90
…I think, the finest example of feminine denseness that one might meet in a long days march. We had passed a long day together which had seemed short to me; we had promised ourselves that we should have all our thoughts in common, and that thenceforward our two souls should be no more than one. A dream which has nothing original about it, after all, unless it be that, imagines by all men, it has been realized by none. In the evening you were a little tired, and wanted to sit down in front of a new café at the corner of a new boulevard; still fu…
1928 · PDF PAGE 169
… are all dethroned monarchs. You will then not find it surprising that I was in a state of mind approximating to giddiness or stupor. It seemed to me, only, that I felt, cooped up at the bottom of my intellect, the obscure germ of an idea superior to all the motherly formulas whose dictionary I had been skim- ming. But it was only the idea of an idea; a thing infinitely vague. So, feeling very thirsty I went out, for the passion for reading bad books begets a propor-
1928 · PDF PAGE 117
XXXI THE JOYS OF THE SOUL IN a fair garden, where the rays of the au- tumnal sun seemed to linger in enjoyment, be- neath a sky already greenish where golden clouds floated like travelling continents, four lovely children, boys, tired without a doubt of playing, were talking among themselves. One of them said: Yesterday Papa took me to the theatre. There are big, sad palaces, beyond which one sees the sea and the sky, and in them there are men and women very serious and very sad too; but much more beautiful and better dressed than the people w…
1928 · PDF PAGE 76
… the planets. The Devil! cried I, half conquered, there is a precious thing! But, in examining more closely the seductive Amazon, it seemed to me vaguely that I remembered having seen her drinking with some fools of my acquaintance, and the raucous sounds of the brass bore to my ears I know not what remembrance of a venal trumpet.
1928 · PDF PAGE 129
shore, and as we approached, behold it was a land magnificent and dazzling; it seemed that all the harmonious sounds of life came from it in a vague murmur, and that from this coast, wealthy in every sort of greenery, there ex- haled to a distance of many leagues a delicious odour of flowers and fruits. Immediately everyone was joyful, and ill- humour departed; all quarrels were forgotten, all wrongs pardoned. The duels which had been arranged were erased from memory, and ill-will fled away like clouds of smoke. I alone was sad, inconceivably s…
1928 · PDF PAGE 50
…ose moving flood stopped a few paces from his repulsive wretchedness. I felt my throat caught by the terrible hand of hys- teria, and it seemed to me that my gaze was dimmed by these rebellious tearswhich would not fall. What could I do? What good would it be to ask of that unfortunate one what curiosity what wonder he had to show within his stink-
1928 · PDF PAGE 73
lips seemed like warm caskets of perfume, whence he exhaled a subtle scent, and every time he signed, musk-scented butterflies gat light, on their winged way, from the ardour of his breath. Around his purple tonic was twisted as a belt a gleaming serpent, who, with raised head, turned languorously toward him eyes that were like glowing coals. From this living girdle were suspended alternatively phials full of deadly liquids, shining knives, and surgical instruments. In his right hand he held another phial, filled with a luminous red liquid, and…
1928 · PDF PAGE 29
… to per- form, unknown to ourselves, their maddest whims. One morning I got up in a bad temper, sad, tired of idleness, and impelled, it seemed to me, to do something big, a brilliant action; and I opened the window. Alas! (Observe, I beg you, that the spirit of mys- tification which, with some people, is not the result of a preconceived plan but of a chance inspiration, participates very much, though it were but through the intensity of its desire, in this humour which doctors call hysteric, and which those who have a little more sense than do…
1928 · PDF PAGE 95
…erein unexpected pleasures. But with those who like myself were able to pierce more deeply into the depths of this curious sick soul, it seemed infinitely more probable that the his- trionic talents of a man doomed to death; he wished to profit by his opportunity to make a physiological experiment of capital interest, and to discover to what point the habitual tal- ents of an artist might be altered or modified by the extraordinary situation in which he found himself. But beyond that, was there in his soul a more or less well defined intention …
1928 · PDF PAGE 49
…eir mothers skirts, begging for sugar-sticks, or climbing on to their fathers shoulders so as to get a better view of some juggler who seemed as dazzling as a god, and everywhere, dominating every other scent, was wafted an odour of frying, which was as it were the incense of this holy festival. At the extreme end of the range of booths, as if, ashamed of himself, he had pronounced his own exile from all these splendours, I saw a poor mountebank, with bowed back, infirm,
1928 · PDF PAGE 28
…n before the glances of his fellows, so that he must pull together all his little will to enter a café or a box-office, where the clerks seemed to him clothed with the majesty of Mi- nos, Aeacus, and Rhadamanthus, will suddenly throw himself on the neck of an old man who happens to be passing and will kiss him enthu- siastically before the astonished crowd. Why? Because . . . because this counte- nance was irresistibly sympathetic to him?
1928 · PDF PAGE 120
…re; my governor is too stingy. God takes no trouble over me and my weari- ness, and I have not a pretty nurse to cuddle me. It has often seemed to me that my pleas- ure would be in going always straight in front of me without knowing where, without any person troubling themselves about it, and see- ing always new countries. I am never comfort- able anywhere, and I always believe that I should be better anywhere else but where I am. Well, let me tell you! I saw at the last Fair in the next village three men, who live as I should like to live. Yo…
1928 · PDF PAGE 114
…my arm and said to me in a voice too earnest to resist, Oh Sir, leave me that; I beg you, I beseech you. Her despair had doubtless, it seemed to me, so disturbed her brain that it had begotten a ten- derness for the instrument of her sons death,
1928 · PDF PAGE 111
…cleaning my brushes and running my errands. The little fel- low, once cleaned up, became charming, and the life which he led in my house seemed to him heaven compared to that which he had undergone in the paternal garret. But I must tell you that the little chap sometimes aston- ished me by strange attacks of precocious sad-