Verlaine, "Allégorie"

A work ("Allegory") by this French poet.  You can read the original here.

Despotic, heavy Summer's heat,          
A lazy king hears pleas for grace;  
Complicit white skies burn his face,
Which yawns near shirking men asleep.

With sloth to thank, the morning lark  
Sang not: no cloud, no breath, no crease 
Of softest ripples on blue leas,
Where silence falls in stillness dark. 

Cicadas come in torpor tart,   
And on their bed of unmatched stones
The streams half-dry no longer splash,

And endless spins of moiré art
More luminous than tidal moans,
As wasps fly by in gold and black.

Nerval, "Nuit perdue"

A prose poem ("Lost night") by this French man of letters. You can read the original here.

I was exiting a theater where, every evening, I would put in an appearance in the loges among the large entourage of admirers.  Sometimes it was completely full; sometimes completely empty. I did not care much to detain my glance on the orchestra seats filled only with thirty-odd forced enthusiasts, on the loges garnished in bonnets or on the antiquated dress – or, for that matter, to be part of an animated and trembling hall crowned on every floor with flowery outfits, sparkling jewels, and radiant countenances. Indifferent as I was to the performance in the hall, the performance in the theater hardly detained me – until the second or third scene of a sullen masterpiece popular at the time, when a well-known apparition illuminated the empty space, bestowing life in a breath and a word upon these vain figures in my immediate vicinity.

I felt alive in her, and she alone lived for me. Her smile filled me with infinite bliss; the vibration of her voice, so soft and yet so strongly resonant, made me twitch in joy and love. For me she had every perfection, responded to every interest and every whim. She was beautiful like the day amidst the footlights that shone upon her from below, pale as the night when, the footlights dimmed, the chandelier rays let her shine from on high. This last position showed her to be even more natural and brilliant in the shadow of her beauty thus isolated, like the divine Hours cast, with a star upon the forehead, on the brown depths of the frescoes of Herculaneum! 

For a year now I had not dreamed of learning what else she could be; I was afraid to disturb that magic mirror that sent me her image, and, what is more, I had lent an ear to certain notions regarding not the actress, but the woman; what little I learned could have just as well applied to the Princesse d'Élide or the Princess of Trébizonde. One of my uncles, who had lived in the last years of the 18th century, as one needed to have lived in that era to know it well, had warned me early on that actresses were not women, and that nature had forgotten to make them a heart. Doubtless, he was talking about the actresses of that time; but he had told me so many stories of his illusions, his disappointments, and showed me so many portraits on ivory, charming medallions that he would use later to adorn snuff boxes, so many yellowed tickets, so many withered ribbons, all in establishing the definitive tale, that I had habituated myself to think badly of all these actresses without comprehending the nature of the times.

At that time we lived in a strange era, like those periods which ordinarily succeed revolutions or the overthrows of great reigns. No longer did one find the heroic gallantry of the Fronde, the elegant and adorned vice of the Régence, the scepticism and mad orgies of the Directory; instead, there obtained a medley of activity, hesitation and sloth, of brilliant utopias, philosophical or religious aspirations, vague enthusiasms, all imbued with certain instincts of rebirth; of worries from past disagreements, of uncertain hopes – something akin to the epoch of Peregrinus and Apuleius. Worldly man aspired to the bouquet of roses which were supposed to regenerate him through the hands of beautiful Isis; the eternally young and pure goddess would appear to us at night and shame us for the hours lost during the day. Ambition nevertheless was not something of our age, and the avid carving up of the positions and honors distanced us from the possible spheres of activity. The only refuge we had was the poets' ivory tower, where we would climb ever higher to isolate ourselves from the throngs. At these elevated peaks to which our masters guided us, we would finally breath the pure air of solitude, we would drink in oblivion from the golden cup of legends, we would be drunk on poetry and love. Love, alas, of vague forms, of pink and blue hues, of metaphysical ghosts! Seen from close, the real woman appalled our ingenuity; she had to appear as a queen or a goddess, and most of all, she could not be approached. Several among us understood, however, little of these Platonic paradoxes, and through our renewed dreams of Alexandria at times agitated the torch of subterranean gods, which lights the shadow for an instant with its sparkling trails. 

It is in this way, therefore, that I, exiting the theater with the bitter sadness of a vanished dream, gladly made my way to the company of a large circle of acquaintances who dined together. And all melancholy yielded in the face of the inexhaustible eloquence of a handful of dazzling, stormy, lively, and sometimes sublime minds, those one always finds in periods of renewal or decadence, and whose discussions escalated to such a degree that the more fearful among us would go to the windows to see whether the Huns, the Ottomans, or the Cossacks had not come at last to cut short these arguments of rhetoricians and sophists.

"Let us drink, let us love, this is wisdom!" Such was the sole opinion of the circle's very youngest members. One of them told me: "For some time now I have seen you again and again in the same theater, each time I go, in fact. Which actress do you come to see?"

Which actress? ... It did not seem as if one could go there for any other. Nevertheless, I gave a name.

"Well, then!" said my friend with indulgence. "Do you see that happy man over there who just accompanied her out, and who, faithful to the rules of our circle, will not meet her again until perhaps after the night is done?"

Without too much emotion, I turned my eyes towards the person in question. They rested upon a young man properly dressed, a pale and nervous figure with acceptable manners and eyes stamped with melancholy and gentleness. He threw down gold pieces on a table of whist and lost them with indifference. 

"What difference does it make to me," I said, "if it is he or someone else? There had to be someone, and he seems worthy of having been chosen."

"What about you?"

"Me? She's an image I pursue, nothing more."

As I left, I passed the reading room and mechanically took a look at a newspaper. This was, I believe, to see how the stock market was doing. In the debris of my opulence I had a sufficiently large amount invested in foreign equities. Rumor had said that these equities, long since neglected, would regain in value – which was exactly what had taken place following a change of ministers. The funds were already quoted as very high; and I became rich again. 

A single thought resulted from this change in situation, that of the woman I had loved for so long, for she was now mine for the taking if I so wished. I was close to touching my ideal. Was it not still an illusion, a mocking typographical error? But the other newspapers said much of the same. The newly gained sum rose before me like a gold statue of Moloch. "What would he say now," I thought to myself. "That young man who was just with her, if he abandoned her and I were to take his place at her side?" I trembled at this thought, and my pride was shaken.

No! Not this way! It is not at my age that one murders love with gold. I will not become a corrupter. Besides, this is an idea from another era. Now who told me that this woman was venal? My eyes wafted vaguely across the newspaper I was still holding and I read these two lines: "Provincial Festival of the Flowers: tomorrow the archers of Senlis are to hand over the bouquet to their counterparts from Loisy." These words, remarkably simple, awakened in me a new series of impressions: a long-forgotten memory from the countryside, a distant echo of the innocent festivals of my youth. The trumpet and drum resonated from the distance in the hamlets and in the woods; young girls wove garlands and, as they sang, matched ornate bouquets with ribbons. A heavy wagon pulled by oxen received presents on its path, and we, children of these lands, formed a procession with our bows and arrows, decorating ourselves with the title of knights, all the while not knowing that we were doing nothing but repeating, from one age to the next, a druidic celebration which had survived monarchies and new religions.

Hugo, "Hier au soir"

A poem ("Yesterday, in the evening") by this French man of letters.  You can read the original here.

Breathe, evening wind of yesterday's lost truth, 
Which brought us scents of flowers' last bloom phase;
Night fell with birds asleep in shaded maze. 
The fragrant Spring has nothing on your youth;
The stars shone bright, but far less than your gaze. 

My voice kept low.  It was the solemn hour  
When souls their gentlest hymns so love to sing.
As night is pure so are you beauty's power; 
To gilded stars: on night the heavens shower! 
And to your eyes: sweet love upon us bring!

Love Crime

Ah, the corporate world, how one longs for its vitality and humanity! Even the most hidebound apologists of market mechanisms may not quite believe that last sentence; on the other hand, capitalism's most adamant critics have gone so far as to claim that the system is utterly incompatible with morality, although some of their proposed replacements have proven to be just as ruthless. Whatever one thinks of capitalism in its myriad guises, its aim has always been and will always be the accumulation of wealth; it is the use, distribution, and actual value of this wealth which remain rather volatile topics. So if you are a rising star in such an enterprise, say, a multinational corporation with its sleek towers and suits, a symphony of metallic ribbons, you would probably be wise to steer your own goals in the selfsame direction. All efforts, all thoughts, every fiber of your creative being should be harnessed to make your company rich, richer, and richest, because you, lone mortal, can only benefit from such an arrangement. That is, of course, unless that other commendable aspect of capitalism, unfettered competition (as only Darwin himself could have envisioned), indicates that despite your hole-hearted commitment to greed, your star is not ascending as quickly as that of your colleague down the hall, at which point a few more typically capitalist manoeuvres may be attempted. And you will find those manoeuvres, bereft of any vitality or humanity whatsoever, in this recent film.   

We are fortunate enough to have not one but two leading ladies, and lead us they most certainly will. The first is Christine Rivière (Kristen Scott Thomas), executive vice-president of the French branch of an American corporation whose specific products and services are never disclosed, probably for more than one reason, but let us move on. Christine occupies a splendid house somewhere in Paris, yet dreams of taking Manhattan by storm (there is, as it were, no other real way to take it). After a series of machinations and double-dealings, she will gain such an opportunity, and the person she should thank is her much younger subordinate, Isabelle Guérin (Ludivine Sagnier). Isabelle's attitude to corporate culture does not seem to match Christine's; that is to say, while Christine appears perfectly capable of bilking her own mother if that's what will assure her fortune and reputation, Isabelle's world view is far more nuanced. From time to time she will flash a predatory fang but, like most animals, more in self-preservation than bloodthirsty pursuit. When we first meet the two women at Christine's palatial home, we can sense jolts from a clear sexual undercurrent (Christine even sneaks in a kiss in a manner reminiscent of a chop-licking middle-aged lecher). Soon enough, however, we learn that what we perceived as physical attraction has much more to do with power, much in the same way that sexual assault has invariably been portrayed as a need for control. As Isabelle devises one brilliant business solution after another – again, we are never made privy to the details – Christine decides to send her underling in her stead to an important conference in Cairo. That she also dispatches thither her weaselly lover Philippe (Patrick Mille), the type of guy whose charm is limited to embracing one woman while winking across the room at another, should tell you all you need to know about our executive vice-president. When between Isabelle and Philippe the all-too-inevitable occurs, Christine takes another, far more cruel step (New York is at stake, after all), one she will regret monumentally and one which triggers a domino effect that will be left to the curious viewer to discover. 

The last completed work of this well-known director (who died days after its release), Love Crime is remarkable among high-quality films in that it contains nary a single memorable line of dialogue. Instead, we are treated to masterful acting and a tortuous script that may in hindsight seem implausible simply because we, unlike the dramatis personae, have already been let in on a secret. Scott Thomas is perfectly cast, not only because her angular good looks begin to resemble a knife rack, but also thanks to her natural comfort as a self-contained, almost regal entity. Sagnier has a crooked face, specifically an unevenly arched pair of brows, that can under no circumstances be considered beautiful, although many would not hesitate to consider it interesting. Her gamut of expressions would be extraordinary in any actor, much less one of her callowness, and it is from these expressions that we may derive the dialogue that the characters are not permitted to utter aloud. One of the finest moments in this regard is when Isabelle appeases an aggressive customer waiting in line behind her with a peppermint that alters his attitude entirely; another such instance is when she visits her sister, whose plain, family-based existence sheds some light on Isabelle's true motivations. Yet for all its wiles and atmosphere, Love Crime suffers from two shortcomings. The first is its title (faithful to the original Crime d'amour): while there is certainly a crime or two or three, depending on how you view matters, the love component, pace what one character asserts very late in our film, has to be deemed dubious at best (alas, this has not impeded an overtly eroticized English-language remake). The second flaw has to do with how a police inspector – yes, the police will become closely involved in the lives of our leading ladies – handles an alibi. What detective could possibly believe that being able to recount every detail of a movie means that you must have seen that movie on the night you claimed? I have pondered this point from every conceivable angle, and am now convinced that something else is in play, as evidenced by that same detective's actions in another scene. If this is not so, then the entire structure of the police procedural collapses rather violently, even if all the other pieces fit so well. Just like a lovely present wrapped in metallic ribbons.      

Baudelaire, "La corde"

A brief tale of horror ("The rope") by this French man of letters.  You can read the original here.

To Édouard Manet
   
"Illusions," said my friend, "are perhaps as unlimited as the connections between one person and another, or between people and things. And when the illusion disappears – that is to say, when we see its being or fact as it exists outside of us – we experience a strange feeling, a complicated mix of regret for the departed ghost and surprise in face of such novelty, in face of the real. If there is one phenomenon that is evident, trivial, always likely, and of a nature from which it would be impossible to be fooled, it is maternal love: a mother without maternal love is as difficult to imagine as a light without heat. So is it then not perfectly acceptable to attribute to maternal love all a mother's actions and words that relate to her child? This notwithstanding, listen now to a little tale in which I was singularly mystified by the most natural of illusions.  

"My profession as painter routinely obliges me to pay close attention to faces and physiognomies that appear on my routes, and you know what joy we derive from our faculty to see life in more vivid and vital colors than what others perceive. In the remote quarter where I live and where vast lawns still keep each building at a distance, I often observed a child whose ardent and mischievous physiognomy attracted me more than all the others. He posed for me more than once, and I transformed the little gypsy into both an angel and the Love of mythology. I had him carry a vagabond's violin, a Crown of Thorns, the Nails of the Passion, and the Torch of Eros. From the comic oddness of this boy I took such great pleasure that one day I beseeched his parents – rather poor folk – to let me have him, promising to dress him well, to grant him an allowance, and to give him no other task apart from cleaning my paint brushes and running my errands. Scrubbed and washed, this child became charming, and the life he led at my place seemed like a paradise in comparison to what he had been subjected in his parents' hovel. Yet I have to say that this little man would sometimes surprise me with his precocious fits of melancholy and his immoderate appetite for sweets and liqueurs. And so one day when I discovered that, despite my numerous warnings, he had committed another crime of this type, I threatened to send him back to his parents. Then I left, and business kept me from home for quite a while.  

"You can imagine my horror and astonishment when I returned home only to find the little fellow, my mischievous companion through life, hanging from the side of the armoire! His feet almost touched the floor; next to him a chair undoubtedly pushed away at the last second was toppled over; his head was leaning convulsively on one shoulder; his bloated face and his eyes, open in a frightening stare, first induced the illusion of life. Getting him down from there was not as easy as you might think: he was already quite stiff, and I was overcome by an inexplicable repugnance when I let him tumble to the floor. I had to hold him up with one arm and cut the rope with the other – but once I did this, there was still more to come. The little monster had used a cord so fine as to have wedged it deep into his flesh; and now to disengage his neck I had to look for the rope between the swelling rolls of fat with a pair of small scissors.   

"I neglected to mention that I had screamed for help, yet all my neighbors had refused to come to my aid, faithful to those habits of civilized souls who never wish – I know not why – to involve themselves in the affairs of a hanged man. At length a doctor arrived who pronounced the child dead, apparently for many hours. When we later had to undress him for the burial, the rigidity of his cadaver was such that we had to slice and cut away his clothes, so unable were we to bend his limbs.

"The commissioner to whom, needless to say, I had to give a full report of the occurrence, looked askance at me and said: 'Here's a shady business!' moved, I'm certain, by an inveterate desire to scare both the innocent and the guilty without any distinction.   

"There remained one last task to which I had to attend, and the very thought of it caused me terrific angst: I had to inform his parents. My feet refused to obey my commands. Finally I mustered the courage; but, to my great surprise, his mother was impassive – not a tear oozed from the corner of her eye. I imputed this strangeness to the horror she was experiencing, and I recalled that famous phrase: 'The most terrible pain is pain unspoken.' As for the father, he resigned himself to a certain dreamy dullness: 'It might be better this way after all; he was always going to come to a bad end!'    

"All this time his body lay upon my sofa, and assisted by a serving girl, I was seeing to the final preparations when his mother entered my small apartment. She said she wanted to see the body of her son. I could not really prevent her from drowning in her misery, or refuse her this last and somber consolation. Then she asked to be shown the place where the lad hanged himself. 'Oh no, Madame,' I replied, 'this would hurt you greatly.' And then, as my eyes involuntarily turned towards that morbid armoire, I noticed with disgust mixed with horror and anger that the nail had remained wedged in the door with a long piece of rope still dangling.  I threw myself upon it to rip out the last vestiges of misery, and as I was about to cast it out the open window the poor woman seized my arm and told me in an irresistible voice: 'Oh, sir!  Let me have this!  I beg you! I implore you!' Her despair seemed to me so unhinged, so mad, that she would now express tenderness for what had brought death upon her son and now wanted to keep it like some dear and horrible relic. And here she grabbed the nail and cord.  

"At last, at last!  It was over. There was nothing more for me to do than go back to work, now with more vigor than before – if but to chase away the little corpse that haunted the creases of my brain whose ghost tired me with his large staring eyes. Yet the next day I received a package of letters: some were from the tenants, others from neighboring buildings; one was from the first floor, another from the second, a third from the third, and so forth, some in a half-pleasant style, as if wanting to cloak with jest the sincerity of the demand; others were cheeky and filled with spelling mistakes; yet all of them veered towards the same goal, that is, to obtain from me a piece of the beatific and fateful rope. Among the signatories were, I must say, more women than men; but not one of them, believe me, belonged to the petty and vulgar class. I kept the letters.

"And then it suddenly dawned on me, and I understood why his mother so wanted to rip off that cord  and with what she intended on comforting herself."