You understand me: I am mediocre,
Not good, not very bad, calm, a little sly.
I hate strong perfumes and the voice raised high,
And gray is more to me than red or ochre.
I love the dying day extinguished gradually,
The fire, the cloistered closeness of a chamber
Where lampshades, veiling their transparent amber,
Blush red the bronze and blue the pottery.
My eyes upon the rug more worn than sand,
I lazily evoke the gold-grained shore,
The glimmers of the drifting tides of yore …
And nonetheless, I bear a guilty brand.
You see: I’m at the age the virgin yields her hand
To the man her weakness seeks and fears,
And I have no companion for my years,
Since you appeared just at the pathway’s bend.
The hyacinth was bleeding on the scarlet glen,
You dreamt, while Love went walking by your side …
Women have no right to beauty. I’d
Been banished to the ugliness of men.
And I had the terrible audacity to yearn
For sister-love, of bright, white, pure light,
The gentle voice uniting with the night,
The furtive step that doesn’t break the fern.
Your eyes, your hair had been forbidden me,
Because your hair is long and full of fragrant scents,
Because your eyes have fires so intense
They cloud themselves, like the rebellious sea.
They pointed fingers in their rage at me,
Because my eyes looked for your gentle eyes …
No one, to see us pass, would recognize
That I had chosen you in all simplicity.
Think on the vile law that I transgress,
And judge my love, which knows no evil will,
As honest, as essential, and as fatal still
As any man’s desire for his mistress.
They did not read the brightness in my gaze
Upon the path whereto my fortune led …
“Who is that damned woman” (so they said)
“Toward whom the flames of Hell so deafly blaze?”
Let’s leave them to their impure moralities,
For dawn is gold as honey and as bright,
And embittered days, and better nights
Will come, the friends who put our minds at ease …
Let’s watch the brightness of the stars above …
What matters it, to us, man’s judgement from afar?
And what have we to fear, knowing that we are
Pure in this life and knowing that we love … ?
Renée Vivien, À l’Heure des Mains jointes, 1906, translated by Samantha Pious
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