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tuesday.
DAMNED WOMEN: DELPHINE & HIPPOLYTA by Charles Baudelaire
In the pallid light of languishing lamps,
In deep cushions redolent of perfume,
Hippolyta dreamed of the potent caresses
That drew aside the veil of her young innocence.
She was seeking, with an eye disturbed by the storm,
The already distant skies of her naiveté,
Like a voyager who turns to look back
Toward the blue horizons passed early in the day.
The listless tears from her lacklustrous eyes,
The beaten, bewildered look, the dulled delight,
Her defeated arms thrown wide like futile weapons,
All served, all adorned her fragile beauty.
Lying at her feet, calm and filled with joy,
Delphine gazed at her hungrily, with burning eyes,
Like a strong animal watching a prey
Which it has already marked with its teeth.
The strong beauty kneeling before the frail beauty,
Superb, she savored voluptuously
The wine of her triumph and stretched out toward the girl
As if to reap her reward of sweet thankfulness.
She was seeking in the eyes of her pale victim
The silent canticle that pleasure sings
And that gratitude, sublime and infinite,
Which the eyes give forth like a long drawn sigh.
"Hippolyta, sweet, what do you think of our love?
Do you understand now that you need not offer
The sacred burnt-offering of your first roses
To a violent breath which could make them wither?
My kisses are as light as the touch of May flies
That caress in the evening the great limpid lakes,
But those of your lover will dig furrows
As a wagon does, or a tearing ploughshare;
They will pass over you like heavy teams
Of horses or oxen, with cruel iron-shod hooves...
Hippolyta, sister! please turn your face to me,
You, my heart and soul, my all, half of my own self,
Turn toward me your eyes brimming with azure and stars!
For one of those bewitching looks, O divine balm,
I will lift the veil of the more subtle pleasures
And lull you to sleep in an endless dream!"
Hippolyta then raised her youthful head:
"I am not ungrateful and I do not repent,
Delphine darling; I feel restless and ill,
As I do after a rich midnight feast.
I feel heavy terrors pouncing on me
And black battalions of scattered phantoms
Who wish to lead me onto shifting roads
That a bloody horizon shuts in on all sides.
Is there something strange in what we have done?
Explain if you can my confusion and my fright:
I shudder with fear when you say: 'My angel!'
And yet I feel my mouth moving toward you.
Do not look at me that way, you, my dearest thought:
The sister of my choice whom I'd love forever
Even if you were an ambush prepared for me
And the beginning of my perdition."
Delphine, shaking her tragic mane and stamping her foot
As if she were stamping on the iron Tripod,
Her eyes fatal, replied in a despotic voice:
"Who dares to speak of hell in the presence of love?
May he be cursed forever, that idle dreamer,
The first one who in his stupidity
Entranced by a sterile, insoluble problem,
Wished to mix honesty with what belongs to love!
He who would unite in a mystic harmony
Coolness with warmth and the night with the day
Will never warm his palsied flesh
With that red sun whose name is love!
Go if you wish and find a stupid sweetheart, run
To offer your virgin heart to his cruel kisses;
Full of remorse and horror, and livid,
You will bring back to me your stigmatized breasts...
Woman here below can serve only one master!"
But the girl pouring out the vast grief in her heart,
Suddenly cried: "I feel opening within me
A yawning abyss; that abyss is my heart!
Burning like a volcano and deep as the void!
Nothing will satiate that wailing monster
Nor cool the thirst of the Eumenides
Who with torch in hand burn his very blood.
Let our drawn curtains separate us from the world
And let lassitude bring to us repose!
I want to bury my head in your deep bosom
And find in your breast the cool of the tomb!"
— Go down, go down, lamentable victims,
Go down the pathway to eternal hell!
Plunge to the bottom of the abyss where all crime
Whipped by a wind that comes not from heaven,
Boil pell-mell with the sound of a tempest.
Mad shades, run to the goal of your desires;
You will never be able to sate your passion
And your punishment will be born of your pleasures.
Never will a cool ray light your caverns;
Through the chinks in the walls feverish miasmas
Filter through, burst into flame like lanterns
And permeate your bodies with frightful odors.
The bleak sterility of your pleasures
Increases your thirst and makes your skin taut
And the raging wind of carnal desire
Makes your flesh snap like an old flag.
Damned, wandering, far from living people,
Roam like the wolves across the desert waste;
Fulfill your destinies, dissolute souls,
And flee the infinite you carry in your hearts!
__________
In the same series as the photo I shared yesterday, this is one of two pictures of Susanne Grinder's Marguerite that I have hanging on the wall of our office, above our guest bed. I did the frames myself, to match the hues of the picture - they don't really suit the style we have in our apartment now, but they still give the posters that luxurious glow I really find fitting for her. The other one is also beautiful, but a little bit more awkward in its posing, so this remains my favourite. She looks so free and carefree still, unaware of what will strike her of sorrow and tragedy.
__________
LADY OF THE CAMELLIAS FILM - MARCIA HAYDEE & IVAN LISKA
Not the Paris Opera Ballet version, which I can't find on YouTube in full length any longer, but this is a film production of the original ballet cast for Neumeier's Lady of the Camellias with a ballerina called Marcia Haydee as Marguerite who was either close to 50 or 50 when she danced this role!! So amazing. Very beautiful production and totally worth a watch, if you're interested. Amazing cast and the dancing is superb. All the music is by Chopin which, in my humble opinion, should sell anyone on this ballet, tbh. It's more than two hours long, so it's an evening project, but well worth the time!
__________
Went downtown in the morning to pick up a book. After having read The Lady of the Camellias, a portrait of a female character written by man of his time, I really needed to juxtapose it with a contemporary protrait of a female character that didn't fall into the same sexist traps, so I bought Jane Eyre by Brontë. I've never read anything by any of the Brontë sisters, shame on me, so this will be my first introduction.
I also bought a beautiful notebook from Paperblanks to write more Julie stories in. I'll take a picture once I've broken it in.
After yesterday that was terribly intense, I'm trying to do absolutely nothing of worth today, to build up some energy for work on Thursday. I've eaten a bit, getting lots of fluids, taken my pills, all the basics and besides that? Well, every little step outside that circle is a victory, so I take many small ones instead of fewer big ones, more victories for me.
It's my birthday on Sunday.
Don't wanna. Don't wanna get older. Don't wanna celebrate. The past year has been suckiful.
__________
I've started my Julie Duprat fanfiction. I haven't written fanfiction seriously since I left the Harry Potter and Sailor Moon fandoms back in 2010. Which means, since I got sick. I wrote a little for Call Me By Your Name, but nothing substantial... This one is already three pages long and I'm guessing only a third if not less of its final length. More than I have written cohesively in English for years and years. That's another victory.
I'm really enjoying the process, weaving in references to canon, taking what (little) canon gives and using it in a way that makes sense to me. Putting spotlight on different characters and perspectives. So interesting.
Getting a little play with her, too, on the RP scene, although, naturally, historical characters are harder to bounce off modern characters than other modern characters are, especially when you, like me, don't want to sacrifice their historicalness. I can play her from anywhere between late 1700s to early 1900s (prior to WWI), but I want to keep the sense of past and present intact.
I've been doing a "live writing session" while working on this fic. It's basically me doing a diary entry every time I take a break from writing, talking about what thoughts I have at this specific point in the process. Once I'm done for the day later, I'll put it up in a separate entry here.