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Night of Hell

 

I have swallowed a famous gulp of poison—thrice blessed be the counsel that has come to me!—my entrails burn. The violence of the venom contorts my limbs, makes me deformed, floors me. I die of thirst, I stifle, I cannot shout. It is hell, everlasting penalty! See how the fire rises! I burn, comme il faut. Go, demon!

I had glimpsed the conversion to good and to happiness, salvation. Might I describe the vision, the air of hell suffers not hymns! It was millions of charming creatures, a sweet sacred concert, strength and peace, noble ambitions, what do I know?

Noble ambitions!

And it is still life!—if damnation is eternal! A man who would mutilate himself is quite damned, is he not? I think myself in hell, so I'm there. It is the execution of the catechism. I am slave to my baptism. Parents, you have made my misfortune as well as your own. Poor innocent! Hell cannot attack pagans—this is still life! Later on, the delights of damnation will be profounder. A crime, quickly, so I fall into nothingness, in the name of human law.

Be still, just be still!... This is shame, reproach, here: Satan who says that the fire is ignoble, that my wrath is frightfully silly—enough!... Errors they whisper me, magics, faux perfumes, puerile musics—and to think that I hold truth, that I see justice: I have judgment sound and firm, I am ready for perfection... Pride—the skin of my head is desiccating. Pity! Lord, I'm afraid. I am thirsty, so thirsty! Ah! childhood, grass, rain, the lake on the rocks, the moonlight when the bell tower struck twelve... the devil is in the bell tower, at that hour. Mary! Holy Virgin!—horror of my folly.

Yonder, are there not honest souls, who wish me well... Come... I have a pillow on my mouth, they do not hear me, those are phantoms. Then, never does anyone think of another. Let none approach. I smell something burning, that's certain.

The hallucinations are innumerable. That's just what I've always had: no more faith in history, forgetfulness of principles. I shall keep silent: poets and visionaries would be jealous. I am a thousand times the richest, let us be as greedy as the sea.

Ah that! the clock of life stopped just now. I am no longer in the world—theology is serious, hell is certainly down there—and heaven above—ecstasy, nightmare, sleep in a nest of flames.

What mischiefs in attention in the country... Satan, Ferdinand, run with the wild seed... Jesus walks on the purpurine brambles, without bending them... Jesus walked on the irritated waters. The lantern showed him to us standing, white and with brown locks, on the flank of an emerald wave...

I will unveil all the mysteries: mysteries religious or natural, death, birth, future, past, cosmogony, nothingness. I am master of phantasmagoria.

Listen!...

I have every talent!—there is no-one here and there is someone: I would not shed my treasure—shall we have negro songs, houri dances? Shall we have me vanish, dive in search of the ring? Shall we? I'll make gold, remedies.

Trust me then, faith soothes, guides, heals. Everyone, come—even the little children—that I may console you, that one may shed for you his heart, the marvelous heart!—poor men, workers! I do not ask for prayers: with your confidence alone I shall be happy.

—And let us think of me. This little makes me regret the world. I am lucky not to suffer much. My life was naught but sweet follies, it's regrettable.

Bah! let's make every grimace imaginable.

Decidedly, we are out of the world. No longer any sound. My sense of touch has disappeared. Ah! my castle, my Saxony, my wood of willows. The evenings, the mornings, the nights, the days... am I tired!

I shall have to have my hell for wrath, my hell for pride—and the hell of caressment; a concert of hells.

I die of lassitude. It is the tomb, I'm going to worms, horror of horrors! Satan, clown, you would dissolve me , with your charms. I need. I need! a jab with the fork, a drop of fire.

Ah! to remount unto life! To cast eyes on our deformities. And that poison, that kiss a thousand times accursed! My feebleness, the cruelty of the world! My God, pity, hide me, I behave too ill!—I am hidden and I am not so.

It is the fire rising up again with its damned one.