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At falling evening, when already the flight
Of the restless and rapacious life sinks down,
Under a low and soft sky swollen with thick shadow,
The tawny and black quarter raises its old decor
Of flesh, of blood, of vice and gold.
Gossips, blocks of packed and weary meat,
Call out, from the threshold of low doors,
To people passing by;
Behind them, deep in red corridors,
Lights gleam, a curtain stirs
And lifts and allows a glimpse
Of beautiful naked bodies in mirrors.
The port is near. On the left, at the end of the streets,
The tangle of masts and yards obstructs
A huge patch of sky;
On the right, a swarming heap of misshapen alleys
Falls from the city – and the dark crowds
Hurry there toward their destinies of rot.
It is the flabby and monstrous stall of lust
Raised, since forever, on the borders
Of the city and the sea.
Over there, among the waves and the chances,
Those who watch, melancholic, at the port watches
And the sailors whose rags hang
From lowered masts or taut ropes,
All dream of it and evoke it, on such evenings;
Raw desire twists them into frantic willings;
The soft kisses of the wind on their torsos circulate;
The wave awakens in them images that burn;
And their two hands and their two arms despair
Or exalt, stretched toward the land.
And those from here, those of offices and bazaars,
Stubborn number-crunchers, precise merchants, haggard scribes,
Pliable foreheads, brains rented and hands sold,
When the keys of the cash box are hung on the wall,
Feel the same rut bite their bodies, on such evenings;
We hear them descend in black flocks,
Like driven dogs, from the depths of twilight,
And debauchery within them so strongly jostles
Their avarice and their routine prudence
That it wears them out and ruins them, with anger.
It is the flabby and monstrous stall of lust
Raised, since forever, on the borders
Of the city and the sea.
Come from what happy or fateful distances?
Come from what feverish or methodical trading posts?
With, in their hard eyes, the harsh and sly hatred,
With, in their instinct, battle and anguish,
Around red females who drive them mad,
They gather and mob in ardent words.
Fervent mascaroons and crude ornaments
Shine along the walls and in the shadow dart;
Leaping satyrs and pot-bellied Bacchuses
Laugh an immobile laugh in pale mirrors;
Flowers die. On gaming tables,
Bowls heat up, twisting their flame into blue flags;
A pot of rouge cakes, in the corner of a shelf;
A cat leaps toward flies, light;
A drunkard dozes stretched on a bench,
And women come to him and bending
Brush his closed eyes with their enormous breasts.
Their companions, tired backs, sleeping rumps,
On armchairs and sofas are piled,
Flesh already dreary from having been trampled
By the first passersby of the banal vine.
One of them slips a piece of gold into her stocking,
Another yawns and stretches, others still
– Defunct torches, worn thyrsi of bacchanals
Sensing age and the end sniffing them with their muzzle,
Eyes fixed, caress their skin,
With a slow and mechanical hand.
It is the flabby and monstrous stall of lust
Raised, since forever, on the borders
Of the city and the sea.
According to the money that jingles in pockets,
The promise is exchanged or the reproach;
A tranquil cynicism, a weary ardor
Presides over tenderness or threat.
The embrace and kisses bore. Often,
When fists meet each other, in the wind
Of insults and oaths, always the same,
Some gaiety wrings out and spurts from blasphemies,
But at once falls back – and sometimes we hear,
In the unsettling silence,
A nearby and panting bell tower
Ring the heavy and funereal hour,
Over the city, in the darkness.
Yet, along the days, when festivals draw pay,
Whether in winter, Christmas, or in summer, Saint Peter’s,
The old quarter of filth and light
Rises toward sin, with a broad impulse.
It ferments with howled songs and uproars:
Window by window, floor by floor,
Its facades dart, from top to bottom,
Vice – and to the depths of garrets,
Ardor bellows and rages couple.
In the great hall, where sailors flock,
Pushing before them some street buffoon
Who convulses in obscene mimes,
Wines of foam and gold leap from their sheath;
Drunken men yell like madmen,
Women give themselves – and, suddenly,
Ruts blaze, arms knot, bodies twist,
We see only instincts biting each other,
Breasts offered, bellies taken and the blaze
Of haggard eyes in bushes of brandished flesh.
It is the flabby and monstrous stall of lust,
Where crime plants its bright knives,
Where madness, with bolts of lightning,
Cracks foreheads with bruises,
It is the flabby and monstrous stall,
Raised, since forever, on the borders
Tributary to the city and the sea.
Emile Verhaeren
Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.
Text published on Poésies 123: https://www.poesies123.com/en/poem-the-stall-emile-verhaeren/