Long ago, if my memory serves, life was a feast where every heart was open, where every wine flowed. One night, I sat Beauty on my knee. –And I found her bitter. –And I hurt her. I took arms against justice. I fled, entrusting my treasure to you, o witches, o misery, o hate. I snuffed any hint of human hope from my consciousness. I made the muffled leap of a wild beast onto any hint of joy, to strangle it. Dying, I called my executioners over so I could bite the butts of their rifles. I called plagues to suffocate me with sand, blood. Misfortune was my god. I lay in the mud. I withered in criminal air. And I even tricked madness more than once. And spring left me with an idiot’s unbearable laughter. Just now, having nearly reached death’s door, I thought about seeking the key to the old feast, through which, perhaps, I might regain my appetite.
Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell (trans. Wyatt Mason)
