No More Learning

These indeed are the eyes whose flame pierces the twilight; the subtle
and terrible mirrors that I recognise by their horrifying malice. They
attract, they dominate, they devour the sight of whomsoever is imprudent
enough to look at them. I have often studied them; these Black Stars
that compel curiosity and admiration.

To what benevolent demon, then, do I owe being thus surrounded with
mystery, with silence, with peace, and sweet odours? O beatitude! the
thing we name life, even in its most fortunate amplitude, has nothing in
common with this supreme life with which I am now acquainted, which I
taste minute by minute, second by second.

Not so! Minutes are no more; seconds are no more. Time has vanished, and
Eternity reigns--an Eternity of delight.

A heavy and terrible knocking reverberates upon the door, and, as in a
hellish dream, it seems to me as though I had received a blow from a
mattock.

Then a Spectre enters: it is an usher who comes to torture me in the
name of the Law; an infamous concubine who comes to cry misery and to
add the trivialities of her life to the sorrow of mine; or it may be the
errand-boy of an editor who comes to implore the remainder of a
manuscript.

The chamber of paradise, the Idol, the ruler of dreams, the Sylphide, as
the great Rene said; all this magic has vanished at the brutal knocking
of the Spectre.

Horror; I remember, I remember! Yes, this kennel, this habitation of
eternal weariness, is indeed my own. Here is my senseless furniture,
dusty and tattered; the dirty fireplace without a flame or an ember; the
sad windows where the raindrops have traced runnels in the dust; the
manuscripts, erased or unfinished; the almanac with the sinister days
marked off with a pencil!
And this perfume of another world, whereof I intoxicated myself with a
so perfected sensitiveness; alas, its place is taken by an odour of
stale tobacco smoke, mingled with I know not what nauseating mustiness.
Now one breathes here the rankness of desolation.

In this narrow world, narrow and yet full of disgust, a single familiar
object smiles at me: the phial of laudanum: old and terrible love; like
all loves, alas! fruitful in caresses and treacheries.

Yes, Time has reappeared; Time reigns a monarch now; and with the
hideous Ancient has returned all his demoniacal following of Memories,
Regrets, Tremors, Fears, Dolours, Nightmares, and twittering nerves.

I assure you that the seconds are strongly and solemnly accentuated now;
and each, as it drips from the pendulum, says: "I am Life: intolerable,
implacable Life! "

There is not a second in mortal life whose mission it is to bear good
news: the good news that brings the inexplicable tear to the eye.

Yes, Time reigns; Time has regained his brutal mastery. And he goads me,
as though I were a steer, with his double goad: "Woa, thou fool! Sweat,
then, thou slave! Live on, thou damned! "




AT ONE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING.


Alone at last! Nothing is to be heard but the rattle of a few tardy and
tired-out cabs. There will be silence now, if not repose, for several
hours at least. At last the tyranny of the human face has disappeared--I
shall not suffer except alone.