To the Reader
Stupidity, error, sinfulness, stinginess,
Possess our minds and enslave our bodies,
And we drip feed our smiling remorse,
Like beggars suckling their vermin.
Our sins are obstinate, our repentance half-hearted;
We need to pig out after confession,
And gleefully return to the mud-clogged path,
Thinking to wash away all our stains with cheap tears.
On evil’s pillow lies Satan Trismegistus,
Who slowly lulls our enchanted spirits,
Until the rich metal of our willpower
Is utterly vapourised by that master chemist.
It’s the Devil who pulls our strings!
In disgusting things we find charm;
Every day we step deeper into Hell,
Without revulsion, through stinking shadows.
As a penniless lech kissing and sucking
The martyrised tit of an old tart,
We steal in passing a forbidden pleasure
Which we squeeze hard like a shrivelled orange.
Squashed together, seething like a thousand helminths,
A race of Demons carouses in our brains,
And, when we breathe, Death slips into our lungs
Like an invisible river, with deaf cries of protest.
If rape, poison, the dagger, arson,
Have not yet embroidered their intricate designs
On the dull canvas of our wretched fates,
It’s because our soul, alas! is not bold enough.
But among all the jackals, the panthers, the bitches,
The monkeys, the scorpions, the vultures, the snakes,
The yelping, howling, growling, crawling monsters,
In the infamous menagerie of our vices,
There is one who is more ugly, more wicked, more foul than all!
He does not strike great postures nor yell out loud for all to hear,
But he would happily lay waste to the earth
And swallow up the world with a yawn;
It’s Boredom! – an involuntary tear welling up in his eye,
He dreams of scaffolds as he puffs at his hookah.
Reader, you know him well, this fastidious monster,
– Reader, you hypocrite, – my double, – my brother!
Copyright © 2027 by Charles Baudelaire. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
