He even was an orator at a Scotch lodge. Nevertheless--because his lawful child believes in God--his little daughter, in white veils and blue ribbon, received the sacrament. This required that several liters at sixteen sous be drunk at the _bistro,_ among the filthy benches, where the billiard man was sleeping, the waiters sprawling, and where his little maid in floss-silk gloves was blushing. Now, Benoist who colors at the sight of a churchman, shows some pleasure at having seen, that morning, the marriage of the only son and his young girl. (Tr. 39) The proud indolence of nights, perfumes and breasts. (Tr. 40) On Heaven's balconies in antiquated robes. (Tr. 41) NOCTURNAL PARIS It is the sea;--calm sheet. And the great tide with distant rumbling has receded.... The wave returns, wallowing in its noise. Hearest thou the clawing of the night crabs. It is the drained Styx: Diogenes, lantern in hand, unceremoniously arrives. Perverse poets angle along the black stream: their hollow skulls serve as boxes for worms. It is the field: to glean impure lint falls the whirling flight of hideous harpies; the gutter rabbit, on the watch for rodents, flees the sons of Bondy, nocturnal vintagers. It is death: the policeman lies dead. On high, love takes a siesta, sucking the meat with heavy hand where the extinguished kisses leave a red patch. Alone is the hour. Listen. Not a dream stirs. It is life: listen, the lively spring sings the eternal song on the head of a sea-god drawing green naked limbs on the bed of the Morgue ... and the great open eyes. DIURNAL PARIS See gleaming in the skies the great disk of red copper, immense casserole where the good God cooks manna, the harlequin, eternal _plat du jour_. It is dipped in sweat and dipped in love. The laridons wait in a circle near the oven; vaguely one hears the rustling of rancid flesh, and the tipplers, too, are there, holding out their jugs; the wretches shiver, waiting their turn. Thinkest thou the sun then fries for everybody these fat stirring scraps of burnt meat which a flood of gold inundates? No, the dog-soup falls on us from the sky. They are beneath the ray and we beneath the gutter. To us the black jug that grows cold without light. Our substance for ourselves is our bag of gall. (Tr. 42) With the assent of the tall sunflowers. (Tr. 43) And since, then, I have bathed me in the poem of the sea, steeped in stars and latescent, mastering the green azure where, flotation pale and ravished, a pensive drowned person sometimes descends; where, suddenly staining the nuances of blue, frenzied and slow rhythms beneath the glinting red of day, stronger than alcohol, vaster than your lyres, the bitter redness of love ferments. (Tr. 44) Who knows if genius is not one of your virtues. (Tr. 45) The sky rains without ending, though nothing agitates it; it rains, it rains, shepherdess! on the stream.... The stream has its dominical repose; not a barge up stream, downstream.