Français
Español
Italiano
Deutsch
Português
To Victor Hugo
I
In the sinuous folds of old capitals,
Where everything, even horror, turns to enchantment,
I watch, obedient to my fatal moods,
For singular beings, decrepit and charming.
These disjointed monsters were once women,
Eponine or Lais! Broken monsters, hunchbacked
Or twisted, let us love them! they are still souls.
Under torn petticoats and under cold fabrics
They crawl, scourged by the iniquitous north winds,
Trembling at the rolling din of omnibuses,
And pressing to their flank, like relics,
A little bag embroidered with flowers or rebuses;
They trot, just like marionettes;
Drag themselves, as wounded animals do,
Or dance, without wanting to dance, poor little bells
On which hangs a pitiless Demon! All broken
As they are, they have eyes piercing as an awl,
Shining like those holes where water sleeps in the night;
They have the divine eyes of the little girl
Who marvels and laughs at everything that glitters.
– Have you observed that many coffins of old women
Are almost as small as a child’s?
Knowing Death places in these identical biers
A symbol of bizarre and captivating taste,
And when I glimpse a feeble phantom
Crossing the swarming picture of Paris,
It always seems to me that this fragile being
Is going very gently toward a new cradle;
Unless, meditating on geometry,
I seek, at the sight of these discordant limbs,
How many times the worker must vary
The shape of the box in which all these bodies are put.
– These eyes are wells made of a million tears,
Crucibles that a cooled metal flecked…
These mysterious eyes have invincible charms
For him whom austere Misfortune suckled!
II
Of defunct Frascati enamored Vestal;
Priestess of Thalia, alas! whose prompter,
Buried, knows the name; celebrated scatterbrain
Whom Tivoli once shaded in its flower,
All intoxicate me; but among these frail beings
There are some who, making honey from sorrow,
Have said to Devotion, which lent them its wings:
Powerful Hippogriff, carry me up to heaven!
One, by her homeland inured to misfortune,
The other, whom her husband overloaded with sorrows,
The other, by her child a pierced Madonna,
All could have made a river with their tears!
III
Ah! how many of these little old women I have followed!
One, among others, at the hour when the setting sun
Bloodies the sky with vermilion wounds,
Pensive, sat apart on a bench,
To hear one of those concerts, rich in brass,
With which soldiers sometimes flood our gardens,
And which, in those golden evenings when one feels alive again,
Pour some heroism into the hearts of city dwellers.
That one, still upright, proud and mindful of rule,
Drank in eagerly that lively and warlike song;
Her eye sometimes opened like the eye of an old eagle;
Her marble brow seemed made for the laurel!
IV
Thus you walk, stoic and without complaints,
Through the chaos of living cities,
Mothers with bleeding hearts, courtesans or saints,
Whose names were once on everyone’s lips.
You who were grace or who were glory,
No one recognizes you! an uncivil drunkard
Insults you in passing with a derisive love;
A cowardly and vile child gambols at your heels.
Ashamed to exist, shriveled shadows,
Fearful, backs bent, you skirt the walls;
And no one greets you, strange destinies!
Debris of humanity ripe for eternity!
But I, I who from afar tenderly watch over you,
With anxious eye fixed on your uncertain steps,
Just as if I were your father, O marvel!
I taste, without your knowing, clandestine pleasures:
I see your new passions blossom;
Dark or luminous, I live your lost days;
My multiplied heart rejoices in all your vices!
My soul shines with all your virtues!
Ruins! my family! O kindred brains!
I bid you each evening a solemn farewell!
Where will you be tomorrow, octogenarian Eves,
On whom weighs the frightful claw of God?
Charles Baudelaire
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-little-old-women-charles-baudelaire/