# Un Fantôme · A Phantom

Les Fleurs du mal · Charles Baudelaire · Spleen and Ideal

Source: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/un-fantome. Data: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/un-fantome.json.

**1** I Les Ténèbres  
I The Shadows
> ténèbres (f. pl.): «ténèbres» is a plural-only noun meaning thick, total darkness — deeper and more literary than «obscurité». It carries a moral and funereal charge (the darkness of the tomb, of damnation), which is why the painter is condemned to paint «sur les ténèbres», on darkness itself.


**2** Dans les caveaux d'insondable tristesse  
In the vaults of unfathomable sadness

**3** Où le Destin m'a déjà relégué;  
where Destiny has already banished me;

**4** Où jamais n'entre un rayon rose et gai;  
where never enters a ray rosy and gay;

**5** Où, seul avec la Nuit, maussade hôtesse,  
where, alone with Night, that sullen hostess,
> maussade: «maussade» = 'sullen, surly, glum'. The personified Night is the poet's «hôtesse» (hostess), and a grim one — the adjective placed before the noun heightens the gloom and sets up the sentence whose main verb («brille») will not arrive until two stanzas later.


**6** Je suis comme un peintre qu'un Dieu moqueur  
I am like a painter whom a mocking God

**7** Condamne à peindre, hélas! sur les ténèbres;  
condemns to paint, alas! upon the shadows;

**8** Où, cuisinier aux appétits funèbres,  
where, a cook with funereal appetites,

**9** Je fais bouillir et je mange mon coeur,  
I boil and I eat my own heart,
> faire + infinitive (causative): «faire» + infinitive means 'to make / cause something to happen': «je fais bouillir» = 'I make (it) boil', i.e. 'I boil'. The cook causes the boiling, then eats the result — his own «coeur» — turning despair into a grotesque self-cannibalism.


**10** Par instants brille, et s'allonge, et s'étale  
At moments there gleams, and stretches, and spreads
> Pronominal verbs «s'allonger / s'étaler»: Both are reflexive (pronominal): «s'allonger» = 'to stretch / lengthen oneself' and «s'étaler» = 'to spread out, sprawl'. The triple verb «brille… s'allonge… s'étale» belongs to «Un spectre» in the next line — French freely places the subject after a string of verbs, so read the spectre as the thing that gleams and unfurls.

**11** Un spectre fait de grâce et de splendeur.  
a spectre made of grace and splendor.

**12** À sa rêveuse allure orientale,  
By its dreamy oriental bearing,

**13** Quand il atteint sa totale grandeur,  
when it attains its total grandeur,

**14** Je reconnais ma belle visiteuse:  
I recognize my beautiful visitor:


**15** C'est Elle! noire et pourtant lumineuse.  
It is She! dark and yet luminous.
> pourtant: «pourtant» = 'yet, nevertheless'. The closing oxymoron — «noire et pourtant lumineuse», dark and yet luminous — defines the whole phantom: a radiant figure rising out of total darkness. It is the volta of this first sonnet, the apparition the long sentence has been building toward.


**16** II Le Parfum  
II The Perfume


**17** Lecteur, as-tu quelquefois respiré  
Reader, have you sometimes breathed in,
> Interrogative inversion in the passé composé: A yes/no question by inversion: subject pronoun «tu» flips behind the auxiliary «as», giving «as-tu… respiré?» = 'have you breathed?'. An adverb like «quelquefois» ('sometimes') slips between the auxiliary and the past participle, as it does here.

**18** Avec ivresse et lente gourmandise  
with intoxication and slow greed,

**19** Ce grain d'encens qui remplit une église,  
that grain of incense which fills a church,

**20** Ou d'un sachet le musc invétéré?  
or, from a sachet, the inveterate musk?


**21** Charme profond, magique, dont nous grise  
Deep, magical charm, with which there intoxicates us
> Relative «dont» + «griser»: «dont» is the relative meaning 'with / of which', standing for the «charme». «griser» = 'to make tipsy, to intoxicate'; «nous» is its object. Word order is inverted for the verse: «dont nous grise… le passé restauré» = 'with which the restored past intoxicates us'.

**22** Dans le présent le passé restauré!  
in the present the restored past!

**23** Ainsi l'amant sur un corps adoré  
Thus the lover, on an adored body,

**24** Du souvenir cueille la fleur exquise.  
plucks from memory the exquisite flower.


**25** De ses cheveux élastiques et lourds,  
From her hair, springy and heavy,

**26** Vivant sachet, encensoir de l'alcôve,  
a living sachet, a censer of the alcove,
> encensoir (m.): «encensoir» is the swinging censer that scatters incense in church. Applied to the beloved's hair, the sacred object is carried into the «alcôve» (the bedroom recess) — the recurring fusion of the liturgical and the erotic that runs through this whole quatrain.

**27** Une senteur montait, sauvage et fauve,  
a scent would rise, savage and wild,


**28** Et des habits, mousseline ou velours,  
And from her clothes, muslin or velvet,

**29** Tout imprégnés de sa jeunesse pure,  
all steeped in her pure youth,

**30** Se dégageait un parfum de fourrure.  
there breathed forth a perfume of fur.
> Pronominal «se dégager» + inverted subject: «se dégager» = 'to be released, to emanate'. The verb opens the line and the real subject, «un parfum de fourrure», follows it — a common verse inversion. Read it as 'a perfume of fur emanated', the scent rising off the worn fabric.


**31** III Le Cadre  
III The Frame


**32** Comme un beau cadre ajoute à la peinture,  
As a fine frame adds to a painting,

**33** Bien qu'elle soit d'un pinceau très-vanté,  
though it be by a much-praised brush,
> «bien que» + subjunctive: «bien que» ('although') always governs the subjunctive: «soit» is the present subjunctive of «être». «Bien qu'elle soit d'un pinceau très-vanté» = 'although it [the painting] be by a much-praised brush' — even a masterpiece is set off by its frame.

**34** Je ne sais quoi d'étrange et d'enchanté  
an I-know-not-what of strangeness and enchantment,
> un je-ne-sais-quoi: «je ne sais quoi» — literally 'I don't know what' — is a fixed expression for an indefinable, elusive quality. The frame lends the painting «je ne sais quoi d'étrange et d'enchanté», a strange, enchanted something, by isolating it from the vastness of nature.

**35** En l'isolant de l'immense nature,  
by isolating it from the immense expanse of nature,


**36** Ainsi bijoux, meubles, métaux, dorure,  
so jewels, furniture, metals, gilding,

**37** S'adaptaient juste à sa rare beauté;  
fitted themselves exactly to her rare beauty;

**38** Rien n'offusquait sa parfaite clarté,  
nothing dimmed her perfect brightness,
> offusquer: Today «offusquer» means 'to offend, to shock', but in its older, literal sense — the one Baudelaire uses — it means 'to darken, to obscure, to overshadow'. «Rien n'offusquait sa parfaite clarté» = 'nothing dimmed her perfect brightness'.

**39** Et tout semblait lui servir de bordure.  
and everything seemed to serve her as a border.


**40** Même on eût dit parfois qu'elle croyait  
One might even have said at times that she believed
> «on eût dit» (past conditional): «eût dit» is the past conditional (literary form, here in the «-eût» subjunctive shape): 'one would have said'. The idiom «on eût dit que…» means 'it was as if…', conveying a strong impression. The circumflex distinguishes «eût» (imparfait du subjonctif of avoir) from «eut» (passé simple of avoir, 3rd-person singular), which are homophones differing only in spelling.

**41** Que tout voulait l'aimer; elle noyait  
that everything longed to love her; she drowned

**42** Sa nudité voluptueusement  
her nakedness voluptuously


**43** Dans les baisers du satin et du linge,  
in the kisses of satin and of linen,

**44** Et, lente ou brusque, à chaque mouvement  
and, slow or abrupt, with each movement

**45** Montrait la grâce enfantine du singe.  
she showed the childlike grace of the monkey.
> le singe: «singe» = 'monkey, ape'. The startling final image likens the beloved's supple movements to a monkey's «grâce enfantine», childlike grace — playful and faintly animal at once. Baudelaire keeps the same simian comparison in «Au Lecteur», where vice has its menagerie.


**46** IV Le Portrait  
IV The Portrait


**47** La Maladie et la Mort font des cendres  
Sickness and Death make ashes

**48** De tout le feu qui pour nous flamboya.  
of all the fire that blazed for us.
> passé simple «flamboya»: «flamboya» is the passé simple (literary past tense) of «flamboyer», 'to blaze'. The passé simple seals the action as finished and remote — the fire «flamboya», blazed and is over — fitting the elegy: every flame of that love is now reduced to ash.

**49** De ces grands yeux si fervents et si tendres,  
Of those great eyes so fervent and so tender,

**50** De cette bouche où mon coeur se noya,  
of that mouth where my heart drowned,
> Pronominal «se noyer» in the passé simple: «se noyer» = 'to drown (oneself)', a pronominal verb; «se noya» is its passé simple. «mon coeur se noya» = 'my heart drowned'. The anaphora «De ces… De cette… De ces…» piles up everything now lost before the question «Que reste-t-il?» finally arrives.


**51** De ces baisers puissants comme un dictame,  
Of those kisses potent as a balm,
> le dictame: «dictame» is dittany, an aromatic herb prized since antiquity for healing wounds; by extension it means a soothing balm or remedy. The kisses are «puissants comme un dictame» — potent as a balm — a cure now lost to sickness and death.

**52** De ces transports plus vifs que des rayons,  
of those raptures more vivid than sunbeams,

**53** Que reste-t-il? C'est affreux, ô mon âme!  
what remains? It is dreadful, O my soul!
> Impersonal «il reste» + inversion: «il reste» is impersonal — 'there remains'. As a question it inverts to «reste-t-il?», with the euphonic «-t-» inserted between two vowels. «Que reste-t-il?» = 'what remains?' — the hinge of the sonnet, turning from the catalogue of splendors to the meager answer that follows.

**54** Rien qu'un dessin fort pâle, aux trois crayons,  
Nothing but a very pale drawing, in three crayons,


**55** Qui, comme moi, meurt dans la solitude,  
which, like me, is dying in solitude,

**56** Et que le Temps, injurieux vieillard,  
and which Time, that insulting old man,

**57** Chaque jour frotte avec son aile rude...  
each day rubs away with his coarse wing...


**58** Noir assassin de la Vie et de l'Art,  
Black assassin of Life and of Art,

**59** Tu ne tueras jamais dans ma mémoire  
you will never kill within my memory
> Future tense + «ne… jamais»: «tueras» is the simple future of «tuer», 'to kill'; the negation «ne… jamais» = 'never'. Addressed to Time, «Tu ne tueras jamais» = 'you will never kill' — the defiant vow that closes the sequence: memory outlasts the assassin.

**60** Celle qui fut mon plaisir et ma gloire!  
her who was my pleasure and my glory!
> Demonstrative «celle» + passé simple «fut»: «celle» = 'she, the one (feminine)', here the object of «tueras». «fut» is the passé simple of «être», 'was'. «Celle qui fut mon plaisir et ma gloire» = 'she who was my pleasure and my glory' — the beloved, named only by what she was, saved from Time in the poet's memory.

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