A Season in Hell
Long ago, if I remember rightly, my life was a feast where
opened every heart, where every wine ran.
One night, I sat Beauty on my knees—and I found it
bitter—and I insulted it.
I armed myself against justice.
I ran away. O witches, o misery, o hate, it is to you that
my treasure was entrusted!
I managed to make disappear in my mind every human hope.
On every joy, for the strangling of it, I made the silent bound of the
ferocious beast.
I summoned executioners so as, while perishing, to bite
the butt of their rifles. I summoned plagues, to stifle me with sand, blood.
Misfortune was my God. I stretched out in mud. I dried off in the air of crime.
And I played good tricks on madness.
And spring brought unto me the ghastly laughter of the
idiotic.
Now, quite lately, being found on the point of making my
last goose note, I contemplated seeking out the key to the old feast, where I
would recover perhaps my appetite.
Charity is this key—this inspiration proves that I
was dreaming!
"You shall remain a hyena... "
etc., cries out the demon who crowns me with so lovely poppies. Reach
death with all your appetites, and your egoism, and all the capital sins."
Ah! I've taken too much of that—but, dear Satan, I
entreat you, a less angry eye! and awaiting the few little failings behind
time, you who like in the writer the absence of descriptive or instructive
faculties, you I tear out these few hideous leaves
from my book of the damned.