A rising flock of scarlet pigeons thunders through my thoughts. —In exile, life was a stage where literature’s masterpieces were played out. I could share untold riches that remain unknown. I watch you unearth your discoveries. I know what will be! My wisdom? You disdain it like chaos. What is my nothingness, in the face of the stupor awaiting you?
I’m an inventor unique among my predecessors; think of me as a musician who has discovered the key of love. For now, a gentleman from a barren land and a sober sky, I try to stir myself with memories of a beggar’s boyhood; my apprenticeship, days in wooden shoes, arguments, five or six unimaginable losses, and a few wild nights where my stubbornness kept me from losing it completely. I don’t regret my earlier allotment of divine joy: the sobriety of this desolate landscape nourishes my wild skepticism. But because this skepticism no longer has its place, and since I’m consumed with a brand-new mess—I’m destined to become a miserable kook.
I met the world, in an attic I was confined to at twelve. There, I furnished illustrations to the human comedy. I learned history, in a cellar. At some nocturnal celebration in a northern city, I met women who modeled for the old masters. I was schooled in the sciences in a Paris back alley. I made my own masterpieces and retired to an appropriately magnificent Oriental retreat. I brewed my blood. My burden was lifted. My brooding was over. I am beyond all parting, and past persuading.
Seen enough. Visions confronted in every weather.
Had enough. Urban tumult, by night and day, forever.
Known enough. Life’s still-points. —O tumult and Visions!
Departure for fresh affection and noise!
One fine morning, in a land of very decent people, a gorgeous man and woman were shouting in the town square:
“Friends, I want her to be queen!”
“I want to be queen!” She laughed, and trembled.
He spoke to his friends of revelation, of an ordeal undergone. They swooned, one against the other.
And so they ruled all morning, as crimson curtains blazed from windows, and then all afternoon, as they strolled the palm gardens.
Striking your finger on a drum discharges all sound and begins a new harmony.
Taking a single step suggests the advent and advance of new men.
Your head turns away: new love! Your head turns back—new love!
All the children sing: “Change our fates, hobble the plague, start with time.” They beg: “Elevate anywhere our fortunes and hopes.”
Arrival from always, for departure to everywhere.
Goodness and Beauty, and they’re mine! The noise is unbearable but it won’t faze me! Storybook tortures! Hurray (for once) for great work and bodily miracles! Children’s laughter marks both beginning and end. This poison lingers in our veins even when we withdraw to the silence of prior discord. Now that we warrant such torture, let’s make good on the superhuman promise our bodies and souls deserve: this promise, this madness! Elegance, science, violence! They promised to bury the tree of good and evil in the shadows, and cast off tyrannical shackles of decency, so we could cultivate true love. The beginning was begun on the border with disgust, and the end—unable to seize eternity while on the run—the end unfolds with a stampede of perfume.
Children’s laughter, sobriety of slaves, austerity of virgins, fear of faces and forms from this place—be blessed by the memory of this night. In the beginning there was hooliganism, in the end angels of ice and fire.
Sacred drunken night! Sacred if only for the mask you grant us. Fair enough! We won’t forget how you blessed our hours. We put faith in poison. We know how to live completely, every day.
Behold an age of Assassins.
When the world is no more than a lone dark wood before our four astonished eyes—a beach for two faithful children—a musical house for our bright liking—I will find you.
Even if only one old man remains, peaceful and beautiful, steeped in “unbelievable luxury”—I’ll be at your feet.
Even if I create all of your memories—even if I know how to control you—I’ll suffocate you.
When we are strong—who retreats? When happy, who feels ridiculous? When cruel, what could be done with us?
Dress up, dance, laugh.
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