# Les Sept Vieillards · The Seven Old Men

Les Fleurs du mal · Charles Baudelaire · Parisian Scenes

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

**1** À Victor Hugo  
To Victor Hugo


**2** Fourmillante cité, cité pleine de rêves,  
Swarming city, city full of dreams,

**3** Où le spectre en plein jour raccroche le passant!  
where the specter in broad daylight accosts the passer-by!

**4** Les mystères partout coulent comme des sèves  
Mysteries everywhere flow like sap

**5** Dans les canaux étroits du colosse puissant.  
in the narrow channels of the mighty colossus.


**6** Un matin, cependant que dans la triste rue  
One morning, while in the dismal street
> cependant que = pendant que: «cependant que» is a literary conjunction meaning 'while, during the time that' — equivalent to «pendant que» / «tandis que». It launches a long suspended clause; the main verb «M'apparut» does not arrive until two stanzas later.

**7** Les maisons, dont la brume allongeait la hauteur,  
the houses, whose height the fog stretched taller,
> «dont» for possession: «dont» = 'of which / whose'. «les maisons dont la brume allongeait la hauteur» unpacks as 'the houses, the height of which the fog was lengthening'. French keeps the normal word order «la brume allongeait la hauteur» after «dont», where English inverts to 'whose height the fog stretched'.

**8** Simulaient les deux quais d'une rivière accrue,  
feigned the two banks of a swollen river,

**9** Et que, décor semblable à l'âme de l'acteur,  
and while, a set matching the soul of the actor,


**10** Un brouillard sale et jaune inondait tout l'espace,  
a dirty yellow fog was flooding all the space,

**11** Je suivais, roidissant mes nerfs comme un héros  
I was following, stiffening my nerves like a hero

**12** Et discutant avec mon âme déjà lasse,  
and arguing with my already weary soul,

**13** Le faubourg secoué par les lourds tombereaux.  
the suburb shaken by the heavy tip-carts.


**14** Tout à coup, un vieillard dont les guenilles jaunes  
All at once, an old man whose yellow rags

**15** Imitaient la couleur de ce ciel pluvieux,  
mimicked the color of that rainy sky,

**16** Et dont l'aspect aurait fait pleuvoir les aumônes,  
and whose look would have made the alms rain down,
> Conditional + faire + infinitive: «aurait fait pleuvoir» = 'would have made rain' — the past conditional of «faire» plus an infinitive (the causative: 'to make something happen'). It sets up the cruel reversal of the next line: his pitiable look would have made alms rain down, were it not for the malice in his eyes.

**17** Sans la méchanceté qui luisait dans ses yeux,  
but for the malice that gleamed in his eyes,


**18** M'apparut. On eût dit sa prunelle trempée  
appeared to me. One would have said his eye was steeped
> «on eût dit» (past conditional): «eût dit» is the past conditional (literary second form, identical to the pluperfect subjunctive) of «dire». «On eût dit…» = «on aurait dit…» = 'one would have said / you'd have thought…' — a fixed way of introducing a vivid comparison or impression.

**19** Dans le fiel; son regard aiguisait les frimas,  
in gall; his gaze sharpened the frost,

**20** Et sa barbe à longs poils, roide comme une épée,  
and his beard of long bristles, stiff as a sword,

**21** Se projetait, pareille à celle de Judas.  
jutted out, like that of Judas.


**22** Il n'était pas voûté, mais cassé, son échine  
He was not stooped, but broken, his spine

**23** Faisant avec sa jambe un parfait angle droit,  
making with his leg a perfect right angle,

**24** Si bien que son bâton, parachevant sa mine,  
so that his stick, completing his figure,
> si bien que = so that (result): «si bien que» introduces a clause of result: 'so that, with the result that'. The broken right angle of the body, plus the stick, produces the consequence in the next lines — the awkward gait of a crippled quadruped.

**25** Lui donnait la tournure et le pas maladroit  
gave him the bearing and the clumsy step


**26** D'un quadrupède infirme ou d'un juif à trois pattes.  
of a crippled quadruped or a three-legged Jew.

**27** Dans la neige et la boue il allait s'empêtrant,  
Through the snow and the mud he went floundering,
> aller + present participle: «aller» + present participle expresses a continuous, ongoing action: «il allait s'empêtrant» = 'he kept getting entangled / went floundering along'. «s'empêtrer» is reflexive ('to get oneself tangled up'), here in the snow and mud.

**28** Comme s'il écrasait des morts sous ses savates,  
as if he were crushing the dead beneath his slippers,
> comme si + imperfect: «comme si» ('as if') takes the imperfect for an unreal present comparison: «comme s'il écrasait des morts» = 'as if he were crushing the dead'. The hypothetical image turns his shuffling walk into a desecration.

**29** Hostile à l'univers plutôt qu'indifférent.  
hostile to the universe rather than indifferent.


**30** Son pareil le suivait: barbe, oeil, dos, bâton, loques,  
His double followed him: beard, eye, back, stick, rags,

**31** Nul trait ne distinguait, du même enfer venu,  
No feature set apart, come from the same hell,

**32** Ce jumeau centenaire, et ces spectres baroques  
this hundred-year-old twin, and these grotesque specters

**33** Marchaient du même pas vers un but inconnu.  
walked with the same step toward an unknown goal.


**34** À quel complot infâme étais-je donc en butte,  
To what vile plot was I then exposed,

**35** Ou quel méchant hasard ainsi m'humiliait?  
or what malicious chance was humiliating me so?

**36** Car je comptai sept fois, de minute en minute,  
For I counted seven times, from minute to minute,
> passé simple: «comptai» is the passé simple (literary past) of «compter». Used for a single completed action in narration: 'I counted'. The tense, reserved for written storytelling, gives the count of the multiplying old man the finality of fact.

**37** Ce sinistre vieillard qui se multipliait!  
this sinister old man who kept multiplying himself!
> se multiplier (reflexive): «se multiplier» = 'to multiply, to proliferate' (reflexive). The imperfect «se multipliait» gives the horror its duration — not one duplication but a continuous breeding, the same old man counted seven times over.


**38** Que celui-là qui rit de mon inquiétude  
Let him who laughs at my unease
> «Que» + subjunctive (third-person command): «Que» plus the subjunctive forms a third-person imperative: 'let him…, may he…'. The subject «celui-là qui rit… et qui n'est pas saisi» is long, and the verb «Songe» (subjunctive of «songer», 'to consider') arrives only at the start of the third line: 'Let him who laughs… consider well…'.

**39** Et qui n'est pas saisi d'un frisson fraternel  
and is not gripped by a brotherly shudder

**40** Songe bien que malgré tant de décrépitude  
consider well that, despite such decrepitude,

**41** Ces sept monstres hideux avaient l'air éternel!  
these seven hideous monsters looked eternal!


**42** Aurais-je, sans mourir, contemplé le huitième,  
Could I, without dying, have beheld the eighth,
> Past conditional in a question: «Aurais-je contemplé…?» is the past conditional with subject-verb inversion: 'would I have contemplated…?'. It poses an unreal, dreaded hypothesis — whether he could have looked on an eighth old man and survived it.

**43** Sosie inexorable, ironique et fatal  
an inexorable double, ironic and fatal,

**44** Dégoûtant Phénix, fils et père de lui-même?  
disgusting Phoenix, son and father of himself?

**45** — Mais je tournai le dos au cortège infernal.  
— But I turned my back on the infernal procession.


**46** Exaspéré comme un ivrogne qui voit double,  
Exasperated like a drunkard who sees double,

**47** Je rentrai, je fermai ma porte, épouvanté,  
I went home, I shut my door, terrified,

**48** Malade et morfondu, l'esprit fiévreux et trouble,  
sick and downcast, my mind feverish and clouded,

**49** Blessé par le mystère et par l'absurdité!  
wounded by the mystery and by the absurdity!


**50** Vainement ma raison voulait prendre la barre;  
In vain my reason tried to take the helm;

**51** La tempête en jouant déroutait ses efforts,  
the tempest, in its play, threw off its efforts,

**52** Et mon âme dansait, dansait, vieille gabarre  
and my soul danced, danced, an old barge
> une gabarre: «une gabarre» is a flat-bottomed cargo barge, clumsy and unglamorous. The soul as a «vieille gabarre / Sans mâts» — an old, mastless barge tossed on a monstrous shoreless sea — closes the poem on helpless, undignified drifting.

**53** Sans mâts, sur une mer monstrueuse et sans bords!  
without masts, on a sea monstrous and without shores!

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