Self Portrait by Charles Baudelaire

Charles Baudelaire's
Fleurs du mal / Flowers of Evil


À M. Eugène Fromentin à propos d'un importun qui se disait son ami

Il me dit qu'il était très riche,
Mais qu'il craignait le choléra;
— Que de son or il était chiche,
Mais qu'il goûtait fort l'Opéra;

— Qu'il raffolait de la nature,
Ayant connu monsieur Corot;
— Qu'il n'avait pas encor voiture,
Mais que cela viendrait bientôt;

— Qu'il aimait le marbre et la brique,
Les bois noirs et les bois dorés;
— Qu'il possédait dans sa fabrique
Trois contremaîtres décorés;

— Qu'il avait, sans compter le reste,
Vingt mille actions sur le Nord;
Qu'il avait trouvé, pour un zeste,
Des encadrements d'Oppenord;

Qu'il donnerait (fût-ce à Luzarches!)
Dans le bric-à-brac jusqu'au cou,
Et qu'au Marché des Patriarches
Il avait fait plus d'un bon coup;

Qu'il n'aimait pas beaucoup sa femme,
Ni sa mère; — mais qu'il croyait
A l'immortalité de l'âme,
Et qu'il avait lu Niboyet!

— Qu'il penchait pour l'amour physique,
Et qu'à Rome, séjour d'ennui,
Une femme, d'ailleurs phtisique,
Etait morte d'amour pour lui.

Pendant trois heures et demie,
Ce bavard, venu de Tournai,
M'a dégoisé toute sa vie;
J'en ai le cerveau consterné.

S'il fallait décrire ma peine,
Ce serait à n'en plus finir;
Je me disais, domptant ma haine:
«Au moins, si je pouvais dormir!»

Comme un qui n'est pas à son aise,
Et qui n'ose pas s'en aller,
Je frottais de mon cul ma chaise,
Rêvant de le faire empaler.

Ce monstre se nomme Bastogne;
Il fuyait devant le fléau.
Moi, je fuirai jusqu'en Gascogne,
Ou j'irai me jeter à l'eau,

Si dans ce Paris, qu'il redoute,
Quand chacun sera retourné,
Je trouve encore sur ma route
Ce fléau, natif de Tournai.

Charles Baudelaire


About a Bore Who Claimed His Acquaintance

To M. Eugene Fromentin

He told me just how rich he was,
But nervous of the cholera;
— That he took good care where the money goes,
But he liked a seat at the Opera.

— That he was simply wild about nature,
Monsieur Corot being quite an old chum;
— That a carriage was still a missing feature
Among his goods — but it would come;

— That marble and brick divided his fancy,
Along with ebony and gilded wood;
— That there were in his factory
Three foremen who had been decorated;

— That, not to mention all the rest,
He had twenty thousand shares in the Nord;
— That he'd found some picture-frames for next
To nothing, and all by Oppenord.

— That he'd go as far even as Luzarches
To steep himself in bric-a-brac;
— That the Marché des Patriarches
Had more than once proved his collector's knack;

That he didn't care much for his wife
Nor for his mother, but — theirs apart —
He believed in the soul's immortal life,
Niboyet's works he had by heart!

— That he quite approved of physical passion,
And once, on a tedious stay in Rome,
A consumptive lady, much in fashion,
Had died away for love of him.

— For three solid hours and a half,
This chatterer, born in Tournai,
Dished up to me the whole of his life,
Until my brain almost fainted away.

If I had to tell you all I suffered
I would never be able to give up.
I sat in helpless hate, and muttered
"If only I could lie down and sleep!"

Like someone whose seat can give no rest
But who cannot get up and make his escape,
I squirmed and brooded on all the best
Methods of torturing the ape.

Bastogne this monstrosity's called;
He was running away from the infection.
I would drown myself, or take the road
To Gascony, or in any direction

If, when everybody gets back
To the Paris he's so much afraid of,
I should happen to cross the track
Of this pest that Tournai bore — and got rid of!

— David Paul, Flowrs of Evil (NY: New Directions, 1955)

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Two editions of Fleurs du mal were published in Baudelaire's lifetime — one in 1857 and an expanded edition in 1861. "Scraps" and censored poems were collected in Les Épaves in 1866. After Baudelaire died the following year, a "definitive" edition appeared in 1868.