III
I think I have already written in my notes that love is very like torture or a surgical operation. But that idea can be developed in the bitterest way. Even though two lovers are deeply smitten and filled with reciprocal desire, one of the two will always be more calm, or less enraptured than the other. He or she is the surgeon, or the hangman; the other is the patient, the victim. Do you hear those sighs, preludes of a tragedy of shame, those groanings, those cries, those throat-rattlings? Who has not breathed them, who has not irresistibly summoned them forth? And what worse do you find in the torments applied by painstaking torturers? Those faraway eyes of the somnambulist, those limbs the muscles of which twitch and grow taut as under the action of a galvanic battery; drunkenness, delirium, opium, in their most infuriate consequences, surely yield no such frightful, no such curious examples. And the human countenance, which Ovid thought fashioned to reflect the stars, behold! it speaks only of insane ferocity, or is spread in a species of death. For, certainly, I believe it would be sacrilege to apply the word "ecstasy" to that sort of decomposition.
Frightful play, in which one of the players must lose control of himself!
Once, in my presence, it was asked in what lay the greatest pleasure of love. Some one answered naturally: in receiving, and another: in giving one's self. The former said: pleasure of pride; and the latter: delight of humility! All these blackguards spoke like the Imitation of Christ.—Finally, an impudent Utopian came forward to affirm that the greatest pleasure of love is to create citizens for the fatherland.
As for me, I said: The one and the supreme bliss of love rests in the certainty of doing evil. Both man and woman know, from birth, that in evil lies all bliss.
V
When a man takes to his bed, almost all his friends have a secret desire to see him die; some, to establish the fact that his health is inferior to theirs; others, in the disinterested hope of studying an agony.
The arabesque is the most spiritual of designs..
VI
The man of letters rouses the capitals and conveys a taste for intellectual gymnastics.
We love women in proportion as they are strangers to us. To love intelligent women is a pleasure of the pederast. Thus bestiality excludes pederasty.
The spirit of buffoonery need not exclude charity; but that's rare.
Enthusiasm applied to other things than abstractions is a sign of weakness and disease.
The thin is more naked, more indecent, than the fat.
VII
Tragic sky. Term of an abstract order applied to a material thing.
Man drinks light with the atmosphere. Thus they are right who say that the night air is not healthful for labor.
Man is born a fireworshipper.
Fireworks, conflagrations, incendiaries.
If one imagine a born fireworshipper born a Parsee, one could create a story.
VIII
Misunderstanding of a countenance is the result of the eclipse of the real image by the hallucination born of it.
Know then the joys of a bitter life, and pray, pray ceaselessly. Prayer is a store-house of energy. (Altar of the will. Moral dynamics. The sorcery of the sacraments. Hygiene of the soul.)
Music deepens the sky.
Jean Jacques said that he could not enter a restaurant without a certain emotion. For a timid nature, a ticket office somewhat resembles the tribunal of hell.
Life has but one true attraction: the attraction of play. But if we care not whether we win or lose?
IX
Nations have great men only in spite of themselves— like families. They make every effort not to have them. Therefore, the great man must, in order to exist, possess an offensive force greater than the power of resistance developed by millions of individuals.
Apropos of sleep, that sinister adventure of all our nights, we might say that men go to bed daily with an audacity that would be incomprehensible if we did not know that it is the result of ignorance of the danger.
X
There are tortoise-shell hides against which scorn is no longer a vengeance.
Many friends, many gloves.[1] Those who have admired me were despised, I might even say were despicable, if I sought to flatter honest men.
Girardin talk Latin! Pecudesque locutae.
He belongs to an infidel Society to send Robert Houdin to the Arabs to convert them from the miracles.
[1] 'for fear of the itch' is added elsewhere.
XI
These great, beautiful vessels, imperceptibly swaying (rocking) on the tranquil waters, these sturdy ships, with their idle, homesick air, do they not ask us, in a silent tongue: When do we sail for happiness?
Not to forget the marvellous in drama, sorcery, romance.
The background, the atmosphere in which a whole tale should be steeped. (See the Fall of the House of Usher, and refer this to the profound sensations of hashish and of opium.)
XII
Are there mathematical insanities, and idiots who think that two and two make three? In other words, can hallucination, if the words do not cry out (at being coupled), invade the affairs of pure reason? If, when a man is sunk in habits of sloth, of revery, of idleness, to the point of constantly deferring the important thing to the morrow, another man were to wake him in the morning with biting lash, and were to whip him pitilessly until, unable to work for pleasure, he worked for fear, that man, that flogger, would he not be truly the friend, the benefactor? Besides, one might declare that pleasure would follow, much more justly than is said "Love comes after marriage."
Similarly, in politics, the true saint is he who lashes and destroys the people, for the people's good.
That which is not slightly deformed seems to lack feeling; whence it follows that irregularity, that is, the un-foreseen, surprise, astonishment, are an essential part and characteristic of beauty.
XIII
Theodore de Banville is not exactly materialistic; he is luminous. His poetry represents happy hours.
For each letter from a creditor, write fifty lines on an abstract subject, and you are saved.
XV
Translation and paraphrase of the Passion. To refer everything to that.
Spiritual and physical joys born of the storm, thunder and lightning, tocsin of loving, shadowy memories, of years gone by.
XVI
I have found the definition of Beauty, of my Beauty. It is something ardent and sad, something slightly vague, giving conjecture wing. I will, if you please, apply my idea to a palpable object, for instance, to the most interesting object in society, to a woman's countenance. A seductive and beautiful head, a woman's head, I mean, is a head that brings dreams at once—confusedly—of voluptuousness and of sadness; which bears a suggestion of melancholy, of weariness, even of satiety,—or perhaps an opposite emotion, an ardor, a wish to live, mingled with pent up bitterness, as springs from privation or from despair. Mystery, regret, are also characteristics of beauty.
A handsome male head need not convey, save perhaps in the eyes of a woman, that suggestion of voluptuousness, which, in a female countenance, is generally tantalizing in proportion as the face is melancholy. But that head also will bear something ardent and sad, spiritual needs, ambitions vaguely receding, the thought of a rumbling, unused power, sometimes the thought of a vengeful lack of feeling (for the ideal type of the dandy must not be neglected here), sometimes also—and that is one of the most interesting characteristics of beauty— mystery, and finally (let me have the courage to confess to what degree I feel myself modern in esthetics) misfortune. I do not claim that Joy cannot be associated with Beauty, but I do say that Joy is one of its most vulgar ornaments, while Melancholy is, as it were, its illustrious companion, to such a degree that I can scarcely conceive (is my brain an enchanted mirror?) a type of beauty in which is no Misfortune. Following—others might say: obsessed by—these ideas, you can see that it would be difficult for me not to conclude that the most perfect type of manly Beauty is Satan,—as pictured by Milton.
XVII
Auto-idolatry. Poetic harmony of character. Eurhythmy of character and faculties. Of conserving all the faculties. Of augmenting all the faculties. A cult (Magianism, evocatory sorcery).
The sacrifice and the vow are the highest formulæ and symbols of exchange.
Two fundamental literary qualities: the supernatural, and irony. Individual glance, aspect in which things maintain themselves before the writer, then a Satanic turn of mind. The supernatural includes the general color and the accent, i.e., intensity, sonority, limpidity, vibration, depth and resonance in space and in time.
There are moments in life when time and space are deeper, and the intensity of life immeasurably increased.
Of magic applied to the rousing of the great dead, to the reestablishment and the perfecting of health.
Inspiration always comes, when a man wishes, but it does not always go, when he wishes.
Of writing and of speech, considered as magic operations, evocatory sorcery.
OF AIRS IN WOMAN
The charming airs, which constitute Beauty, are: The blasé air, the bored air, the giddy air, the impudent air, the cold air, the disdainful air, the commanding air, the willing air, the mischievous air, the sickly air, the feline air, a mingling of childishness, nonchalance and malice.
XVIII
In certain almost supernatural moods of the soul the depth of life reveals itself to the full, in the scene, ordinary as it may be, beneath one's eyes. It becomes the symbol.
As I was crossing the boulevard, and as I hurried to escape the wagons, my aureole slipped off and fell into the mire of the macadam. Fortunately, I had time to pick it up; but a moment after the unlucky idea entered my mind that it was an ill omen; after that the idea clung to me, and gave me no rest the entire day.
Of the worship of one's self in love, from the point of view of health, of hygiene, of the toilet, of eloquence and of spiritual nobility.
XIX
There is a magic operation in prayer. Prayer is one of the great forces of intellectual dynamics. It is like an electric current.
The rosary is a medium, a vehicle; it is prayer brought within reach of all.
Labor, progressive and accumulative force, bearing interest like capital, in faculties as in results.
Play, intermittent energy, even though guided by science, will be conquered, fruitful as it may be, by labor, slight as it may be, but sustained.
If a poet asked the state for the right to have a few bourgeois in his stable, there would be considerable surprise; while, if a bourgeois asked for roast poet, it would seem quite natural.
"Kitten, puss, pussy, my cat, my wolf, my little monkey, big monkey, big serpent, my little melancholy monkey." Such freaks of too often repeated terms, too frequent bestial appellations, reveal a satanic side in love. Have not the devils the forms of beasts? The Camel of Cazotte, camel, devil, and woman.
XX
A man went to a shooting gallery, accompanied by his wife. He selected a puppet, and said to his wife: "I imagine that's you." He closed his eyes and beheaded the puppet. Then he said, kissing his companion's hand: "Dear angel, how I thank you for my skill."
When I have inspired universal disgust and horror, I shall have won solitude.
This book is not made for my wives, my daughters or my sisters. I have few of such things.
God is a scandal, a scandal that rebounds.
XXI
Do not scorn any one's sensibility. One's sensibility, that is one's genius.
By an ardent concubinage, one can imagine the joys of a young household.
The precocious taste for women. I used to confuse the odor of fur with the odor of woman. I remember.... Finally, I loved my mother for her elegance. Thus I was a precocious dandy.
The Protestant countries lack two elements essential to the happiness of a well-bred man: gallantry and devotion.
The mingling of the grotesque and the tragic is pleasing to the mind, as discords to blasé ears.
What is intoxicating in bad taste, is the aristocratic pleasure of displeasing.
Germany expresses meditation by line, as England by perspective.
There is, in the birth of every sublime thought, a nervous shock that is felt in the cerebellum.
Spain puts into its religion the ferocity natural to love.
STYLE.—The eternal note, the eternal and cosmopolitan style. Chateaubriand, Alph. Rabbe, Edgar Poe.
Why democrats do not love cats is easy to determine. The cat is beautiful; it awakens ideas of luxury, of cleanliness, of voluptuousness, etc.
XXII
A little labor, repeated three hundred and sixty-five times, yields three hundred and sixty-five times a little money, that is, an enormous sum. At the same time fame is won.
To create a pounced drawing is genius. I ought to create a pounced drawing.
My mother is fantastic; one must fear her and please her.
XXIII
To give one's self over to Satan, what does that mean?
What more absurd than progress since man, as is proven by everyday fact, is always like and equal to man, that is to say, always in the savage state! What are the perils of the forest and the prairie beside the daily shocks and conflicts of civilization? Whether man ensnare his dupe on the boulevard, or pierce his prey in unknown forests, is he not eternal man, i.e., the most perfect beast of pray?
They say I am thirty years of age; but if I have lived three minutes in one..., am I not ninety?
... Work, is it not the salt that preserves embalmed souls?
XXIV
I think that the infinite and mysterious charm that rests in the contemplation of a ship, especially of a vessel in motion, springs, in the first place, from regularity and symmetry (which are of the primordial needs of the human mind, as much as complexity and harmony)— and, secondly, from the successive multiplication and generation of all the curves and imaginary figures cut in space by the real elements of the object.
The poetic idea which this movement in lines produces is the hypothesis of a vast, immense, complex but eurythmic being, of a creature full of genius, suffering and sighing all human sighs and all human ambitions.
Civilized races, that always speak so stupidly of savages and barbarians, soon, as d'Aurevilly says, you will no longer be good enough to be idolaters. Stoicism, religion that has but one sacrament: suicide!
Conceive a canvas for a lyric or fairy buffoonery, for a pantomime, and transplant it into a serious novel. Bathe the whole in an abnormal, dreamy atmosphere,—in the atmosphere of the great days. Let there be something soothing,—something even serene, in passion. Regions of pure poetry.
XXV
What is not a priesthood nowadays? Youth itself is a priesthood—so youth tells us.
Man, i.e., every one, is so naturally depraved that he suffers less from the universal abasement than from the establishment of a sensible hierarchy.
XXVI
The world is coming to an end. The only reason for which it can continue is that it exists. How weak that reason is, compared to all that announce the opposite, particularly to this: What has the world henceforth to do beneath the sky? For, supposing that it continue to exist materially, would it be an existence worthy of the name and of the Historical Dictionary? I do not say that the world will be reduced to the expedients and the comic disorder of the South American Republics, that perhaps we shall return to the savage state, and that we shall go, across the grassy ruins of our civilization, seeking our pasture, gun in hand. No; for these adventures presuppose a remnant of vital energy, echo of the earliest ages. New example and new victims of the inexorable moral laws, we shall perish by that through which we thought to live. The mechanical will so have Americanized us, progress will so have atrophied all our spiritual side, that naught, in the sanguine, sacrilegious or unnatural dreams of the Utopians can be compared to the actual outcome. I ask every thinking man to show me what of life remains. Of religion, I believe it useless to speak and to seek the remnants, since to take the trouble to deny God is the only scandal in that field. Property virtually disappeared with the suppression of the right of the first-born; but the time will come when humanity, like an avenging ogre, will snatch their last morsel from those who think they are the legitimate heirs of the revolutions. Still, that will not be the supreme ill.
The human imagination can conceive, without too much trouble, republics or other community states, worthy of some glory, if directed by consecrated men, by definite aristocrats. But it is not particularly in political institutions that there will be manifest the universal ruin, or the universal progress; for the name matters little. It will be in the debasement of the heart. Need I say that the little of the political remaining will writhe painfully in the embrace of the general bestiality, and that governments will be forced, in order to maintain themselves and to create a phantom of order, to revert to means which will make our actual humanity shudder, although so hardened? Then, the son will flee from his family not at eighteen years, but at twelve, emancipated by his gluttonous precocity; he will flee, not in search of heroic adventures, not to deliver a beautiful prisoner in a tower, not to immortalize a garret by sublime thoughts, but to establish a trade, to amass wealth, and to compete with his infamous papa, founder and stockholder of a journal which will spread the light and which will cause the century to be looked upon as an abettor of superstition. Then, the wanderers, the outcasts, those who have had several lovers, and who were once called angels, in recognition of the heedlessness which shines, light of luck, in their existence logical as evil—then these, I say, will be no more than a pitiless wisdom, a wisdom that will condemn all, lacking money, all, even the faults of the senses! Then, that which will resemble virtue, what do I say?—all that is not ardor toward Plutus will be considered enormously ridiculous. Justice, if in that fortunate period justice can still exist, will interdict all citizens who cannot make a fortune. Your wife, O Bourgeois! your chaste partner, whose legitimacy is the poetry of your existence, thenceforth, introducing into legality an irreproachable infamy, zealous and loving guardian of your strongbox, will be no more than the ideal of the kept woman. Your daughter, with infantile hopes of marriage, will dream in her cradle of selling herself for a million, and you yourself, O Bourgeois, still less poet than you are to-day, you will see nothing amiss; you will regret naught. For there are things in men that strengthen and prosper as others weaken and decline; and, thanks to the progress of the times, you will have left of your entrails only the viscera! These times are perhaps quite near; who knows even that they have not come, and that the thickness of our skins is not the only obstacle that prevents us from appreciating the environment in which we breathe?
As for me, who sometimes feel in me the ridicule of a prophet, I know that I shall never find in myself the charity of a doctor. Lost in this vile world, jostled by the crowds, I am as a tired man who sees behind him, in the depths of the years, only disillusion and bitterness and ahead, only a storm that carries nothing new, neither knowledge nor grief. The evening that man Stole from fate a few hours of pleasure, cradled in his digestion, forgetful—as far as possible—of the past, content with the present and resigned to the future, intoxicated with his sangfroid and his dandyism, proud of being less base than those who passed, he said, watching the smoke of his cigar: "What does it matter to me where these consciences are going?"
I think I have achieved what mechanics call an extra. However, I shall retain these pages,—because I want to date my sadness.