Delight of the senses, you who are the eternally unsatisfactory, is it true, intangible one, that you will always deceive us and that we shall always seek for happiness through you?
What seductiveness is not yours, O you who smile with the lips of love, O mysterious phantom of joy? How you lure us and enchain us! Well you know how to array yourself, at times, in the appearance of a sacred mission, a religious duty!
No, you are not happiness, divine though you are! To live without you is a bitter misfortune, but you are not happiness!
Why does happiness command us to sacrifice you often, to mistrust you always?
There is no happiness without harmony; you know this very well, you who are delicious disorder itself, death, laughter, strife.
Happiness is our homeland. You are only the burning country we long for, the tropical isle where our dreams exile themselves, never to return.
Happiness is our true kingdom. Delight of the senses, let your slaves hymn your praise.
V
During the summer of 1916 I found among the meadows of the Marne a flower that had three odors. It is a very common flower in France: it adorns a low and spiny plant which the peasants call “arrête-bœuf.” Toward midday, at the hour when the sun exasperates all its creatures, this flower exhales three different odors: the first is soft, fresh and resembles the perfume of the sweet pea; the second is sharp and makes one think of phosphor irritant, of a flame; the third is the secret breath of love. This miraculous flower really has all three of these odors at once, but we perceive them more easily one at a time because we are not worthy of all this wealth.
This little discovery descended upon my weary head like a benediction. At that time we were leaving the miseries of Verdun behind and were just on the point of plunging into those of the Somme. The intermediate rest depressed us and enervated us by turns. In the walks across the fields which we took with our comrades, I grew accustomed every day to gather a root of arrête-bœuf and offer it, as a gift, to those who accompanied me, so that they might share my discovery.