# Au Lecteur · To the Reader

Les Fleurs du mal · Charles Baudelaire · To the Reader

Source: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/au-lecteur. Data: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/au-lecteur.json.

**1** La sottise, l'erreur, le péché, la lésine,  
Folly, error, sin, and stinginess

**2** Occupent nos esprits et travaillent nos corps,  
occupy our minds and work upon our bodies,

**3** Et nous alimentons nos aimables remords,  
and we feed our agreeable remorse,
> alimenter / aimable: «alimenter» = 'to feed, to nourish'; «aimable» usually means 'kind, amiable'. The yoking of «aimables remords» — 'agreeable remorse' — is deliberately perverse: we cherish and fatten our guilt rather than be rid of it.

**4** Comme les mendiants nourrissent leur vermine.  
as beggars nourish their vermin.


**5** Nos péchés sont têtus, nos repentirs sont lâches;  
Our sins are stubborn, our repentances cowardly;

**6** Nous nous faisons payer grassement nos aveux,  
we have ourselves richly paid for our confessions,
> se faire + infinitive (causative): «se faire payer» = 'to get oneself paid / to have oneself paid'. The reflexive «se» plus «faire» + infinitive is the causative: the subject has an action done. «Nous nous faisons payer nos aveux» = 'we have ourselves paid for our confessions' — we extract a price for confessing.

**7** Et nous rentrons gaiement dans le chemin bourbeux,  
and we return gaily down the miry road,

**8** Croyant par de vils pleurs laver toutes nos taches.  
believing that base tears wash away all our stains.


**9** Sur l'oreiller du mal c'est Satan Trismégiste  
On the pillow of evil it is Satan Trismegistus

**10** Qui berce longuement notre esprit enchanté,  
who long lulls our enchanted spirit,

**11** Et le riche métal de notre volonté  
and the rich metal of our will

**12** Est tout vaporisé par ce savant chimiste.  
is wholly vaporized by that learned chemist.


**13** C'est le Diable qui tient les fils qui nous remuent!  
It is the Devil who holds the strings that move us!
> Relative «qui» + object pronoun: «qui» is the subject relative ('that/which'), here standing for «les fils» (the strings). «nous» is the object: «les fils qui nous remuent» = 'the strings that move us'. The Devil is the puppeteer; we are the marionettes.

**14** Aux objets répugnants nous trouvons des appas;  
In repugnant objects we find allurements;

**15** Chaque jour vers l'Enfer nous descendons d'un pas,  
each day toward Hell we descend one step,

**16** Sans horreur, à travers des ténèbres qui puent.  
without horror, through stinking darknesses.


**17** Ainsi qu'un débauché pauvre qui baise et mange  
Like a poor debauchee who kisses and devours

**18** Le sein martyrisé d'une antique catin,  
the martyred breast of some ancient whore,

**19** Nous volons au passage un plaisir clandestin  
we steal in passing a clandestine pleasure

**20** Que nous pressons bien fort comme une vieille orange.  
that we squeeze hard like an old orange.


**21** Serré, fourmillant, comme un million d'helminthes,  
Packed, swarming, like a million helminths,
> helminthe (m.): «helminthe» is the learned (Greek-derived) word for an intestinal worm. The clinical term, set beside «fourmillant» ('swarming'), makes the swarm of inner Demons feel like a literal parasitic infestation of the brain.

**22** Dans nos cerveaux ribote un peuple de Démons,  
a people of Demons carouses in our brains,

**23** Et, quand nous respirons, la Mort dans nos poumons  
and, when we breathe, Death into our lungs

**24** Descend, fleuve invisible, avec de sourdes plaintes.  
descends, an invisible river, with muffled moans.


**25** Si le viol, le poison, le poignard, l'incendie,  
If rape, poison, the dagger, arson

**26** N'ont pas encor brodé de leurs plaisants dessins  
have not yet embroidered with their pleasing designs

**27** Le canevas banal de nos piteux destins,  
the banal canvas of our pitiable destinies,

**28** C'est que notre âme, hélas! n'est pas assez hardie.  
it is that our soul, alas! is not bold enough.
> hardi(e): «hardi(e)» = 'bold, daring, audacious'. The twist of the stanza: we have not committed the great crimes (rape, poison, the dagger, arson) only because our soul «n'est pas assez hardie» — is not bold enough — not because we are good.


**29** Mais parmi les chacals, les panthères, les lices,  
But among the jackals, the panthers, the bitch-hounds,

**30** Les singes, les scorpions, les vautours, les serpents,  
the apes, the scorpions, the vultures, the serpents,

**31** Les monstres glapissants, hurlants, grognants, rampants,  
the yelping, howling, growling, crawling monsters,

**32** Dans la ménagerie infâme de nos vices,  
in the infamous menagerie of our vices,


**33** Il en est un plus laid, plus méchant, plus immonde!  
there is one uglier, more wicked, more unclean!
> «il en est» = il y en a: «il en est un» is a literary equivalent of «il y en a un» — 'there is one of them'. «en» refers back to the monsters of the menagerie; «il est» here is the elevated form of «il y a». So: 'among them there is one…' — and the next lines unmask it as Ennui.

**34** Quoiqu'il ne pousse ni grands gestes ni grands cris,  
Though it makes neither grand gestures nor grand cries,

**35** Il ferait volontiers de la terre un débris  
it would gladly make of the earth a heap of rubble

**36** Et dans un bâillement avalerait le monde;  
and in a single yawn would swallow the world;


**37** C'est l'Ennui! L'oeil chargé d'un pleur involontaire,  
it is Ennui! — his eye laden with an involuntary tear,
> l'Ennui: «ennui» is far stronger than English 'boredom': a soul-deep weariness, listless despair, the spleen that pervades the whole book. Capitalized and personified, it is the ugliest monster of all — the one that, yawning, would swallow the world.

**38** Il rêve d'échafauds en fumant son houka.  
he dreams of scaffolds while smoking his hookah.

**39** Tu le connais, lecteur, ce monstre délicat,  
You know him, reader, this dainty monster,

**40** — Hypocrite lecteur, — mon semblable, — mon frère!  
— hypocrite reader, — my likeness, — my brother!

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Source text: public domain (Charles Baudelaire, d. 1867). English translation: © 2026 1732 Studios, LLC — original draft, pending editorial review.