Adieu

  Autumn already! ― But why regret an eternal sun, if we were engaged with the discovery of the divine clarity ― far from people who are dying on the seasons.
  Autumn. Our bulk ship standing in the immobile fog turn the head toward the port of the misery, the huge city in the sky stained with mud and flames. Ah! the rotten rags, the rain-soaked bread, the drunkenness, and the thousand loves that crucified me! She will therefore never finish this ghoul queen of millions of dead souls and bodies, and who will be judged! I see myself again, with my skin gnawed by the mud and the plague, worms full of the hair and the armpit and even more bigger worms in the heart, lying among the unacquainted people, no age and no feeling... I could have died there... The horrible evocation! I hate misery.
  And I'm afraid of winter because it is the season of comfort!
  ― Sometimes I see endless beaches covered with joyous white nations in the sky. A huge golden vessel, above me, shakes its multicolored flags in the morning breeze. I have created all festivals, all triumphs, all dramas. I have tried to invent new flowers, new stars, new fleshes, new languages. I believed I had acquired supernatural powers. Well! I have to bury my imagination and my memories! A beautiful glory of an artist and a storyteller is taken away!
  Me! I, who have called myself a magus or an angel, exempted from all morality, I am returned to the ground, with a duty to search, and the rough reality to embrace! Peasant!
  Am I deceived? the charity would be a sister of death, for me?
  Finally, I will demand apology for feeding me a lie. And let's go.
  But not a friend's hand! and where to draw the help?

----------------

  Yes, the new time is at least very severe.
  For I can say that the victory is acquired: the grinds of teeth, the whistles of fire, the stinky sighs are moderated. All immodest memories efface. My last regrets run away, ― jealousies for the beggars, the brigands, the friends of death, the dropouts of all kinds. ― Damned, if I take my revenge!
  It must be absolutely modern.
  No canticles: hold the step won. Hard night! the dried blood smokes on my face, and I have nothing behind me except this horrible shrub!... A spiritual battle is as brutal as a battle of men; but the vision of the justice is the pleasure of God alone.
  However the dawn is not yet. Let's receive all vigor and real tenderness that flow in. And at the dawn, armed with ardent patience, we shall enter splendid cities.
  What did I speak about friend's hand! One nice advantage, that I can laugh at old-fashioned fake lovers, and shame these liar couples, ― I saw the hell of women down there; ― and I shall be permissible to possess the truth in a soul and a body.

April-August, 1873.

French Text

Translated by Kunio & Reviewed by ichico
December 9, 2019

◀ 前  index  次 ▶