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I took as master, one day, a harsh mistress,
More feral than a jaguar, more russet than a lion!
I loved her ardently, fiercely, without tenderness,
With possession more than adoration!
It was my rage, mine! the last madness
That seizes, ? when, touched by age and misfortune,
One feels deep within the youth finished…
For the sun of days still rises in life,
While it goes down in the heart!
I loved her and never had enough of her!
I said to her: “Demon of last loves,
Salamander of hell, with mortal intoxication,
When hearts are so cold, set me ablaze forever!
Pour into me in your fires the fires I regret,
Those beautiful fires I once kindled with a glance!
Rejuvenate the dreamer, warm the poet,
And, since one must die, let me die, O Girl!
Under your jaguar bites!”
Then I would take her, in her glass corset,
And on my burning lip, which she still inflamed,
I loved to tilt her, ardent and light cup,
This red-haired beauty, this poison in gold!
And there were kisses!… Never, never a vampire
Sucked from a child the charming and fresh neck
As I sucked, O my red-haired hetaera,
The crystal lip where my delirium drank
And on which you burned!
And I felt then your thunderous breath
That passed into mine and, falling into my heart,
Doubled life there, erased the pain,
And for a few moments revived its ardor!
Then, Daughter of Fire, mistress without rival,
I loved to feel myself set on fire by you
And wanted to fall asleep, joyful air, pale brow,
On a shining pyre, like Sardanapalus,
And the pyre was within me!
“Ah! at least that one knows how to remain faithful to us, ?
I said to myself, ? and the hand always finds her again,
Always ready for whoever loves her and lives thirsting for her,
And wants in his love to lose all his loves!”
One day they go away, our dearest mistresses;
Through them, from Oblivion we drink the poison,
While this Red-Haired One, indomitable to caresses,
Can also kill us, ? but by force of intoxications,
And not by betrayal!
And I preferred her, ferocious, but sincere,
To those sweet beauties, with deceitful smile,
Paying loyal hearts with a forger’s love!…
I knew on what heart I slept on her heart!
The gold she poured into me and which gilded my life,
Sunlit in my cup, was a true treasure!
So it was not for the time of an orgy,
But for eternity, that I had chosen her:
My companion until death!
And always clasped to me like a slave,
For the tyrant rivets himself to the irons he makes others bear,
I carried her everywhere in her flask of lava,
My topaz of fire, always near to bursting!
I felt for her a corsair’s love,
A savage’s love, unrestrained, mad, ardent!
That love which Hégésippe had, in his misery,
Which takes the place of everything for us, when life is bitter,
And which made Sheridan die!
And it was a love always more implacable,
Always more devouring, always more senseless!
It was like thirst, the inexorable thirst
That once kindled the philter of Circe.
I recognized you, voluptuous torment!
When man seeks, alas! in his forgotten ills,
The monstrous delight of stupefaction…
And is ? Circe! ? never enough, for his whim,
The Beast that licks your feet!
Poor love, ? the last, ? that the happy of the world,
In their haughty disgust, amuse themselves by withering,
But that every slightly deep soul must excuse
And that a God of goodness will not want to punish!
To appreciate well its deceptive sweetness,
One would need, when everything shines on the ceiling of the banquet,
To have hidden one’s eyes in the shadow of one’s glass
And wept in that shadow, – and drunk the bitter tear
That fell and melted there!
One evening I was drinking it, that tear, in silence…
And, plunging my lip again between your golden lips,
I had just taken back, O my dark Madness!
Irony, and intoxication, and courage still!
The Spirit ? the Avenging Eagle that hovers over life ?
Was returning to my lip, to its bloody perch…
I was going to begin again my fits of madness
And laugh again with the laugh that defies…
When a woman, in black corset,
A woman… I thought it was a woman,
But since… Ah! I have seen how much I was mistaken,
And that it was an Angel, and that it was a soul,
Of refreshment, of light and of peace!
In the midst of us all, charming solitary,
She had eyes full of all mercies.
She took her white gloves and put them in my glass,
And said to me laughing, in her soft and clear voice
“I no longer want you to drink!”
And that simple word decided my life,
And was the stroke of God that changed my destiny.
And when she said it, sure of being obeyed,
Her hand came chastely to rest on my hand.
And, since that time, I went to seek intoxication
Elsewhere… than in the cup where your poison boiled,
Abandoned witch! O my Red-Haired Mistress!!!
Fine example more that God in his wisdom,
Put the angel above the demon!
In Paris, November 11, 1854.
Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly
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-red-haired-mistress-jules-barbey-d-aurevilly/