Au Lecteur

Folly, error, sin, and stinginess

occupy our minds and work upon our bodies,

and we feed our agreeable remorse,

as beggars nourish their vermin.

we have ourselves richly paid for our confessions,

and we return gaily down the miry road,

believing that base tears wash away all our stains.

who long lulls our enchanted spirit,

and the rich metal of our will

is wholly vaporized by that learned chemist.

In repugnant objects we find allurements;

each day toward Hell we descend one step,

without horror, through stinking darknesses.

the martyred breast of some ancient whore,

we steal in passing a clandestine pleasure

that we squeeze hard like an old orange.

a people of Demons carouses in our brains,

and, when we breathe, Death into our lungs

descends, an invisible river, with muffled moans.

have not yet embroidered with their pleasing designs

the banal canvas of our pitiable destinies,

it is that our soul, alas! is not bold enough.

the apes, the scorpions, the vultures, the serpents,

the yelping, howling, growling, crawling monsters,

in the infamous menagerie of our vices,

Though it makes neither grand gestures nor grand cries,

it would gladly make of the earth a heap of rubble

and in a single yawn would swallow the world;

he dreams of scaffolds while smoking his hookah.

You know him, reader, this dainty monster,

— hypocrite reader, — my likeness, — my brother!