The successive thump of logs on the paving of the courtyards. They were unloaded from carts, house by house, as the cold weather loomed. The wood fell on the ground and announced winter. Baudelaire stayed awake. There was no need of anything else but that sound - dull, repetitive. The sun already knows that soon it will be imprisoned "in its polar inferno." It is as if auscultating labored breathing: "Trembling. I listen to every log that falls."
Anatole France, with the amiable skepticism that sometimes prevented him from understanding, recounted that one day a sailor showed Baudelaire an African fetish, "a monstrous little head carved out of a piece of wood by a poor negro." It's really ugly, said the sailor. And he threw it away in scorn. "Watch out!" said Baudelaire anxiously. "It might be the one true god!" It was his firmest declaration of faith.
The two last fragments from LA FOLIE BAUDELAIRE
by Roberto Calasso
(Image: Félix Nadar - Charles Baudelaire au Fauteuil, 1855 - Paris, Musée d'Orsay)
