Crepuscule by Charles Baudelaire ( 1821-1867)

 

                                                                                  

 

CV

 

LE CRÉPUSCULE DU SOIR

 

Voici le soir charmant, ami du criminal;

Il vient comme un complice, à pas de loup; le ciel

Se ferme lentement comme une grande alcôve,

Et l’homme impatient se change en bête fauve.

 

O soir, aimiable soir, désiré par celui

Dont les bras, sans mentir, peuvent dire : Aujourd’hui

Nous avons travaillé! – C’est le soir qui soulage

Les ésprits que dévore une douleur sauvage,

Le savant obstiné dont le front s’alourdit,

Et l’ouvrier courbé qui regagne son lit.

 

Cependent des démons malsain dans l’atmosphère

S’éveillent lourdement, comme des gens d’affaire,

Et cognent en volant les volets et l’auvent.

A travers les lueurs que tourmente le vent

La prostituition s’allume dans les rues;

Comme une fourmilière elle ouvre ces issues;

Partout elle se fraye un occulte chemin,

Ainsi que l’enemmi qui teint un coup de main;

Elle remue au sein de la cite de fange

Comme un ver qui dérobe à l’Homme ce qu’il mange.

 

On entend çà et là les cuisines siffler,

Les théâtres glapir, les orchestres ronfler;

Les tables d’hôte, don’t le jéu les délices,

S’emplissent de catins et d’escrocs, leurs complices,

Et les vouleurs, qui n’ont ni trêve ni merci,

Vont bientôt commencer leur travail, eux aussi,

Et forcer doucement les portes et les caisses

Pour vivre quelques jours et vêtir leurs maïtresses.

 

Recueille-toi, mon âme, en ce grave moment,

Et ferme ton oreille à ce rugissement.

C’est l’heure où les douleurs des maladies s’aigrissent !

La sombre Nuit les prend à la gorge; ils finissent

Leur destinée et vont vers le gouffre commun;

L’hôpital se remplit de leurs soupirs. – Plus d’un

Ne viendra plus chercher la soupe parfumée,

Au coin du feu, le soir, auprés d’une âme aimée.

 

Encore la plupart n’ont-ils jamais connu

La douceur du foyer et n’ont jamais vécu !

 

  

 

 

 

 

CV[i]

 

CREPUSCULE

 

 

Here is Night full of charms, a friend to the criminal;

Like a wolf, it comes like an accomplice; the sky

Closes slowly like a great alcove,

And the impatient man transforms into a fauve.

 

O night, amiable night, desired by those

Whose arms, without any lying, can say: Today

We have worked ! – it is the night which lifts

The spirits which devour the savage pain,

The obstinate savant with the loaded brain,

And the bent worker who regains his bed.

 

Meanwhile the morbid demons in the atmosphere

Awake heavily like business people

Knocking while throwing open the shutters to the awnings

Across the glimmers which torment the wind

And Prostitution lights up the streets;

Like an anthill which spills over;

Everywhere it makes a path to its occult origins,

Just like an enemy which offers you an extended hand;

Stirring at the heart of the city the mire,

Like a parasitic host stripping man before consuming him.

 

We hear this and the kitchens whistling,

The theatres yelping, the orchestras snoring;

The set meals, whose primary hook is to serve delicacies,

Are layered with whores and pimpery, their accomplices,

And thieves, who have neither pity nor lull,

Will also soon go to work, they also,

Are forced to open their doors and cash registers

So that they might live a few days more with their Mistresses.

 

 

Step back, my soul, in this grave moment,

And shut your ears to all this noise.

It is the hour of sorrows and escalating afflictions!

Sombre Night is taking them by the throats; they shall end

Their days in a common grave;

Hospitals will fill up with their cries. And what is more, more than one

Will not come to look for the perfumed soup,

In the hearth of the night, beside the soul of a loved one.

 

Again, the majority of them will never know

The warmth of a home, and so, nor will they have ever truly lived.

---

[i]

Joseph de Maistre ( 1753-1821) is one of the most important thinkers in Baudelaire’s universe, like Edmund Burke a founding father of Conservatism. In post revolutionary France, he was a reactionary force advocating a return to the monarchy and to the stratification of society giving back to the church its proper place. In contemporary France, I would signal out Emmanuel Todd, the author of La Défaite de l’Occident ( 2024), and who makes the connection between the fall of western civilisation with the loss of religious belief. Baudelaire said that de Maistre helped him to think, and I think nowhere is this fatalism more evident than in this poem. We are led to believe, in the majority of readings of Baudelaire, that he is the poet calling on debauchery and hedonistic excess, which is why he was championed in the sixties, but I think the more that one reads him throughout ones life, as is more than likely the case with all great writers, this is rather a one-sided view of a very multi-natured and complex poet, who, in this poem at least, is horrified by what he sees looking around him at the modern city sprawling out before him with all of its corrupting forces. In many ways, this poem, particularly, reminds me of the painters of northern Europe during the reformation with their very stern images of the apocalypse. T.S. Eliot too is all over this, with Laforgue clambering up beside him!