# Les Aveugles · The Blind

Les Fleurs du mal · Charles Baudelaire · Parisian Scenes

Source: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/les-aveugles. Data: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/les-aveugles.json.

**1** Contemple-les, mon âme; ils sont vraiment affreux!  
Look at them, my soul; they are truly hideous!
> Imperative with attached pronoun: «Contemple» is the imperative of «contempler» ('to gaze upon, contemplate'). In an affirmative command the object pronoun follows the verb and is joined by a hyphen: «Contemple-les» = 'Gaze upon them'. The poet orders his own «âme» (soul) to look — the whole sonnet is staged as that act of looking.

**2** Pareils aux mannequins; vaguement ridicules;  
Like mannequins; vaguely ridiculous;
> «pareil à» — 'like, similar to': «pareil à» means 'like, similar to', and «à» contracts with «les» to give «aux»: «pareils aux mannequins» = 'like mannequins'. The adjective «pareils» is masculine plural, agreeing with «ils» (the blind men) — the first of a chain of comparisons that drains them of life, likening them to shop-window dummies.

**3** Terribles, singuliers comme les somnambules;  
Terrible, strange as sleepwalkers;

**4** Dardant on ne sait où leurs globes ténébreux.  
Aiming who knows where their darkened eyes.
> darder (v.); globe (m.): «darder» is to dart, hurl, or aim (as one would a «dard», a dart or sting); the present participle «dardant» opens the line with the action. «leurs globes ténébreux» — literally 'their shadowy globes' — are the eyeballs, dark because sightless. The blind aim their dead eyes «on ne sait où», 'no one knows where'.


**5** Leurs yeux, d'où la divine étincelle est partie,  
Their eyes, from which the divine spark has departed,
> Relative «d'où» + «partir» (être): «d'où» means 'from which' («de» + «où»), here pointing back to «yeux» (eyes). «partir» ('to leave, depart') takes «être» in compound tenses, so the past participle agrees with its subject: «la divine étincelle est partie» = 'the divine spark has departed' (feminine «partie»). The light of life has gone out of these eyes.

**6** Comme s'ils regardaient au loin, restent levés  
As if they were gazing into the distance, stay raised
> «comme si» + imperfect: «comme si» ('as if') takes the imperfect to set up an unreal comparison: «comme s'ils regardaient au loin» = 'as if they were looking into the distance'. The blind cannot see, yet their lifted eyes counterfeit the gaze of someone watching the horizon — the pathos turns on this 'as if'.

**7** Au ciel; on ne les voit jamais vers les pavés  
Toward the sky; one never sees them, toward the paving-stones,

**8** Pencher rêveusement leur tête appesantie.  
dreamily bow their heavy heads.
> appesanti — weighed down: «appesanti» is the past participle of «appesantir», 'to make heavy, to weigh down'; «leur tête appesantie» = 'their heavy-laden head'. The verb «pencher» ('to bow, to tilt') governs across lines 3–4: the blind never tilt their weighted heads down toward the «pavés» (paving-stones), as a brooding, sighted person would. They keep their faces turned up, toward an empty sky.


**9** Ils traversent ainsi le noir illimité,  
Thus they cross the limitless dark,

**10** Ce frère du silence éternel. Ô cité!  
that brother of eternal silence. O city!
> Appositive «ce frère»: «Ce frère du silence éternel» ('this brother of eternal silence') stands in apposition to «le noir illimité» from the line before — the limitless dark is recast as the kin of an everlasting silence. The blackness the blind walk through is figured as death's sibling, deepening their walk into something more than a stroll across the city.

**11** Pendant qu'autour de nous tu chantes, ris et beugles,  
while all around us you sing, laugh and bellow,
> «pendant que» + present; «beugler»: «pendant que» ('while') introduces a clause of simultaneous time, here in the present: «tu chantes, ris et beugles» = 'you sing, laugh and bellow'. The «tu» is the «cité» (city), addressed directly. «beugler» is to bellow or low like cattle — a coarse, animal noise set against the blind men's silence.


**12** Eprise du plaisir jusqu'à l'atrocité,  
Smitten with pleasure to the point of atrocity,
> épris(e) de — enamored of: «épris de» means 'smitten with, enamored of' (past participle of «s'éprendre», 'to fall in love'). The feminine «éprise» agrees with «cité» (city) from the previous stanza: the city is 'in love with pleasure'. «jusqu'à l'atrocité» — 'to the point of atrocity' — pushes that craving past delight into something monstrous.

**13** Vois! je me traîne aussi! mais, plus qu'eux hébété,  
Look! I too drag myself along! but, more dazed than they,
> Pronominal «se traîner»: «se traîner» is a pronominal (reflexive) verb, 'to drag oneself, to crawl along'; «je me traîne» = 'I drag myself'. The reflexive «me» turns «traîner» ('to drag' something) onto the speaker himself. With «aussi» ('too') the poet places himself among the blind — a fellow groper through the dark.
> hébété — dazed, stupefied: «hébété» means 'dazed, stupefied, dulled' (as by shock or exhaustion). «plus qu'eux hébété» = 'more dazed than they' — the comparative «plus ... que» measures the poet against the blind men and finds him worse off: he sees, yet wanders more bewildered than the sightless.

**14** Je dis: Que cherchent-ils au Ciel, tous ces aveugles?  
I say: What do they seek in Heaven, all these blind men?
> Interrogative inversion: The closing question uses subject-verb inversion: «Que cherchent-ils...?» = 'What do they seek...?', with the pronoun «ils» placed after the verb «cherchent» and linked by a hyphen. The capitalized «Ciel» ('Heaven', not merely the sky) lifts the question to a metaphysical one: the blind tilt their dead eyes upward, and the poet asks what any of us hopes to find there.

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