Épigraphe pour un livre condamné

Residual respect for the risen Savior, Sunday morning. I was not impressed. All these months spent with the chilling imagery of the unfeeling Catholic church had left me with expectations, expectations that the local WASP-y Mass did not meet. But I bear them no ill will. Easter was cold and bright and sad. But seasons change and so do we. Late night visits and grocery store I-love-yous keep me alive and optimistic. Leaving him will be hard but doable. I prepare myself for it every day and then I forget. Moving on and on and on.

Baudelaire opens Fleurs du Mal with a lost poem about a condemned book. I cannot yet gauge the tone of this section, but it seems to be more in the spirit of Spleen than anything else I have seen thus far.

Epigraph for a Condemned Book
Peaceful and pastoral reader,
Sober and naïve good man,
Throw away this saturnine book,
Orgiastic and melancholy.

If you have not done your rhetoric
With Satan, the crafty dean,
Throw it away! You will understand nothing,
Or you will think me hysterical.

But if, without letting itself be charmed,
Your eye knows to plunge into the abyss,
Read me, learn to love me;

Curious soul who suffers
And looks for your paradise,
Pity me! …Or else I curse you!

Épigraphe pour un livre condamné
Lecteur paisible et bucolique,
Sobre et naïf homme de bien,
Jette ce livre saturnien,
Orgiaque et mélancolique.

Si tu n'as fait ta rhétorique
Chez Satan, le rusé doyen,
Jette! tu n'y comprendrais rien,
Ou tu me croirais hysthérique.

Mais si, sans se laisser charmer,
Ton oeil sait plonger dans les gouffres,
Lis-moi, pour apprendre à m'aimer;

Âme curieuse qui souffres
Et vas cherchant ton paradis,
Plains-moi!... Sinon, je te maudis!

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Tuesday morning rains and grows cold like my body. Weird aversions and plastic buttons, I don't understand. I am the only one. I want to finish this project. But where is all my time?