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Adieu

 

Autumn already!—but why regret an eternal sun, if we are engaged upon the discovery of divine clarity—far from people who die with the seasons.

Autumn. Our little boat arisen in the motionless mists turns toward the port of misery, the enormous city with sky stained by fire and mud. Ah! the rotten rags, the bread soaked in rain, the drunkenness, the thousand loves that have crucified me! She will never end at all then that ghoul queen of millions of souls and dead bodies and who will be judged! I see myself again, skin eaten by mud and pestilence, full of worms my hair and armpits and even bigger worms in my heart, stretched out among strangers without age, without feeling... I might have died there... Fearful evocation! I execrate misery.

And I dread winter because it's the season of comfort!

—Sometimes I see in the sky endless beaches covered with white nations in joy. A great vessel of gold, above me, waves its multicolored pennons in the morning breezes. I created every festivity, every triumph, every drama. I tried to invent new flowers, new stars, new flesh, new tongues. I believed I'd acquired supernatural powers. Ah well! I must inter my imagination and my memories! A fine glory of artist and teller of tales cast off!

Me! who called myself mage or angel, exempt from all morality, I am back on the ground, with a duty to seek and rugged reality to embrace! Peasant!

Am I deceived? would charity be the sister of death for me?

In short, I shall ask forgiveness for being nourished on falsehood. And let's go.

But not one friendly hand! and whence draw succor?

 

Yes, the new hour is at least very severe.

For I can say that victory is won: the gnashing of teeth, hisses of fire, tainted sighs moderate. Every foul memory fades. My last regrets take off—jealousies for beggars, brigands, friends of death, the backward of all kinds—damned ones, if I took vengeance!

One must needs be absolutely modern.

No canticles: hold the pass won. Hard night! the dried blood smokes on my face, and I have nothing behind me, except that horrible shrub! ...Spiritual combat is as brutal as the battle of men; but the vision of justice is the pleasure of God alone.

Meanwhile it is a watch. Let us receive every influx of vigor and real tenderness. And, at dawn, armed with an ardent patience, we shall enter splendid cities.

I spoke of a friendly hand! One fine advantage, I can laugh at old untrue loves, and strike with shame those lying couples—I saw the hell of women yonder—and I shall be free to possess truth in one soul and one body.