Les Yeux des Pauvres
Ah! vous voulez savoir pourquoi je vous hais aujourd�hui. Il vous sera sans doute moins facile de le comprendre qu� moi de vous l�expliquer; car vous tes, je crois, le plus bel exemple d�impermabilit fminine qui se puisse rencontrer.
Nous avions pass ensemble une longue journe qui m�avait paru courte. Nous nous tions bien promis que toutes nos penses nous seraient communes l�un et l�autre, et que nos deux mes dsormais n�en feraient plus qu�une; -- un rve qui n�a rien d�original, aprs tout, si ce n�est que, rv par tous les hommes, il n�a t ralis par aucun.
Le soir, un peu fatigue, vous voultes vous asseoir devant un caf neuf qui formait le coin d�un boulevard neuf, encore tout plein de gravois et montrant dj glorieusement ses splendeurs inacheves. Le caf tincelait. Le gaz lui-mme y dployait toute l�ardeur d�un dbut, et clairait de toutes ses forces les murs aveuglants de blancheur, les nappes blouissantes des miroirs, les ors des baguettes et des corniches, les pages aux joues rebondies trans par les chiens en laisse, les dames riant au faucon perch sur leur poing, les nymphes et les desses portant sur leur tte des fruits, des pts et du gibier, les Hbs et les Ganymdes prsentant bras tendu la petite amphore bavaroises ou l�oblisque bicolore des glaces panaches; toute l�histoire et toute la mythologie mises au service de la goinfrerie.
Droit devant nous, sur la chausse, tait plant un brave homme d�une quarantaine d�annes, au visage fatigu, la barbe grisonnante, tenant d�une main un petit garon et portant sur l�autre bras un petit tre trop faible pour marcher. Il remplissait l�office de bonne et faisait prendre ses enfants l�air du soir. Tous en guenilles. Ces trois visages taient extraordinairement srieux, et ces six yeux contemplaient fixement le caf nouveau avec une admiration gale, mais nuance diversement par l�ge.
Les yeux du pre disaient: Que c�est beau! que c�est beau! on dirait que tout l�or du pauvre monde est venu se porter sur ces murs. -- Les yeux du petit garon:Que c�est beau! que c�est beau! mais c�est une maison o peuvent seuls entrer les gens qui ne sont pas comme nous. -- Quant aux yeux du plus petit, ils taient trop fascins pour exprimer autre chose qu�une joie stupide et profonde.
Les chansonniers disent que le plaisir rend l�me bonne et amollit le c�ur. La chanson avait raison ce soir-l, relativement moi. Non-seulement j�tais attendri par cette famille d�yeux, mais je me sentais un peu honteux de nos verres et de nos carafes, plus grands que notre soif. Je tournais mes regards vers les vtres, cher amour, pour y lire ma pense; je plongeais dans vos yeux si beaux et si bizarrement doux, dans vos yeux verts, habits par le Caprice et inspirs par la Lune, quand vous me dites: Ces gens-l me sont insupportables avec leurs yeux ouverts comme des portes cochres! Ne pourriez-vous pas prier le matre du caf de les loigner d�ici?
Tant il est difficile de s�entendre, mon cher ange, et tant la pense est incommunicable, mme entre gens qui s�aiment!
The Eyes of the Poor
Oh! You want to know why I hate you today. It will undoubtedly be less easy for you to understand than it will be for me to explain, for you are, I believe, the most beautiful example of feminine impermeability one could ever encounter.
We had spent together a long day that had seemed short to me. We had indeed promised that we would share all of our thoughts with one another, and that our two souls would henceforth be one -- a dream that isn't the least bit original, after all, if not that, dreamed of by all men, it has been realized by none.
In the evening, a bit tired, we wanted to sit down in front of a new caf that formed the corner of a new boulevard, still strewn with debris and already gloriously displaying its unfinished splendors. The caf was sparkling. The gaslight itself sent forth all the ardor of a debut and lit with all its force walls blinding in their whiteness, dazzling sheets of mirrors, the gold of the rods and cornices, chubby-cheeked page-boys being dragged by dogs on leashes, laughing ladies with falcons perched on their wrist, nymphs and goddesses carrying on their heads fruits, pies, and poultry, Hebes and Ganymedes presenting in out-stretched arms little amphoras filled with Bavarian cream or bi-colored obelisks of ice cream -- all of history and all of mythology at the service of gluttony.
Right in front of us, on the sidewalk, a worthy man in his forties was standing, with a tired face, a greying beard, and holding with one hand a little boy and carrying on the other arm a little being too weak to walk. He was playing the role of nanny and had taken his children out for a walk in the night air. All in rags. The three faces were extraordinarily serious, and the six eyes contemplated fixedly the new caf with an equal admiration, but shaded differently according to their age.
The father's eyes said: "How beautiful it is! How beautiful it is! You'd think all the gold in this poor world was on its walls." -- The eyes of the little boy: "How beautiful it is! How beautiful it is! But it's a house only people who aren't like us can enter." -- As for the eyes of the smaller child, they were too fascinated to express anything other than a stupid and profound joy.
Song-writers say that pleasure makes the soul good and softens the heart. The song was right this evening, as regards me. Not only was I moved by this family of eyes, but I also felt a little ashamed of our glasses and our carafes, which were larger than our thirst. I turned my gaze toward your's, dear love, to read my thoughts there; I plunged into your so beautiful and so bizarrely gentle eyes, into your green eyes, inhabited by Caprice and inspired by the Moon, and then you said to me: "I can't stand those people over there, with their eyes wide open like carriage gates! Can't you tell the head-waiter to send them away?"
So difficult is it to understand one another, my dear angel, and so incommunicable is thought, even between people in love!
-Baudelaire 1926
Ah! vous voulez savoir pourquoi je vous hais aujourd�hui. Il vous sera sans doute moins facile de le comprendre qu� moi de vous l�expliquer; car vous tes, je crois, le plus bel exemple d�impermabilit fminine qui se puisse rencontrer.
Nous avions pass ensemble une longue journe qui m�avait paru courte. Nous nous tions bien promis que toutes nos penses nous seraient communes l�un et l�autre, et que nos deux mes dsormais n�en feraient plus qu�une; -- un rve qui n�a rien d�original, aprs tout, si ce n�est que, rv par tous les hommes, il n�a t ralis par aucun.
Le soir, un peu fatigue, vous voultes vous asseoir devant un caf neuf qui formait le coin d�un boulevard neuf, encore tout plein de gravois et montrant dj glorieusement ses splendeurs inacheves. Le caf tincelait. Le gaz lui-mme y dployait toute l�ardeur d�un dbut, et clairait de toutes ses forces les murs aveuglants de blancheur, les nappes blouissantes des miroirs, les ors des baguettes et des corniches, les pages aux joues rebondies trans par les chiens en laisse, les dames riant au faucon perch sur leur poing, les nymphes et les desses portant sur leur tte des fruits, des pts et du gibier, les Hbs et les Ganymdes prsentant bras tendu la petite amphore bavaroises ou l�oblisque bicolore des glaces panaches; toute l�histoire et toute la mythologie mises au service de la goinfrerie.
Droit devant nous, sur la chausse, tait plant un brave homme d�une quarantaine d�annes, au visage fatigu, la barbe grisonnante, tenant d�une main un petit garon et portant sur l�autre bras un petit tre trop faible pour marcher. Il remplissait l�office de bonne et faisait prendre ses enfants l�air du soir. Tous en guenilles. Ces trois visages taient extraordinairement srieux, et ces six yeux contemplaient fixement le caf nouveau avec une admiration gale, mais nuance diversement par l�ge.
Les yeux du pre disaient: Que c�est beau! que c�est beau! on dirait que tout l�or du pauvre monde est venu se porter sur ces murs. -- Les yeux du petit garon:Que c�est beau! que c�est beau! mais c�est une maison o peuvent seuls entrer les gens qui ne sont pas comme nous. -- Quant aux yeux du plus petit, ils taient trop fascins pour exprimer autre chose qu�une joie stupide et profonde.
Les chansonniers disent que le plaisir rend l�me bonne et amollit le c�ur. La chanson avait raison ce soir-l, relativement moi. Non-seulement j�tais attendri par cette famille d�yeux, mais je me sentais un peu honteux de nos verres et de nos carafes, plus grands que notre soif. Je tournais mes regards vers les vtres, cher amour, pour y lire ma pense; je plongeais dans vos yeux si beaux et si bizarrement doux, dans vos yeux verts, habits par le Caprice et inspirs par la Lune, quand vous me dites: Ces gens-l me sont insupportables avec leurs yeux ouverts comme des portes cochres! Ne pourriez-vous pas prier le matre du caf de les loigner d�ici?
Tant il est difficile de s�entendre, mon cher ange, et tant la pense est incommunicable, mme entre gens qui s�aiment!
The Eyes of the Poor
Oh! You want to know why I hate you today. It will undoubtedly be less easy for you to understand than it will be for me to explain, for you are, I believe, the most beautiful example of feminine impermeability one could ever encounter.
We had spent together a long day that had seemed short to me. We had indeed promised that we would share all of our thoughts with one another, and that our two souls would henceforth be one -- a dream that isn't the least bit original, after all, if not that, dreamed of by all men, it has been realized by none.
In the evening, a bit tired, we wanted to sit down in front of a new caf that formed the corner of a new boulevard, still strewn with debris and already gloriously displaying its unfinished splendors. The caf was sparkling. The gaslight itself sent forth all the ardor of a debut and lit with all its force walls blinding in their whiteness, dazzling sheets of mirrors, the gold of the rods and cornices, chubby-cheeked page-boys being dragged by dogs on leashes, laughing ladies with falcons perched on their wrist, nymphs and goddesses carrying on their heads fruits, pies, and poultry, Hebes and Ganymedes presenting in out-stretched arms little amphoras filled with Bavarian cream or bi-colored obelisks of ice cream -- all of history and all of mythology at the service of gluttony.
Right in front of us, on the sidewalk, a worthy man in his forties was standing, with a tired face, a greying beard, and holding with one hand a little boy and carrying on the other arm a little being too weak to walk. He was playing the role of nanny and had taken his children out for a walk in the night air. All in rags. The three faces were extraordinarily serious, and the six eyes contemplated fixedly the new caf with an equal admiration, but shaded differently according to their age.
The father's eyes said: "How beautiful it is! How beautiful it is! You'd think all the gold in this poor world was on its walls." -- The eyes of the little boy: "How beautiful it is! How beautiful it is! But it's a house only people who aren't like us can enter." -- As for the eyes of the smaller child, they were too fascinated to express anything other than a stupid and profound joy.
Song-writers say that pleasure makes the soul good and softens the heart. The song was right this evening, as regards me. Not only was I moved by this family of eyes, but I also felt a little ashamed of our glasses and our carafes, which were larger than our thirst. I turned my gaze toward your's, dear love, to read my thoughts there; I plunged into your so beautiful and so bizarrely gentle eyes, into your green eyes, inhabited by Caprice and inspired by the Moon, and then you said to me: "I can't stand those people over there, with their eyes wide open like carriage gates! Can't you tell the head-waiter to send them away?"
So difficult is it to understand one another, my dear angel, and so incommunicable is thought, even between people in love!
-Baudelaire 1926
chubbyfairy:
Merci d'avoir agremente mon temps de lunch au travail avec Beaudelaire!!
arleigh:
Mmm. French.